Pascal's fear

In OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER, Pascal persisted in a question, “Why am I so limited? ” And he described the condition of men as such an image, “ A number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope.”

It’s different from the ordinary impression of scientists living in the year of Enlightenment. He seemed to be very anxious about the fact that human beings are not immortal. This kind of fear even destroyed his interest in this life. This might because he was a scientist, and what he feared of is not the death, or the pain we would suffer in hell, but the unknown.

   According to Pascal, here might be two preconditions. Self-realization is the basis of individual happiness and the cognition of the outside world. At the same time, as a part of human dignity, rationality drives people to seek for the ultimate truth while it serves as the most reliable cognition method. People in Pascal’s age believed that they should and could find out the truth. According to the science revolution, they did make it partially. However, the more they discovered, the more astonished we are at the limitlessness of the world, and we inevitably realized the limit imposed on us, even when it came to rationality itself. It aggravated the everlasting doubt whether we can even realize ourselves. What have been mentioned above may lead to a dangerous conclusion: rationality could lead us nowhere, and our development, our dignity, may be nothing. “Being independent” is just a dream. We are still the slaves of something unknown.

   This is why Pascal chose to believe in the existence of God. Although he was a Christian, his definition of God is not confined to the Christian conception. It is more like a symbol of an ultimate answer, and his explanation can be put on Allah, the Buddha, and any other god living in the legends. What leads him to the God may simply be the habit or tradition of culture. He didn’t care what the God is. The only thing he needed to secure is that there IS an answer. Then he could continue his pursuit of it with the confidence that what he did was not in vain.

   His insistence that God exists doesn’t conflict with reason, and in fact he was not alone. For example, all the American astronauts landing on the moon finally devoted themselves to religion. You have been on the moon. Then what else has meaning to you? What are you to this vast universe? Does our science have any meaning when the world is so limitless? When they stood on the moon, the astonishment dominating them may be the same as what Pascal felt when he was faced with the mystery of nature, even the development of science has gone to a different level. And maybe we cannot escape from this kind of fear.