Blaise’s Best Bet, Part 1: an Introduction to Blaise Pascal

How many seventeenth-century Christians have modern-day computer languages named after them? Only one—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662).¹

Inventor of the first digital calculator, Pascal is described by many historians as one of the founding fathers of modern science. He is widely known as one of science’s most creative and intuitive thinkers, an intellectual pioneer who helped achieve major breakthroughs in theoretical mathematics and physics, as well as in practical invention.

What makes Blaise Pascal even more outstanding, for our purposes, is the vast amount of work he did as a Christian philosopher, prose writer, and above all as an imaginative and controversial defender of the Christian faith.

Pascal’s scientific achievements mark him as one of the most advanced thinkers of his time.² As a Christian thinker and writer, Pascal provided a penetrating and provocative analysis of Christianity’s broader world-and life-view.³ And he did this all within a brief earthly lifespan of 39 years.

Even in the twenty-first century, we have much to gain from surveying Pascal’s extraordinary life, scientific accomplishments, and his major philosophical, theological, and apologetics ideas. This six-part series (originally published as an article in RTB’s former magazine Facts for Faith) aims to provide just such a survey, starting with a brief history of Pascal’s formative years.

Homeschooled prodigy

Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont in Auvergne, France, on June 19, 1623. Blaise’s mother, Antoinette Begon, died when he was three years old, leaving him and his two sisters in the sole care of their father, Étienne.

At that time, Étienne was a gifted mathematician who served as a royal treasurer and tax official for the French government. But Étienne, a loving and wise man, soon resigned his position in order to stay home and educate his children. Thus, one of the great thinkers of Western civilization was educated exclusively at home by his father.⁴

Hoping to expose his offspring to as much cultural and intellectual stimulation as possible, Étienne moved his family to Paris. There, he created an intellectual incubator for his children by putting them into social situations with many of France’s leading intellectuals. Blaise, in particular, was taken to a weekly discussion group that featured many of the foremost scientists and mathematicians of the time.

While Blaise studied Latin and Greek as a child, he quickly invested his mental powers in mathematics. At age 16, he published an essay on the projective geometry of the cone. Young though he was, his intellectual genius was soon widely recognized—even the great French rationalist philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) acknowledged Blaise’s precocious accomplishments.⁵

This youthful achievement was just the beginning of Blaise Pascal’s extraordinary career. Next week I will delve into his mathematical and scientific accomplishments.

Endnotes:

1. Good introductory articles on Pascal’s life and thoughts can be found in New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. “Pascal”; and Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, s.v. “Blaise Pascal.”

2. An excellent analysis of Pascal’s mathematical and scientific achievements can be found in two of Richard H. Popkins’ articles in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, reprint ed. (1972), s.v. “Blaise Pascal”; and Great Thinkers of the Western World, ed. Ian P. McGreal (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992), s.v. “Blaise Pascal.”

3. Two excellent works by contemporary Christian philosophers that have taken Pascalian themes and developed them into book-length apologetics treatments are Thomas V. Morris, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992); and Peter Kreeft, Christianity For Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined and Explained (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993).

4. Morris, Making Sense of It All, 3–14.

5. New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 452.

Quote of the Week: Robert M. Bowman Jr.

To say that the Trinity cannot be understood likewise is imprecise, or at least open to misinterpretation. Trinitarian theologians do not mean to imply that the Trinity is unintelligible nonsense. Rather, the point they are making is that the Trinity cannot be fully fathomed, or comprehended, by the finite mind of man.

– Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Why You Should Believe in the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 16.

 

My Daughter’s Brain-Mind

When my oldest child, Sarah (now 24 years old), was a toddler she loved to push the buttons on the keyboard of my very first computer. While I was working on the computer, she would come up to me and ask: “Daddy, push one button?” I would acquiesce to her wishes and then watch as her little fingers pecked away at the keys.

I had no idea then that my daughter was actually engaging in early vocational training. Today she works as a professional court reporter-closed captioner.

Sarah’s occupational tasks boggle my mind. She must listen to the spoken word and then translate it instantaneously into readable text on a screen via her shorthand steno machine—which looks more like a piano than a computer keyboard! (But, then again, I must remember that I nicknamed her “Sarah-Bellum” during her elementary school days.)

But it’s more than just Sarah’s proud father who is amazed by what goes on in the brain-mind of a court reporter-closed captioner. On the Neeson & Associates blog, court reporter Kimberley Neeson refers to a neuropsychologist’s testimony in a U.S. federal court.

Using stenography as an example, the neuropsychologist explains the complexity of the human brain, “Our brains are a miracle….And if you look at the court reporter right now, as an example, okay, this is a miracle in progress happening right before your eyes.”

According to the neuropsychologist, the information to be recorded must come through the stenographer’s ear into the temporal lobe, log itself into the language center, and get rerouted to the prefrontal cortex where it has to “hold” (because new information continues to come in). From there, the stenographer has to analyze, integrate, and synthesize the information then convert it into a different language (shorthand).

Considering all that a stenographer must do, it’s no wonder the neuropsychologist insists, that “no technology could replace the beauty of that brain and the miracle of that brain.”¹

Abductive Reasoning: Inference to the Best Explanation of the Human Brain-Mind

So what is the best explanation for the origin of the “miracle” human brain-mind as illustrated in the amazing work of the court reporter?

If we adopt the worldview of atheistic naturalism, then we must conclude that the conscious mind of human beings (with capacities such as those happening in the stenographer’s brain-mind) ultimately came from a source that is, in and of itself, mindless and nonconscious. So, given naturalism, the natural cause of a human’s mind, personhood, reason, and conscious awareness itself lacked all of these profound qualities. In other words, we, the personally conscious, can reflect back upon the nonpersonal, nonconscious universe, but it cannot reflect upon us. We can know the cosmos in a way that it cannot know us—making the effect exponentially greater than its cause.

One can see why the attempt to explain personal self-awareness from a naturalistic perspective has been called “the intractable problem of consciousness.” Naturalistic philosophers of the mind admit candidly they have no idea how personal consciousness emerged from nonconscious matter.² It is safe to say that consciousness is not an easy fit in the world of naturalism.

Does the Christian theistic worldview better account for consciousness? Philosopher Gregory Ganssle explains:

If God exists, then the primary thing that exists is itself a conscious mind of unlimited power and intellect. This mind has its own first-person perspective, and it can think about things. The notion that such a mind, if it creates anything, would create other conscious minds that have their own first-person perspectives and can think about things is not a great mystery.³

While naturalism faces “the hard problem of consciousness,”⁴ theism anticipates self-conscious awareness as a common feature. (This reasoning constitutes something more substantial than a god-of-the-gaps conclusion. Rather, it is an inference drawn from the worldview that fits better with the available and sufficient data, and, thus, the greater explanatory power.)

A Proud and Thankful Father

My daughter’s amazing skill as a stenographer makes me both proud and thankful. I’m proud of my daughter’s diligence and effort in accomplishing her career goal and also thankful to our Creator for gifting her mind in the first place.

Endnotes:
1. Neeson and Associates: Court Reporting and Captioning, Inc., “How Do They Do That?,” blog entry by Kimberley Neeson, November 18, 2011,  http://blog.neesoncourtreporting.com/2011/11/that/.

2. See Paul Copan, Loving Wisdom: Christian Philosophy of Religion (St. Louis: Chalice, 2007) 105.

3. Gregory E. Ganssle, “Dawkins’s Best Argument against God’s Existence” in Contending with Christianity’s Critics, eds. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig (Nashville: B&H Publishing), 81.

4. Ibid., 82.

Quote of the Week: Anthony A. Hoekema, 3

The Scriptures teach that God saves us not as puppets but as persons, and that we must therefore be active in our salvation. The Bible, in a way which is deeply mysterious, combines God’s sovereignty with our responsibility in the process of our salvation. But we can only love him because he first loved us. To him therefore must be all the praise.

– Anthony Hoekema, Saved By Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), xi.

An Inconvenient Duty

Christmas is by far my favorite time of year. I never tire of hearing the incredible message that the Son of God took a human nature and became the God-man at his Incarnation (Philippians 2:5–11). But this past December, just as I was finishing up last-minute editing on my new book and planning much needed vacation and holiday time with my family, I was unexpectedly called to jury duty.

For most of my work life I have viewed jury duty as merely an inconvenience (i. e., unproductive time away from work and family). And, sure enough, reporting for jury duty this time meant that I would miss Reasons To Believe’s annual Christmas party. (This was especially difficult since at RTB, unlike Fuz Rana, my outgoing, bubbly personality makes me the life of the party!)

Reporting for Duty

On the first morning of jury duty I sat in a large room with several hundred other people and waited to see if I would be assigned to a jury. Dozens of people randomly selected via computer were excused—and all seemed delighted to get out of serving. My name was not called and so I remained eligible for jury selection.

When combating boredom, I tend to focus my attention on philosophical reflection. And sitting in the courthouse in a hurry-up-and-wait mode gave me ample opportunity to reflect. Hearing the so-called randomly selected names (a group that I coveted to be part of) made me wonder what life would be like if everything were truly random. “Random” can be defined as “having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.” In contrast, I’ve always taken great comfort in the Christian faith, which teaches that there is a hand of providence that guides my entire life (Psalm 139:16)—even jury duty.

Serving on a Jury

That afternoon I was indeed selected to serve and I found the experience fascinating from both an intellectual and moral standpoint. I appreciated the solemn role of weighing evidence and arguments and contemplating questions of judicial guilt and innocence. Jury duty is a critical right and privilege of the American judicial system. I came to see that my diligent involvement on the jury played an important role in seeing that justice was done in the lives of some fellow citizens. My fellow jurors also gave me the honor of serving as the foreperson during deliberations.

Afterwards, I felt embarrassed by my initial desire to get out of jury service. Yes, the process is often inconvenient, sometimes tedious, and even financially challenging for people who are not compensated for their time away from work. But our country has given us so much to cherish that it’s only natural to give back. My own experience made me realize that I have a moral duty to discharge my civic responsibility.

My Father’s Example

Acknowledging that I had viewed my civic responsibility in a rather cavalier way was especially regretful for me when I considered my father’s example. I’m sure he at times viewed his service in World War II as being quite inconvenient. His life and the lives of his family had been interrupted by the great and terrible events of the war. He was overseas and away from his wife and children for many months and was wounded in battle. Yet my dad never spoke of his service in World War II as being an inconvenience. As an American patriot, he saw his time as a soldier as part of his duty as a citizen. As in other areas of life, I can only aspire to be like him as a grateful and responsible citizen.

When it comes to contemplating a Christian’s duty before God and country, I recommend theologian David VanDrunen’s book Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture.

Quote of the Week: Kenneth Samples, 3

Courage is forged only through facing one’s fears. Steel must be refined by fire. For faith to grow, it often has to be tested by trial.

–Kenneth Samples, church lecture entitled “Facing Life’s Challenges and God’s Reasons for Suffering”

Are You a Renaissance Christian? 12 Tips for Pursuing Knowledge and Wisdom in Daily Life

I first heard the expression “renaissance Christian” from apologist and attorney John Warwick Montgomery in the early 1980s. Montgomery gave a lecture at the former Simon Greenleaf School of Law on the importance of developing the Christian mind. The lecture left a deep impression on me.

Building on Montgomery’s idea, I often talk about the importance of believers pursuing the life of the mind to the glory of God. The Renaissance era (beginning in the fourteenth century) was a revival or rebirth of classical learning and culture that took place in certain European cities. The “renaissance Christian” then can be defined as a believer in Christ who pursues knowledge and wisdom as a daily priority in life.

Historic Christianity concurs that God reveals truth in two books: the figurative book of nature (God’s world or general revelation) and the literal book of Scripture (God’s Word or special revelation). Therefore, when Christ’s followers pursue truth of any kind they will see the signature of the Creator-Redeemer who reveals the ultimate Truth.

January is a great time to set new goals and resolutions. So, I offer the following 12 tips for beginning (or deepening) your pursuit of the life of the mind to the glory of God.

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1. First of all, take inventory of how much of your weekly time is spent on entertainment and recreation as compared to the pursuit of knowledge.

For most people, including Christians, the pursuit of knowledge is low on the priority list. Now’s the time to do something about that. Remember that we are commanded to love God with our mind, as well as our heart and strength (Mark 12:30).

2. Make the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom a daily priority.

According to the Christian worldview, all truth is God’s truth!

3. Set short-term and long-term reading goals.

Of course, reading is the best place to start when pursuing knowledge and wisdom, but it can be difficult to know where or how to begin. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren’s contemporary classic How to Read a Book is a great guide for developing achievable reading goals. Below are goals I’d recommend based on Adler and Van Doren’s book.

• Devote a set amount of time each day to reading.
• Skim (preread) books to decide which are worth a full investment of your time.
• Set a goal to analytically read (reflective reading) a certain number of books a year.
• Try syntopical reading (reading multiple books on a single topic) to develop a well-rounded view.

4. Consider reading classics of Western civilization.

Peruse Encyclopaedia Britannica’s series Great Books of the Western World or see Adler’s “A Recommended Reading List” in Appendix A of How to Read a Book for lists of these works, both secular and Christian.

5. Consider reading Christian theological and philosophical classics.

• Athanasius: On the Incarnation
• Augustine: Confessions; On the Trinity; On Christian Doctrine; The City of God
• Anselm: Prosologian; Cur Deus Homo
• Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica; Summa Contra Gentiles
• Martin Luther: The Bondage of the Will; TableTalk
• John Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion
• Blaise Pascal: Pensées; The Provincial Letters
• Jonathan Edwards: A Treatise on Religious Affections
• Søren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling; The Sickness Unto Death 

6. Consider reading contemporary works in theology and philosophy.

• C. S. Lewis: Mere Christianity
• J. I. Packer: Knowing God
• Alvin Plantinga: God, Freedom, and Evil
• Ronald Nash: Faith and Reason

7. Include evangelistic and apologetic preparation and worldview analysis in your reading.

Equip yourself to engage people on the topic of faith by selecting books in biblical theology, worldview thinking, logic, and rhetoric.

8. Stay on top of current issues and evaluate them according to your Christian worldview.

News options include the more traditional newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. But cutting-edge technology makes it even easier to stay up-to-date with informative websites, podcasts, blogs, and mobile apps.

Personally, I enjoy reading such popular Christian magazines as World and Christianity Today. Additionally, I find Apologetics 315 a helpful website that offers, among other resources, a list of the top Christian apologetics podcasts.

9. Recognize the limits of TV and radio for gaining reliable information.

All communication channels are naturally subject to some bias. However, TV and radio can be especially susceptible to skewing their reporting by focusing more on sound bytes and sensationalism.

Consider Adler & Van Doren’s assessment on this matter (p. 346):

Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited.

10. Expand your education.

Sign up for classes, either online or at a local institution, in topics such as literature, history, philosophy, science, mathematics, religion, psychology, and the arts. For excellent online learning tools, I’d recommend The Great Courses (formally The Teaching Company). And, of course, Reasons To Believe (RTB) offers an array of courses on science and faith via our online learning program, Reasons Institute.

Attending lectures and academic events in your area can be a great supplement (or possibly more economical alternative) to classes. For example, RTB scholars participate in lectures, debates, and conferences across America and Canada—and a number of these events can be attended free of charge. (See the end of this post for detail on one such opportunity.)

11. Learn a new language or brush up on languages you’ve studied previously.

Language studies stimulate the mind like few other intellectual endeavors and provide a great way to combat the effects of aging on the mind.

12. Plan visits to museums, art galleries, zoos, aquariums, historical landmarks, etc.

Check your city’s website for information on museums and other centers of cultural learning, both in your hometown and the surrounding area. Plan a visit to an important landmark or two the next time you take a vacation.

Visiting sites like these is an excellent way to involve your whole family in the learning experience. Living near the Los Angeles area, personal favorites for my family include the Getty Center and the Museum of Tolerance.

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I’m thankful that John Warwick Montgomery challenged me all those years ago to become a renaissance Christian. In this New Year, I extend the challenge to you. Will you accept it?

Join me for a FREE CLASS in Anaheim, CA

I will be teaching a free course entitled “Are You a Renaissance Christian?” at my church.

Date: Friday, February 10, 2012
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Christ Reformed Church
900 S. Sunkist St.
Anaheim, CA 92806

This event is free of charge. For more details, call Christ Reformed Church at (714) 538-1057.

Quote of the Week: C. S. Lewis

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

– C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 93.

Reflections on the Passing of New Atheist Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011)

Christopher Hitchens, author, journalist, and one of the “four horsemen” of the New Atheist movement, died December 15, 2011, of esophageal cancer. In his 2007 book God is Not Great, Hitchens argued that religions in general—and theistic religion in particular (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)—are not only false but also harmful for human society. Ironically, Christopher’s younger brother Peter, also a journalist and a one-time communist, recently converted to Christianity. (See Peter Hitchens’ book in favor of faith entitled The Rage Against God.)

Known for his bold atheism and rhetorical flair, Christopher Hitchens debated a number of Christian scholars on the topic of God’s existence. On April 4, 2009, Hitchens debated philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig at Biola University here in Southern California. I attended that debate (as did my son Michael, 13, and daughter Jackie, 18, who both appreciated the rigorous exchange) and wrote the following review the morning after the event. In reflecting on Hitchens’ death, I offer this review as a glimpse into his debate style and arguments.

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Craig-Hitchens Debate, Biola University, 2009

The debate at Biola University between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens was packed out last night. (Apparently, viewers around the nation also tuned in via various video streams.) As an adjunct instructor at Biola, I am proud that the school would sponsor such an intellectually stimulating event. Here I offer a few personal reflections on last night’s great discussion,

Hitchens: The Shotgun Approach

Looking over my copious notes from the debate it strikes me that Hitchens’ presentation lacked a logical structure and overall coherence. He did a poor job of defending his naturalistic, atheistic worldview (at times vacillating from skepticism to agnosticism to traditional atheism). In the end he merely pronounced that he didn’t need to defend unbelief. In his mind, theists have the entire burden to prove God’s existence.

Hitchens attacked religion (Christianity in particular) with his typical slash-and-burn approach. Instead of formulating extended arguments, he used emotive (emotionally laden) language and emotional appeals to the gallery. He selectively highlighted the failures of religion and presented Christianity in the worst light possible (unscientific, oppressive, unoriginal, hypocritical). In his shotgun style he threw dozens of half-developed criticisms against the wall. It seemed he hoped to “win” either by rhetorical flair or by fatiguing the audience with the sheer number of topics he addressed superficially.

It struck me last night how often Hitchens simply misunderstands or misinterprets arguments in support of Christian theism (especially the moral argument and the argument for Jesus’s resurrection). Then again Hitchens (like other new atheists) gives the impression that it would be beneath him to take Christian theism seriously by actually studying the arguments in its favor.

Interestingly, I thought Hitchens was fairly tame last night. In other debates and public appearances he has been outright caustic, even profane. He seemed to respect Craig to a degree intellectually and even seemed impressed by the charity Biola extended toward him. Overall, I think an important part of Hitchens’ appeal is his rhetorical skill and satirical shtick.

Craig: Intellectually Sophisticated

In contrast, William Lane Craig’s presentation was clear, organized, and informed. Presenting his five arguments in virtual syllogistic form in the notes was impressive. I especially appreciate Craig’s ability to present an intellectually sophisticated case for historic Christianity with real clarity. I thought Craig probably did as well as anyone could have at selectively rebutting some of Hitchens’ red herrings and misrepresentations.

I do differ with Craig on some of his views. As a card-carrying Calvinist, I thought Craig could have been more charitable to Calvinism (at times he seems to create a caricature of Reformed theology, even asserting that it is sheer “theological fatalism”). I think it would have been more magnanimous on Craig’s part if he would have said that all historic Christian (orthodox) traditions are essentially true, but that believers disagree with each other over important secondary issues. Instead he proclaimed, without qualification, that “Calvinism is false.” However, to be fair, he made these comments under duress as he was involved in a spontaneous and contentious cross-examination period with Hitchens.

Sometimes Craig’s Molinistic, Wesleyan-Arminianism strikes me as excessively philosophical in nature and lacking in convincing biblical and theological justification.¹ But let me make it clear that I personally respect and admire Dr. Craig and have learned much from reading his prolific and insightful apologetics works.

I also disagreed with Craig’s claim that a worldview’s practical workability is irrelevant to its truth. I concede that workability cannot serve as a foundational worldview test, but I think that a worldview’s viability is based partially on whether it has exhibited relevant, practical, and workable results.

Therefore, I would have asserted that, in the twentieth century, tens of millions of people were murdered by the atheistic ideology of communism. Hitchens’ claim that the fascist ideologies represented in World War II were religiously based reflects a superficial understanding of these political-philosophical systems.

At the end of the night, Craig’s case for the truth of Christian theism struck me as much more coherent, plausible, and convincing. I like his cumulative case for God being the best explanation for the meaningful realities of the world and of life.

Endnotes:

1. For details on Craig’s Molinistic views, see Four Views on Divine Providence, ed. Dennis W. Jowers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011). For a Reformed perspective on God’s knowledge and providence, I recommend John Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002).

— Kenneth Richard Samples

Written April 5, 2009