A Thinking Reed: Pascal’s Voice, Yesterday and Today
Ebook
Blaise Pascal (1623-62) was a provocative and important thinker. Both the range and the influence of his work is immense. His Pensees ("Thoughts"), unfinished and composed of fragments, is widely regarded as a classic of Christian apologetics. In this volume, the reader is introduced to this work, with a view to both describing what Pascal says and assessing its present value. After introducing the man and his life, Pascal's views on reason and the heart, and on human wretchedness and greatness, are discussed before asking in a final chapter, "Would you bet on God?" An appendix treats Pascal and modernity. Four hundred years on, Pascal's voice can still be heard. Four hundred years on, we still need to heed it. Pascal does not simply speak from the mind to the mind. He speaks as a person to persons.
“Stephen Williams has offered us an engagingly written, genuinely interesting, and finely judged guide to the thought of Blaise Pascal. The book carefully and sympathetically shows how Pascal, one of the most enigmatic yet intriguing thinkers of the early modern age, offers some startlingly novel perspectives on some of our contemporary dilemmas, such as the role of reason, the nature of evil, the search for meaning, and the drama and mystery of being human.”
—Graham Tomlin, director, Centre for Cultural Witness, Lambeth Palace
“Pascal stands among the greatest Christian thinkers and advocates of all time. In this book, Stephen Williams offers a sensitive, discerning, and eloquent account of his thought. Listen to him.”
—Nigel Biggar, regius professor emeritus of moral theology, the University of Oxford
“Pascal lived centuries ago but his thoughts continue to speak to and resonate with our present human condition, even more so now thanks to Stephen Williams’s ambassadorial work. One wonders what the world would be like if Pascal rather than Descartes had had modernity’s ear. Williams thinks he knows: it would be more realistic and hearty (the operative term in Pascal’s thinking), acknowledging both the contradiction of sinful humanity and the rationality of salvation in Christ.”
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, research professor of systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“Stephen Williams, a Welshman, has spent most of his career teaching theology in Belfast. Those acquainted with Irish history will be aware of that city’s bitter history of sectarianism. How wonderful then that a much-respected Presbyterian theologian there should engage with such clarity and sympathy with one of Catholicism’s greatest ever Christian apologists. Williams acknowledges Pascal’s indebtedness to St. Augustine’s teaching as he writes poignantly about the former’s ‘night of fire,’ powerful conversion experience, and much more.”
—Niall Coll, Catholic bishop of Ossory
“Stephen William’s mastery of Pascal’s unfinished text and its biographical, philosophical, and historical contexts produces an authoritative, comprehensive, convincing, tightly argued exposition of the wide range of Pascal’s arguments. This outstanding book, rich in reflection on issues around the birth of modernity, is a must-read for anyone involved in apologetics.”
—John Gillespie, professor emeritus of French language and literature, Ulster University
- Title: A Thinking Reed: Pascal’s Voice, Yesterday and Today
- Author: Stephen N. Williams
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666751512, 9781666751499, 1666751499, 9781666751505, 1666751502, 1666751510
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666751512
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-05-04T21:37:17Z
Stephen N. Williams is honorary professor of theology at Queen’s University, Belfast.