Article #181
Subject: Pascal on Hope and Ethics
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 7/30/2012 11:32:33 AM

Pascal on Hope and Ethics

One way Hope is with the odds, expected, certain, is when it is
mathematicial. The first theologian to figure out the details of this, to
give definition to what had yet to be defined, was the French theologian,
mathematician, scientist, Blaise Pascal
In the blog this month we will discuss and consider how to think about him
as a theologian and a mathematician. As a mathematician we will discuss how
Pascal proved his key theorem that justifies the use of his arithmetrical
triangle to calculate probabilistic “expectations” [hopes] for the gamblers
problem in the “game of points”. The solution to this problem was an
important event in 17th century mathematics and allowed Pascal to create a
new mathematical discipline called probability theory. The mathematican
Blaise Pascal spent a good part of his life thinking about the
scientific/theologian question of how to define probability. Pascal got
started as a theologian by defending the 17th century Dutch bishop Cornelius
Jansen [Letters I and II].

Bishop Jansen was trying to learn how to understand St. Augustine’s
doctrines as compared against those of the Jesuits. Is God’s grace which He
gives to all men, always sufficient unto itself [ie inside of all of us]? The
Jesuit’s did not like Jansen’s theology because it followed John Calvin’s to
some extent. One of Calvin’s five theological points was that the grace of
God, once received, was sufficient and his did not require the help of
someone else, eg. a priest to enable it and make it effective. St. Augustine
believed that this was impossible due to our original sin, the Jesuit’s
said, “maybe not” but we are against any attack on the authority of the
Church structure. The “maybe not” referred to here has to do with the
theology of morals and the question of whether if as Aristotle said, “those
who don’t know whether they are doing anything wrong actually are sinning”?
[Letters III,IV,V]
If we say we “probably don’t know” what do we mean? Apparently, this started
Pascal thinking about the question what do we mean when we use the
word “probably”? How iss hope defined differently than we Define faith? Faith
has to do with a reality in space and time that we find ourselves and so Does
hope. But, what is the difference between them? In general hope is usually
more connected With natural causation and faith with subjective points of
view. Depending on whether we say That mathematics is about reality (like
Plato) or not (like some more modern philosophers) mathematics is Connected
to how we understand reality in space and time (in terms of natural causes)
and how we understsand logical truth which can exist as a hope or faith
outside of space and time. When talking about the theological arguments of
some of the Jesuits when they tried to discredit the Protestant theologians
of the time, Pascal says: “[It is] a very singular thing to save one man’s
suffering, by imposing it on another”, he says [Letter VIII].

He sets forth three rules for ethics, 1)”the spirit of piety always prompts
us to speak with sincerity and truthfulness; whereas malice and envy make use
of falsehood and calumnity”, 2) “none may do the least evil in order to
accomplish the greatest good” for “the truth of God stands in need of no
lie”, 3) but it is not enough just to tell nothing but the truth, but “we
must not speak that which can hurt, without doing any good”. He quotes Saint
Augustine, “the wicked in persecuting the good, blindly follow the dictates
of their passions, but the good are guided by a wise discretion.” And, he
quotes Jesus’s words, “woe to the blind leaders, woe to the blind followers”
against these arguments [Letter XI]. Even though He already knows the answer
[who we are and where we are coming] God cannot help us until we tell Him the
truth about it.




It is all related, also, to the more fundamental and ever-present theological
question of whether Jesus Christ is already alive in us right now, as
individuals living on our own apart from the Church, or yet to come? Does
Jesus come inside of us all before the millennium or after it? And if not
both ways, why not both ways? And on and on. The answer to this question
determines how we plan and pray for heaven to exist inside of us and who if
not ourselves as individuals, who is in control of God outside of us as
individuals and also inside of us as unique persons, 1) It determines those
who we anoint to run the Church, 2) those who we anoint to understand the
Bible, or the Torah, or the Quran, or 3) and since the Church is a powerful
controlling force in secular society it often determines also how to have
money or power in the World we live in? Unfortunately the answer to this
problem often gets lost while investigating its subtleties. Maybe to spite
those people who didin’t take kindly to him declaring this question to often
for discussion Pascal turned his thinking toward how we can understand each
other in different ways, how we can understand the theory of gambling odds
mathematically, how we can measure temperature with an instrument, and how we
can understand what the vacumn is scientifically. While doing this he became
one of the more important scientists and mathematicians of that important
century in the history of human enlightenment.