I've been reading parts of Muggeridge's The End of Christendom lately, and I thought you might benefit from some quotes. This first section is a description of Pascal in Muggeridge's words. Muggeridge says:
"Like all true believers, (Pascal) was deeply skeptical. His intelligence was wonderfully astringent and critical. It is one of the fantasies of the twentieth century that believers are credulous people, sentimental people, and that you have to be a materialist and a scientist and a humanist to have a skeptical mind. But of course exactly the opposite is true. It is believers who can be astringent and skeptical, whereas people who believe seriously that this universe exists only in order to provide a theatre for man must take man with deadly seriousness. I believe myself that the age we are living in now will go down in history as one of the most credulous ever. . . . The truth is that the farther our faith reaches, the more doubts it encompasses, as from the highest hills there are the fullest vistas." (pp. 4-5, The End of Christendom)
What do you think? Is Muggeridge right? Does faith include some element of doubt? Do cynics make good believers? It is something to ponder, huh?
And now, to balance the thought, let me quote Pascal himself from Pensees, p. 149:
"It is in vain that you seek within yourselves for the cure for your miseries. All your insight only leads you to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you will discover the true and the good. The philosophers promised them to you and they have not been able to keep their promise. . . . Your principle maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to earth. And they have done nothing but foster at least one of these maladies. If they have given you God for your object, it has been to pander to your pride. They have made you think that you were like him and resemble him by your nature. And those who have grasped the vanity of such a pretension have cast you down in the other abyss by making you believe that your nature is like that of the beast of the field and have led you to seek your good in lust, which is the lot of animals."
Well, I think that these quotes are enough for today. Chew on them. Think about them. Then, if you want, share your insights with the rest of us.
Thanks for reading!
1 comment:
It is good to doubt, as long as that doubt is for the sake of prudence, and not because of pride.
Hi Leo! Keep up the good work.
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