Pascal’s Chocolate

The other day I was search­ing for a choco­late bar I had hid­den in the fridge (I was past the point of look­ing; appar­ently I had hid­den it very well) when Blaise Pas­cal came to mind (I won­der how many peo­ple had great thoughts in and around food–not that I think this is any­thing approach­ing a great thought). I’m fairly cer­tain that most peo­ple know who Blaise Pas­cal is because of his wager (aptly named ‘Pascal’s Wager’). I won’t recall it here because that’s not really what I’m inter­ested in, though what I am inter­ested in comes from the same work (Pen­sées). What inter­ests me is a thought Pas­cal had related to what is known as the ‘divine hid­den­ness’ of God (if God exists, why does He seem so… absent?).

Pascal’s thought comes from the 430^th pen­sées (which, redun­dantly, means ‘thought’):

God has willed to redeem men and to open sal­va­tion to those who seek it. But men ren­der them­selves so unwor­thy of it that it is right that God should refuse to some, because of their obdu­racy, what He grants oth­ers from a com­pas­sion which is not due to them. If He had willed to over­come the obsti­nacy of the most hard­ened, He could have done so by reveal­ing Him­self so man­i­festly to them that they could not have doubted of the truth of His essence; as it will appear at the last day, with such thun­ders and such a con­vul­sion of nature that the dead will rise again, and the blind­est will see Him. “It is not in this man­ner that He has willed to appear in His advent of mercy, because, as so many make them­selves unwor­thy of His mercy, He has willed to leave them in the loss of the good which they do not want. It was not, then, right that He should appear in a man­ner man­i­festly divine, and com­pletely capa­ble of con­vinc­ing all men; but it was also not right that He should come in so hid­den a man­ner that He could not be known by those who should sin­cerely seek Him. He has willed to make him­self quite rec­og­niz­able by those; and thus, will­ing to appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart, and to be hid­den from those who flee from Him with all their heart, He so reg­u­lates the knowl­edge of Him­self that He has given signs of Him­self, vis­i­ble to those who seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not. There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscu­rity for those who have a con­trary dis­po­si­tion.“¹

This is where I intro­duce my rather poor, I sus­pect, choco­late bar anal­ogy. You see, I agree with Pas­cal and think that what he says above is quite astute–even if it doesn’t give a wholly sat­is­fac­tory answer to divine hid­den­ness. Search­ing for my choco­late did not involve me pas­sively look­ing into the fridge, I had to become active–open draw­ers, rifle through food, etc. I first acted on the knowl­edge that I had a choco­late bar in the fridge, then became filled with doubt when, after a few min­utes, I couldn’t find it; I started look­ing harder. In the same way I think a lot of peo­ple, when won­der­ing if there is a God, sim­ply pray — or ‘talk’ to God — and then leave things at that (this might be the fault of Chris­tians, I sus­pect). This is the equiv­a­lent of look­ing pas­sively, but not actively search­ing. Just to say, I don’t believe actively search­ing includes a list of things you want God to per­form and when He doesn’t per­form them you con­clude He doesn’t exist. It’s an act which requires a cer­tain amount of faith, requires a cer­tain amount of action on our part and trusts that God will act (or that my choco­late is still in the fridge). Its prob­a­bly an unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stance that many times peo­ple search for God with the wrong motive. They begin not with ‘I want to (hon­estly) know if you exist’ but with ‘prove to me you exist, then I’ll believe’.  In this sense, the one who says ‘prove to me’ seems to have already made up their minds–God isn’t going to prove to them any­thing. The one who says ‘I want to know’  has allowed for the pos­si­bil­ity that God might or might not exist, and the scare all that entails (mean­ing if God does, mean­ing­less if God doesn’t). The prob­lem is that we often search as if we’re owed some­thing, and we shouldn’t.

And there’s my pen­sées for the day (hope­fully it’s coher­ent! And I enjoyed the choco­late bar).

Related posts:

1. Pas­cal on Calvin­ists and Molinists