Pensees: Thoughts on Religion

A CHRISTIAN CLASSIC For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. -Blaise Pascal, Pensees No. 72

Pascal’s most influential theological work, referred to posthumously as the Pensees ( Thoughts ), was not completed before his death. It was to have been a sustained and coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith. The first version of the numerous scraps of paper found after his death appeared in print as a book in 1669 and soon thereafter became a classic. Pascal’s Pensees is widely considered to be a masterpiece.