Editing Blaise Pascal (section)

=== Philosophy ===
Pascal is arguably best known as a philosopher, considered by some the second greatest French mind behind [[René Descartes]]. He was a dualist following Descartes.<ref>Ariew, Roger (2007). Descartes and Pascal. ''Perspectives on Science'' 15 (4):397-409.</ref> However, he is also remembered for his opposition to both the [[rationalism]] of the likes of Descartes and simultaneous opposition to the main countervailing epistemology, [[empiricism]], preferring [[fideism]].

In terms of God, Descartes and Pascal disagreed. Pascal wrote that "I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God, but he couldn't avoid letting him put the world in motion; afterwards he didn't need God anymore".<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Bergmans |editor1-first=Luc |editor2-last=Koetsier |editor2-first=T. |title=Mathematics and the Divine A Historical Study |date=2004 |publisher=Elsevier |page=402}}</ref> He opposed the rationalism of people like Descartes as applied to the existence of a God, preferring faith as "reason can decide nothing here".<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Shand |editor1-first=John |title=Fundamentals of Philosophy |date=2004 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=391}}</ref> For Pascal the nature of God was such that such proofs cannot reveal God. Humans "are in darkness and estranged from God" because "he has hidden Himself from their knowledge".<ref>{{cite book |title=A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism |date=2009 |publisher=Wiley |page=140}}</ref>

He cared above all about the philosophy of religion. Pascalian theology has grown out of his perspective that humans are, according to Wood, "born into a duplicitous world that shapes us into duplicitous subjects and so we find it easy to reject God continually and deceive ourselves about our own sinfulness".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/blaise-pascal-on-duplicity-sin-and-the-fall-9780199656363?cc=gb&lang=en&|title=Blaise Pascal on Duplicity, Sin, and the Fall|date=4 July 2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199656363|series=Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology|access-date=24 March 2016|archive-date=9 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180809115036/https://global.oup.com/academic/product/blaise-pascal-on-duplicity-sin-and-the-fall-9780199656363?cc=gb&lang=en&|url-status=live}}</ref>