The wager only scratches the surface of his relevance to a post-Christian era.It is a common lament that we live in a post-Christian era. This fact raises challenges to our witness to the world. Most of our audience thinks that, in G. K. Chesterton’s words, Christianity has been tried and found wanting (rather than found wanting and left untried). It is not considered a live option. How do we bear witness well in this cultural context? We might do well to reconsider one of the most enigmatic thinkers in Christian history, Blaise Pascal.Pascal suffers from a public relations problem. As the source of Pascal’s wager, he is often considered a gambling man. He urges the non-believer to bet that God exists. What does one have to lose? In Beyond the Wager: The Christian Brilliance of Blaise Pascal, philosopher Douglas Groothuis shows that there is more to Pascal’s life and thought than his most famous argument. Groothuis demonstrates that we have much to learn from this brilliant thinker. Pascal, he argues, is a crucial thinker for our time.Essential writingsPascal came on the scene in the 17th century, during the early years of the Scientific Revolution. Several of his works contributed to this movement, including treatises on the geometry of conic sections, theories of probability, and conclusions to extensive experiments he had done to test the possibility of a vacuum. He invented the first functional calculator, which he had built to help his father with his work of assessing taxes.His best-known works, however, focus on Christianity. In the Provincial Letters, Pascal defends the Jansenist movement, which was condemned by the Catholic church, against the Jesuits. The Jansenists emphasized that the depth of human sinfulness required a work of God for our salvation. The Christian life ...Continue reading...

On August 19, 1662, French philosopher, mathematician, and apologist Blaise Pascal died at just 39 years old. Pascal, despite his shortened life, is renowned for pioneering work in geometry, physics, and probability theory. His most powerful legacy, however, involves the ways he engaged with life's biggest questions.Pascal's intellect garnered attention at an early age. At 16, he produced an essay on the geometry of cones so impressive that René Descartes initially refused to believe it could possibly be attributed to a “sixteen-year-old child.” Later, Pascal advanced the study of vacuums in the face of a prevailing (and misplaced) belief that nature is completely filled with matter, and thus “abhors a vacuum.”