Blaise Pascal was an inventor, mathematician, philosopher, and essayist in seventeenth-century France. In his short life, he catalogued his many pensées, or thoughts, on human nature and faith. Here are a few.  

Humans are deeply prone to error and deception. But sometimes they don’t always get it wrong or intend to deceive, which makes them even trickier: they’re not even consistent in their inconsistencies. These statements apply even more to the wise than to the foolish, because the well-educated are more easily manipulated by imagination. But anyone is susceptible to its power.

Imagination’s age-old adversary is reason, and imagination gleefully lords its power over it. Imagination holds sway over rich and poor, the sick and the healthy, the happy and the sad. It can blunt senses and emotions or heighten them. It might be annoying to see imagination dominate reason, but reason will never win. Man’s reflexive actions are the work of imagination—not reason. It can truly be called our “second nature.”

What is it that causes us to revere some men and despise others? It is not reason, however dispassionate we might consider ourselves. It is imagination. Reason lulls one to sleep while imagination invigorates, for good and for evil. Anyone who chooses to act on reason will not be able to incite action in others nor oneself. Reason never beats emotion, but imagination beats reason all the time. Whatever the words of a poem or speech may be, the tone in which they are delivered will influence the way we perceive them.

The mystery and power of imagination is well understood by doctors, lawyers, scientists, and priests. Without ostentatious outfits, the learned would not fool the commoner. By parading around in such attire, they stir up imagination and in so doing win respect.

Man is not truly happy in diversion because his delight depends on something outside himself; and that thing he depends on for happiness can be taken away in a thousand different ways, which is a worry he can’t assuage.

No one can cure his own misery or save himself from death, so he does his best not to think about it. He distracts himself. In a kind of madness, people still chase after diversion in hopes of finding happiness—even when the diversions consistently fail to bring about a secure happiness.

The source of all of mankind’s misery is that he doesn’t know how to sit quietly in his own house. The rich man able to enjoy his life wouldn’t leave his home if he knew how to enjoy the stillness. Instead, he gambles, he goes to sea, he tries to expand his fortune. Sitting still is the far more daunting task.

The bliss of the hunt comes not from the capture, but the chase itself. The chase invigorates, but once the prey is captured, the thrill stagnates.

People don’t really want the tranquil, quiet existence anymore than they want the dangers of war or the crushing weight of heavy responsibilities—they want the agitation that prevents introspection. Distraction is man’s best attempt to find happiness. As soon as someone begins thinking about himself, he becomes miserable, whether he’s a prince or a poor man.

Great displays of power and splendor—such as kings and wealthy merchants are eager to put forward—fail to impress the intellectuals. Conversely, great displays of intelligence rarely impress kings and generals.

The greatness of wisdom fails to impress king and intellectual alike. Neither men of mind nor men of might are drawn to it. What both groups fail to realize is that they miss out on the far vaster treasure. However many bodies the king may have at his disposal or however many brilliant minds the intellectual has at his, they will not generate the desire to love. Its source is not of body nor mind, but from God himself.

Think about the saints throughout history. They are not remembered for their looks or intelligence, for the power they wielded. They were of God and that was more than enough. They knew that power and intellect added nothing to their union with God. Even Jesus himself did not come in wealth or power or intellectual prowess. He did not overthrow Rome nor conquer distant lands; he did not set up an academy; neither did he invent or discover anything. But he did show great patience, humility, and kindness; he vanquished demons, resisted temptation, and stayed connected to the Father.

People are shocked and even offended that Jesus the lowly would call himself King. But his lowliness is unrelated to his glory. People who have eyes for the carnal or for might will be the most shocked by Christ’s glory. All the bodies and minds in the world cannot create one iota of wisdom or charity; that only comes from God. It’s of an entirely different order that those captivated by power or intellect will miss.   

Christianity must strike some as a peculiar religion. It insists that a person acknowledge his helpless and vile state and that he must be holy like God is holy. And yet both of these parts help provide a needed counterweight to the other, without which people will become conceited on one hand or inconsolably hopeless on the other.

The Incarnation proves man’s low and helpless condition by the magnitude of sacrifice needed to save him. Man has the ability to receive or relinquish God’s grace because of the two pitfalls of despair and pride. He who walks between them walks by grace.

There is little pride in the genuine Christian. He knows that his union with God was not earned, and through this union he sees with great clarity how worm-like he is compared to the ineffable splendor of God. The will has little to do with a person’s salvation or satisfaction. Even if someone gets everything he wants, he will not be satisfied. Paradoxically, he will find satisfaction as soon as he surrenders his will.

The Jews must be a sincere people to preserve and faithfully hand down an account of their mistakes and ingratitude toward God. Moses and many other prophets consistently denounce them as stubborn and rebellious, explaining that God is angry with them for turning their backs on him to worship other gods. So the Jews themselves wrote and preserved this history, carefully passing it down from one generation to the next.

On the surface, the religion of the Jews appears to be a list of rituals and laws, from codes for maintaining purity to deep reverence for the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But none of these things is at the heart of their religion. It consists of—and only of—the love of God. God, in fact, rejects all these external matters of sacrifices and circumcision. The prophet Micah declares that God doesn’t want burnt offerings, but that he requires his people to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. More important than the literal circumcision was the circumcision of the heart, as Jeremiah makes clear, when he contrasts the heart that’s open to God with a stubborn and resistant one.

It comes down to whether God has his people’s affection or not. Do they love him? Or do they chase after lesser things? The true Jew saw God—not Abraham—as the father of their faith.    

Jewishness is not what makes Jews loved by God. He is not a respecter of persons. It is a matter of the heart, whoever that heart may belong to. In Leviticus, God declares that he will welcome the foreigner who turns to Him. Their sacrifices will be gladly accepted by God when the stubborn Jew’s sacrifice will not. The Ark has been lost, the Temple rejected.

The true Jew and the true Christian are of the same religion. God desires above observance of rules and grandiose sacrifices the hearts of people.

Just as we can know that the infinite exists without knowing its exact nature, so we can know that God exists without knowing exactly what he is. As humans, we are acquainted with finitude because we ourselves are finite creatures. We can know the existence of the infinite because it passes through space and time while remaining ignorant of its nature because it is limitless by definition.

We do not know the existence of God, however, because he does not exist in time and space, nor does he have limitations. We know his existence through faith—not through reason.

So if God exists, he is so far beyond our powers of understanding—so other—that we can’t know what he is like and whether he exists. It would, therefore, be presumptuous to try giving an answer to such a question. Thus, the Christian should not be criticized for being unable to come up with a satisfying rational argument for God’s existence.

Though we cannot provide rational proof for God’s existence, it is within reason’s limits to acknowledge that God either exists or he does not. Reason is no use here. The chaos of the infinite void stands between us and a clear answer one way or the other. But a cosmic coin has been tossed and the question remains for you to respond with heads or tails, God or no God.

It’s not wise to criticize the Christian for having made a choice. Some think they are smartest for refusing to choose at all, but they forget that the coin has already been tossed. Each of us is committed whether we like it or not. Because there is a choice before us, reason does not condemn one choice more than another. Reason is not a consideration, but our happiness surely is.

If you wager that God exists and win, you gain everything. If you wager that God exists and you lose, what have you actually lost? The only wager that makes sense is that God exists. And don’t just make a half-hearted wager—bet it all. The biggest renunciation of reason would be to bet against God’s existence, but what do you gain if your wager that God doesn’t exist turns out to be true? Nothing in the end.

If the odds are 50-50 and Scripture gives us a glimpse of what the cards are, betting on God’s existence means weighing the chance of infinite happiness against the loss of a finite but ultimately meaningless feeling of safety. It would be irrational to bet against God, and if you find yourself incapable of betting on God, it is likely passions rather than reason that are getting in your way.

In such cases, focus not on accruing rational proofs for the existence of God, but on minimizing the passions that would bar your way to faith. If you truly wish to be free from unbelief, try observing the lives of those who put all their chips down on God’s existence. They behaved as if God exists and it changed their lives. They became kind, full of love, generous, thankful, authentic people and faithful friends. You might lose some temporary pleasures, but these are finite. The risk is so negligible. You will come to see that you gained everything and did not pay a thing for it.

So, in the interest of your own good, bet it all on God’s existence.