They are as follows:
1. Humans reflect an enigmatic nature of "greatness and wretchedness." Our greatness (in reason, technology, art, etc.) derives from our identity as bearers of God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), but that image has been significantly tarnished (effaced but not erased) through our collective fall into sin (Romans 3:23) and accompanying moral wretchedness.
2. We are often afraid to "stay quietly" in our rooms, alone with our thoughts. Pascal perceived that solitude and quiet reflection risks exposing an uneasiness in the soul that many people purposely avoid. Sheltering in place during 2020's pandemic likely made confronting our profound state of estrangement inescapable.
3. We spend much of our lives following "diversions." Even in Pascal's seventeenth century, it was much easier to divert attention to pragmatic concerns and engaging distractions and, thus, remain ambivalent to spiritual issues.
4. "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." For Pascal, the heart reflects not mere emotion but an instinctive intuition of truth apprehended by the soul. Our most basic beliefs about God, mind, and morality are never based merely on rational or empirical considerations alone.
5. We only "know ourselves" through knowing Jesus Christ. The Christian faith proclaims that we were made to know, love, and serve God - yet sin sabotages that relationship. Pascal believed God's redemptive grace serves to revive the tarnished image of God within and, thus, allow us to discover our true selves.1
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote:
1. Kenneth Samples, Christianity Cross-Examined: Is It Rational, Relevant, and Good?, p. 209.
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Comments
A closer HONEST look at this ALLEGED "greatness" shows it's mostly the opposite and a delusion. The human condition is in plain sight in front of everyone's "awake" nose --- civilized humans have a deadly disease called "soullessness spectrum disorder" ... read the free essay The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room at https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” --- Dresden James
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I fear you have missed the entirety of number one. Pascal parallels our greatness with our wretchedness.
Godspeed