Pascal and the Meaning of Life by Thomas V Morris
reviewed by Mike Crowl
Many years ago, in London, I bought a paperback copy of the classic Christian work, Pascal's Pensees . I couldn't get into it - nothing but bits. About the same time Eric Rohmer made a film called Ma Nuit Chez Maud; in several scenes the characters discussed the ideas in the Pensees. Admittedly the dialogue was in subtitles, but I still struggled to keep up.
What a relief, 25 years later, to come across Professor Morris's book. He's finally shown me I'm not the only one to have struggled with Pascal. But far more than that, he's taken the classic and given us not so much a commentary - in fact, for the first few chapters Woody Allen and Tolstoy seem more quoted than Pascal - but a means to grasp Pascal's thinking. In the process, he uses the notes Pascal made (for a book that was never to be written - Pascal died at 39) and gives us a book with which Pascal himself would have been pleased.
Pascal's "thoughts" (as Pensees is often translated) fill a book on their own. Professor Morris makes no attempt to cover all the notes. Instead he has gone to the core of what Pascal was saying and produced an extremely readable book of apologetics. He lays out the arguments for and against belief in God, faith, and the Gospel, and shows how much Pascal was at pains to make these truths accessible to intellectuals, and to those for whom Reason is of more importance than the heart.
Professor Morris is "a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the recipient of numerous awards for teaching excellence." Certainly he is an able teacher, as this book shows, drawing on all sorts of sources to prove his point, as well as being a man willing to share his mistakes. Professor Morris is no ivory tower philosopher. In chapter three he talks about geniuses who can't even remember where they live, but he's not one of them.
He writes about coming to Notre Dame University and finding 55 sports students in his class of 300. The University's policy was to give those whose major discipline was focused on the body an opportunity to prove that "intelligence, teachability and self-discipline" are not confined to any one field. His athletic students proved this policy was right once Morris encouraged them towards a broader view of life.
He uses the same approach in teaching us about Pascal, and shows that the latter's thoughts are as modern as MTV or Michael Jordan. Morris isn't afraid to let the opposition speak for itself: Bertrand Russell and Russell Hanson make appearances, as do cynics like Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken. One of the points Pascal made was that great minds can still miss the truth, not through lack of reasoning, but through an unwillingness to accept it.
The combination of Pascal and Morris is excellent, though you can't read this book with the TV blaring and the kids needing help with their homework. I enjoyed this book enough to decide that I want to read it again, soon, even though I was forced to look up the occasional word such as "prolegomenon!"
Published by Wm B Eeerdmans Publishing Co 1992
copyright 1997 Mike Crowl
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It means: a preliminary discussion, especially a formal critical introduction to a lengthy text.