Not Just Another Programming Language

You might be familiar with PASCAL as a computer programming language, but did you know about the Christian man from which this language was named?

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, and theological philosopher from the 17th century. Under the direct tutelage of his father, Pascal thrived intellectually and showed a penchant for theoretical and practical science. He is attributed with the invention of 0ne of the first mechanical calculators and with the laws of hydraulics.

Following a near-death experience in late 1654, where Pascal and several friends escaped plunging over a bridge in a coach, he had a vision from God. He left mathematics and physics and devoted himself to studying scripture and writing apologetics. What is apologetics?

"Apologetics attempts to render the Christian faith persuasive to the contemporary individual.

• For unbelievers: it is belief forming. It helps to establish Christianity as credible by giving intellectual support to the explanatory value of a biblical world view.



• For believers: it is belief sustaining. It nurtures Christian faith by calling believers to love the Lord with their minds (Matt 22:37)."[1]

His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres Provinciales (The Provincial Letters) and the Pensées.[2] The Provincial Letters was a critique of religious and political leadership of his time. The Pensées is actually a collection of notes Pascal made for a book he planned to title "The Defense of the Christian Religion," but was not completed due to his untimely death in 1662.

Pascal’s primary concern was focused on the church and combating the ignorance of those who professed to be a Christian without displaying Christian virtues. J.G. Stackhouse says, “Blaise Pascal and Soren Kierkegaard are only the most famous of a long line of apologists who tried to wake up a sleepwalking culture that comfortably thought itself Christian.”[3] Though a Catholic, Pascal criticized the Catholic church for being “too Calvinistic.”[4]

Pascal’s greatness in apologetics was not to deify his personal interests of mathematics and science, like so many of his contemporaries. Rather, he chose to honestly dismiss limited human reason and accepted both the obvious ambiguity of knowledge of God and the Scriptural view of man’s fallen state. He states:

But for those in whom this light is extinguished … find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they have only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they will see God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and important matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim to have concluded the proof with such an argument, is to give them ground for believing that the proofs of our religion are very weak. And I see by reason and experience that nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt. It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has a better knowledge of the things that are of God.[5]

Though dead, his ideas fit in with modern teleological arguments. It appears that Pascal’s war against the identity crisis and apathy of Christians has continued into the 21st Century, where there seems to be little if no difference in the lifestyles between those who profess “Jesus is Lord!” and those who profess their allegiance to secular humanism. In addition, many of our modern churches that are "too Calvinistic" seem to be less concerned with working with other "less Calvinistic" churches. What does Christ have to say to this? "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another"(Jn 13:35). Love, therfore, is our primary apologetic. If this is so, then can the inverse be also true? Can you demonstrate that you are not Jesus' disciple by hate and indifference? John was called the apostle of love, but his words are quite direct and stern on the matter. He says, "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness" (1 Jn 2:9).

A programming language is a set of instructions for the computer. A computer that has no capacity to translate those instructions and do what is expected no longer serves the purpose of its human master. People, however, are not computers - and we are far more valuable to our heavenly master. He has given us instructions by giving us the Bible which lines up with our primary mission to glorify Him. Christ said, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven" (Matt 5:16). Does the way you think and act line up with the commands of Christ? Churches: are you communicating and collaborating in such a way that the unbelievers in your community want to join your fellowship? Are you celebrating your similarities in Christ or are you accentuating your differences? Is the Christian faith you profess persuasive to the world?

AL

1 Walter Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd Ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 82.
2 "Blaise Pascal." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2005. Answers.com 21 Oct. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/blaise-pascal (accessed October 21, 2006).
3 J.G. Stackhouse, Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 44.
4 Ibid., 167.
5 Wikisource contributors, "Pensées/IV-242," Wikisource, The Free Library, http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Pens%C3%A9es/IV&oldid=212972 (accessed October 21, 2006).

6 Image. Augustin Pajou (1730-1809). Blaise Pascal (1785, Paris, Musйe du Louvre)
http://nibiryukov.narod.ru/nb_pinacoteca/nbe_pinacoteca_artists_p.htm