Pensees

Pensees by Blaise Pascal, 359 pages

Blaise Pascal was one of the undisputed geniuses of the 17th century - he did groundbreaking work on probability theory, established the existence of vacuum, and invented the first commercially produced mechanical calculator.  At the age of 31 he experienced a profound religious conversion, from doubt to faith in what he famously described as the "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars."  He associated with the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal, where his sister was a nun, until his death at the age of 39.

This work, the "Thoughts", was authored as notes towards a work to be entitled Defense of the Christian Religion.  Unlike his contemporary, Descartes, Pascal did not believe that all truths are derivable from the strict application of mathematical logic, a position which led to his rejection of traditional arguments for the existence of God.  Descartes and the other great French skeptic, Montaigne, are among the primary targets of the first section of the Pensees, intended as a defense of belief against unbelief, predicated largely on the limits of human understanding and the humility this should engender.  Later sections attempt to demonstrate the reasonability of Christianity above other religions and of the Jansenists over the Jesuits.

Although universally regarded as a classic, the fragmentary nature of Pensees makes it inevitably uneven.  Pascal's thoughts range from the undeniably profound - the famous passage comparing man to a reed, but a thinking reed - to the impenetrably cryptic - #343, in its entirety, is "The beak of a parrot, which it wipes, although it is clean."  Large portions of the later sections are composed primarily of Scriptural citations, which are of little interest to anyone who does not accept the message of the earlier sections.  On the whole, however, this is a work of genius, immensely influential, and should be read by anyone with an interest in philosophy or theology.