provinciales, Les

by Blaise Pascal

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Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Theology, Classics, French Literature, 17th Century

217 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1657

About the author

Early work of Blaise Pascal of France included the invention of the adding machine and syringe and the co-development with Pierre de Fermat of the mathematical theory of probability; later, he, a Jansenist, wrote on philosophy and theology, notably as collected in the posthumous Pensées (1670).

This contemporary of René Descartes attained ten years of age in 1633, when people forced Galileo Galilei to recant his belief that Earth circled the Sun. He lived in Paris at the same time, when Thomas Hobbes in 1640 published his famous Leviathan (1651). Together, Pascal created the calculus.

A near-fatal carriage accident in November 1654 persuaded him to turn his intellect finally toward religion. The story goes that on the proverbial dark and stormy night, while Pascal rode in a carriage across a bridge in a suburb of Paris, a fright caused the horses to bolt, sending them over the edge. The carriage, bearing Pascal, survived. Pascal took the incident as a sign and devoted. At this time, he began a series, called the Provincial Letters , against the Jesuits in 1657.

Pascal perhaps most famously wagered not as clearly in his language as this summary: "If Jesus does not exist, the non Christian loses little by believing in him and gains little by not believing. If Jesus does exist, the non Christian gains eternal life by believing and loses an infinite good by not believing.”

Sick throughout life, Pascal died in Paris from a combination of tuberculosis and stomach cancer at 39 years of age. At the last, he confessed Catholicism.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fire... And Certainty! (At last) Certainty! (All human) feeling (returns now in a flood, along with) Joy and Peace."
Pascal, Testament to the Great Reversal of his Life,
23 November, 1654.

A life of quiet desperation can pay Huge Dividends!

The Great Reversal of Religious Conversion can sweep us away in particles of dust if we are as open to it as the Apostles were, the morning of Pentecost. As it also did the epochal mathematician Pascal on November 23, 1654.

In a flash of its blinding light the young member of the fledgling sect within the Church, called Jansenism, saw his entire life altered.

Crushed by that insight, the young man would live only six more years afterwards - all spent in intense proselytic fervour.

His first target then, was the Catholic apologists, and the second, the universe of traditional scientific thought. Two works - and two only - were to be produced by his firestorm: This one, and the much greater Pensees.

And this one violently denounced all tepid evangelization, then (as it is now) in vogue...

You see, Jansenism (now extinct) was itself a Reversal. It contravened the Catholic doctrine of the need for faith and good works for our salvation - it boldly stated we are Only saved by God's grace.

Can you imagine joining up with this counter-reformationist sect, then waiting around for God's Grace to sweep you away? Yet that's exactly what Pascal did - for six long years -

And then it Worked. He suddenly Knew.

You know, Pascal had been desperate. After a day of laborious mathematical work, by night he was ready to Party Hearty. And booze, crap games and easy women did a number on him big time.

Suicidal, he needed a Moral Absolute in his life.

Well, he found it.

And now he needed to trumpet God's grace to the world!

But how? Well, Pascal didn't have a sack of hammers for brains. No, he saw dead ends all around him in Reformation Europe, and so wanted to attack the culprits: the ones around us who want to soften us by Confusing us.

So here he attacks all soupy, lukewarm evangelists who teach by lies.

He'd had enough of misinformation.

And while this book is not a crowd pleaser -

It'll let you finally separate the Christian Sheep from the Head-Butting Goats!

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are typically loath to read any work from four or five hundred years ago that is heavily immersed in theological argument, firstly because there are few who could follow a close argument, and secondly, because there are few who would care.

The Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, was founded in 1540 as a result of the efforts of St Ignatius of Loyola. Its history has been checkered, with frequent accusations of "casuistry" (i.e., bending the laws of God to make things easier for the powerful). Many of these arguments are summarized by Blaise Pascal in his The Provincial Letters.

Pascal's sister was a nun at Port-Royal, which was under fire by the Jesuits were acceding to the "heresies" of Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres. Pascal felt, and rightly so, that the Jesuits had no case: Rather, they felt threatened by the puritanical strain of the Jansenists, because it confused men and women of power and wealth who had been following the softer road to Salvation delineated by such Spanish Jesuits as Antonio Escobar y Mendoza and his numerous followers.

The first half of The Provincial Letters is brilliant journalism, consisting of interviews with unnamed Jesuits on various subjects relating to faith and morals. At times it verges on satire, to such an extent that even Voltaire felt it was brilliant. If you read only the first half, it would probably be sufficient. (There I go, sounding like one of Pascal's Jesuits.) The second half, on the other hand, is a bit of a trudge and adds nothing more to what contemporary readers can get out of the book.

There is a brilliant scene in Luis Bunuel's film The Milky Way, in which a Jesuit literally crosses swords with a Jansenist. I don't think Pascal would have approved, because one of his arguments against the Jesuits was that they condoned dueling and even murder for certain reasons.

[Alexandru Croitor · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Însă, pentru a dezlega sufletul de iubirea pământească, pentru a-l îndepărta de ce are mai scump, pentru a-l face să nu mai fie nimic pentru sine și a-l îndemna sa se lege numai și invariabil de Dumnezeu, este nevoie de o mână atotputernică."


“Scrisorile provinciale” reprezintă un monument literar și moral nepieritor, o operă de artă care se folosește de rațiune pentru a crea scene de excelentă comedie unde Pascal, un critic ironic și nemilos, dă pe față micimea și vanitatea omului. Provincialele sunt un “masterclass” în polemică, stilul lui combinând ironia ușoară și veselă cu luarea în râs gravă și amară cu narațiunea elegantă și suplă. Dialectica subtilă, uimitoarea rapiditate de ripostă și ascuțimea logică îl fac pe Pascal un apărător viguros (și elocvent) al adevărului împotriva imposturii și minciunii. ("Toate eforturile violenței nu pot slăbi adevărul: ele nu fac altceva decât să-l înalțe și mai mult.")

În cele optsprezece scrisori, se observă o tranziție de la satiră (primele zece scrisori) la “polemică agresivă” (până la cea cu numărul optsprezece). În mare, “comedia” lui Pascal urmărește subiectul dezbaterilor dintre janseniști (un fel de calviniști, dar mai ‘romano-catolici’) și iezuiți în cadrul universității din Sorbona (Antoine Arnauld este acuzat - pe nedrept - din pricina terminologiei folosite în lucrarea sa Augustinus, fapt de care iezuiții abuzează pentru a-și promova societatea întru câștigarea recunoștinței credincioșilor catolici). Pascal (fiind și el un jansenist) “se angajează” în a-l apăra atât pe Arnauld de afirmațiile calomniatoare ale iezuițlor, cât și în criticarea cazuisticii pe care aceștia o promovau (alături de o etică și spiritualitate profund defectuoasă - adică, a încerca să justifici uciderea unei persoane prin faptul că “ți-a dat o palmă și ți-a atacat onoarea” e de-a dreptul penibil; penibil pe care Pascal îl fructifică într-un mod absolut încântător).
Scrisoarea XI este, fără niciun dubiu, cea mai importantă din toată seria. Nu doar că face tranziția spre combaterea directă a scrisorilor pe care iezuiții i le-au scris drept răspuns, ci stabilește (folosindu-se din pasaje din Scriptură și din Sfinții Părinți) și distincția esențială între “a-ți râde de religie” (lucru de care fusese acuzat) și “a-ți râde de cei care o profanează prin ideile lor extravagante”. (Căci, pateri, deoarece mă obligați să intru în această problemă, vă rog să luați în considerație că așa cum adevărurile creștine sunt demne de iubire și respect, tot așa și erorile care li se opun sunt demne de dispreț și de ură, pentru că există două aspecte în adevărurile religiei noastre: o frumusețe divină care le face demne de dragoste și o măreție sfântă care le face venerabile; iar în erori sunt de asemenea două aspecte: nelegiuirea care le face oribile și impertinența care le face ridicole”). De remarcat faptul ca “se simte obligat să intre în această problemă”; acuzațiile nefondate ale iezuiților îl împing spre continuarea discuției în contradictoriu pentru încă șapte scrisori în care demontează (a se citi “efectiv demolează”) logica și retorica cazuistică.

"Vanității nu i se potrivește nimic mai mult decat batjocura; și numai adevărului îi este dat să râdă, pentru că el este vesel; și să ia în zeflemea pe vrăjmași, pentru că este sigur de biruință. Este adevărat că trebuie să se ia seama ca zeflemelile să nu fie josnice și nedemne de adevăr. Dar, lăsând la o parte acest lucru, când cineva reușește să se servească de ele cu pricepere, este o datorie folosirea lor."

Subiectul harului, responsabilității omului și al alegerii divine (care constituie subiectul dezbaterii) nu putea fi tratat fără niște reflecții personale ale autorului, dublate fiind de cele ale Sfântului Augustin și Sfântului Toma de Aquino. Tind să cred că Pascal a fost un “calvinist confuz” care, din atașamentul său pentru biserica Romano-Catolică (în fond, o dragoste pentru unitatea trupului lui Hristos), s-a alăturat iureșului papist împotriva ”schismaticului” Calvin. Această etichetă (deși nu dețin o cunoaștere exhaustivă asupra gândirii pascaliene), cred că poate fi susținută într-o oarecare măsură (se resimte de-a lungul lucrării), Pascal fiind influențat de gândirea augustiniană, regăsindu-se pe acest palier cu Jean Calvin, alături de învățătura paulină și cea apostolică.

"Dumnezeu schimbă inima omului printr-o blândețe cerească pe care o răspândeşte în ea, care, învingând desfătările trupeşti, face ca omul simțind, pe de-o parte, mortalitatea sa și neantul său și descoperind, pe de alta, măreția și veșnicia lui Dumnezeu, prinde dezgust pentru deliciile păcatului, care-l despart de binele incoruptibil. Găsind cea mai mare bucurie a sa în Dumnezeu care-l farmecă, omul se duce la El negreșit singur, dintr-o pornire cu totul liberă, cu totul voită și din dragoste; aşa fel încât i-ar fi o durere, un chin să se despartă de el. Asta nu înseamnă că nu se poate oricând îndepărta de el și că nu s-ar îndepărta dacă ar vrea. Însă cum ar vrea el acest lucru din moment ce voința nu-l duce niciodată decât spre ce-i place cel mai mult şi din moment ce nimic nu-i place atat de mult ca acel bine unic, care cuprinde în el toate celelalte lucruri?"

"Dumnezeu ne face să producem ce-i place Lui, făcându-ne să vrem ceea ce noi am putea să nu vrem".

[David Bennatan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone for whom the disputes in the book were irrelevant, I have to say that I found Pascal's methods of argument very impressive. It's just hard to believe that the Jesuits could have been as malevolent as portrayed by the author.

Even if one has no interest in religious doctrines this book is important as a historical record of what was going on in the Catholic church after the Reformation. The religious issues had religious and political importance. It was a life and death matter if a certain party was condemned as heretical. I don't know if Pascal could have been in danger from the Jesuits but things could have gone bad for him in a big hurry. It doesn't seem to have mattered to the Jesuits that his arguments were stronger than theirs. If they could have pulled the right political levers he might have been condemned by the secular authorities as well. I'll have to look up Jansenism and see if there was a price to pay because they held different views than the established Church. It's Pascal's point that the views of theirs that he presents were orthodox but I think they did differ on some doctrine.

In any case it's interesting to read the arguments of someone who argues so well.

It was impressive to see that he explicitly defends Galileo against the condemnation of the Church, though I don't know if the Church had reversed its stand on a stationary earth by the time of this work. Pascal was both a man who understood theology very thoroughly and a man of science. I think that is a good combination.

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Provincial Letters are less well-known than Pascal’s other celebrated masterpiece, the Pensées, yet nevertheless represent the mathematician-philosopher at his literary finest. Pascal presents these letters as written to a provincial friend to explain developments in Christian theology with bitter irony and acerbic polemic. In particular, Pascal, who was sympathetic to the Jansenist movement that Pope Innocent X officially condemned in 1653 with Cum occasione, takes aim at the Jesuits, whom the letters depict as proponents of moral laxity and semi-Pelagians when it comes to grace. The Jesuits, in turn, accused the Jansenists and Jansenist-adjacent theologians associated with the Port-Royal schools of Calvinism; in the end, their accusations won the day and Port-Royal was literally razed in 1711.

The conflict between Pascal and the Jesuits as it is presented in the Provincial Letters revolves around at least four main themes. First and foremost, Pascal paints himself and his fellow Jansenist sympathizers, who referred to themselves as the Followers of St. Augustine, as defenders of the Roman Catholic tradition. In the later letters, he frequently cites the Church Fathers (Augustine, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Cyril, Jerome, Irenaeus, and others) in defense of his views, and in his reported conversations with a Jesuit monk, he often asks how the Jesuits reconcile their conclusions with the declarations of the popes and the ecumenical councils, with which Pascal believes his commitments cohere. Pascal implies that the Jesuits, by contrast, find no warrant for their casuistic moral theology in the popes or councils, but are content to cite the support of their fellow Jesuits, who include Luis de Molina, Francisco Suárez, Thomas Sanchez, and Antonio Escobar y Mendoza. He offers the impression that the Jesuits are, in practice, divorced from the authority of the Catholic tradition and ensconced in an insular theological bubble. The result, in Pascal’s view, is that Jesuit casuistry (which in its formal sense merely means the application of moral principles to particular situations or circumstances) promotes a pernicious moral laxity that accommodates or even excuses evil. In some sense, his criticisms echo those of earlier Protestant Reformers who claimed that Roman Catholic practices departed considerably from what is enjoined in holy scripture. When Pascal cites the Bible to his Jesuit interlocutor, the latter dismisses it and, as a rejoinder, references the authority of yet another Jesuit casuist.

Another major theme concerns the status of human practical reason in moral reflection. Pascal indicates that the Jesuits believe not only that human reason is able to discern the first precepts of natural law (which Thomas Aquinas also maintains), but also that humans can reason accurately and without error about practical moral problems. This latter view patently contrasts Thomas’s claim that the closer one comes to particular moral cases, the more liable reason is to err in the application of natural law principles due to epistemic limitations attributable to our fallen nature. Nevertheless, the Jesuits seem to think that by means of nuanced distinctions, stipulated definitions, and above all, the doctrine of probabilism (per which, if an opinion is probable, it is permissible to adopt it, even if the opposite opinion is more probable), they can not only achieve mathematical precision in cases of practical reason, but also soothe the anxious consciences of Catholic Christians terrified of mortal sin and damnation. For Pascal, this mathematical approach to practical reason both overestimates the abilities of fallen human reason and blithely condones sinful behavior. Pascal, conversely, believes that practical reason is akin to informed intuition: one’s conscience is first tutored by authoritative sources in the Catholic tradition (scripture, councils, creeds, etc.), by which it is equipped to reason intuitively—and more or less correctly, albeit not infallibly—in specific cases. In effect, Pascal claims that the Jesuit casuists have not been properly tutored in this way.

Related to this last theme, the third prominent theme in the Provincial Letters concerns the Jesuit doctrine of the direction of intention, or what is sometimes known as “double effect,” which has its roots in Thomas Aquinas. Like Peter Abelard before them, the Jesuit casuists put a premium on intention when it comes to moral action: the moral quality of an action is located principally, if not exclusively, in the intention behind it. This means that a moral action that, on its face, is prohibited, can be redefined if the intention behind it is not directed toward the morally impermissible end. For example, in the ethics of war, the principle of non-combatant immunity is widely accepted; nevertheless, because one act can have multiple effects, one of which is intended while the other is unintended, one can intend for a military action to kill enemy soldiers, which is permissible, even if one knows or reasonably expects that the same action will also kill non-combatants, an impermissible outcome which one does not intend. The principle of double effect has a checkered history and Pascal picks up on how such an exclusive focus on the intention behind an action can provide a blanket justification for all sorts of ostensibly impermissible actions. In fact, double effect helps Pascal’s Jesuit monk justify actions we would ordinarily denominate as usury, murder, theft, and simony. Pascal thus worries about double effect and the primacy of intention for at least two reasons: first, it calls into question our ordinary moral language—an action which we would typically call murder is suddenly not murder because the killer only intended to defend their honor. What warrants such a dramatic shift in how our moral terms are applied? Second, Pascal denies that humans possess the kind of freedom needed to direct one’s intention away from an impermissible end and toward a permissible one in the heat of action. In other words, Pascal does not think that intention can be so discreetly and rationally directed, free from other inclinations and complex sources of motivation.

The final and fourth theme prominent in the Provincial Letters relates to this last concern about human freedom, which in turn implicates how Pascal understands grace. Pascal concedes that humans do have the limited freedom to choose between various desires and to act in accordance with those choices. However, due to what Pascal calls “the delectation of the flesh,” or concupiscence, which he claims is the punishment of the sin of Adam, human desires are fundamentally and inexorably disordered. Critically for Pascal, this unfortunate existential fact of human existence is not unfreedom: “Concupiscence and force are the basis of all our actions. Concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones” (Pensées, 131). That is, in the absence of divine assistance and due to our fallen nature humans merely possess the freedom to choose between false loves to which we are enslaved. This position, influenced by Augustine, also coheres with the Lutheran suspicion about free will, with the important caveat that Pascal insists that the inability not to sin does not impede human freedom: when the sinner chooses to love an idol—be it wealth, power, or sensual pleasure—she is not coerced to choose this false love since her own desire motivates such a choice. For Pascal, to deserve divine condemnation does not require freedom from concupiscence, which would be impossible, but rather freedom from external compulsion. And concupiscence is not external compulsion, since it is an intrinsic feature of the fallen human condition.

As a Catholic, Pascal affirms the meritorious character of human action for justification before God: grace enables the human to fulfill the commandments and perform charitable acts of love toward God and others, on account of which one is sanctified en route to perfection and justification. This view clearly differentiates Pascal’s position from the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrine of justification by faith alone. Yet, in accordance with Luther and Calvin, Pascal underscores the absolute priority of grace with respect to whom God elects to be justified. Contra the Jesuit notion that the human will “renders [grace] efficacious or inefficacious at its pleasure, without any additional aid from God” (II, 12), Pascal insists that grace in and of itself is efficacious in that it actualizes what God intends in its bestowal. The efficacy of grace must not depend upon some subsequent act of the human will—which would make humans “masters of their salvation or damnation,” an insult to the infallible will of God—but, rather, reorients the will and moves it to action (Pensées, 216). Enslaved to concupiscence, the human will cannot render grace efficacious of its own volition because it cannot overcome the resistance it encounters from its earthly delectations; it does not possess of its own accord the ability to actualize grace that does not reorient the will and move it to action (II, 13). In short, the human will does not possess the more robust kind of freedom the Jesuits strove to maintain.

How, then, can virtuous human action still be meritorious? For Pascal, this is because, despite the absolute priority of grace, virtuous human action is really free. And this is because, like Augustine, he locates free will in desire. In the Provincial Letters, he writes:

God transforms the heart of man by shedding abroad in it a heavenly sweetness, which . . . makes him conceive a distaste for the pleasures of sin which interpose between him and incorruptible happiness. Finding his chiefest joy in the God who claims him, his soul is drawn towards Him infallibly, but of its own accord, by a motion perfectly free, spontaneous, love-impelled; so that it would be its torment and punishment to be separated from Him (XVIII, 194-95).

Here, Pascal explains how efficacious grace fundamentally transforms human desire and liberates it from concupiscence. Grace, then, does not eliminate human freedom because it does not remove the ability to do otherwise; the Christian whose desires are transformed retains the capacity to not act in accordance with her new desire for God—she can (but does not want to) act on her former earthly delectations. Rather, her divinely-infused love of God is her new source of motivation and will consequently influence her action; this action, moreover, will be free even if, due to the infallible nature of this divinely-infused desire for God, it is necessary. Pascal’s position is what contemporary moral philosophers would call compatibilist—free will coexists with the absolute infallibility of the divine will, and with free will comes merit, sanctification, and ultimately justification.

In the Provincial Letters, Pascal correctly calls our attention to the reality that human moral improvement is not the product of rational moral reflection alone but requires a careful examination of the desires, both conscious and partly conscious or unconscious, that motivate and shape human behavior. His emphasis on the existential reality of concupiscence serves to underscore the complex web of selfish desires in which the human person is constantly ensnared and which distract from the moral life. If one seeks to act morally, one must first identify these desires and seek to transform them, and this transformation may require liberation from them that one cannot accomplish on one’s own. Thus, Pascal also calls our attention to the possibility that in the depths of human pride, selfishness, and the lust for domination, an individual’s liberation from desires that inhibit virtuous behavior may depend on a power beyond oneself that enables one to enact the moral life.

[Iván Corona calcaño · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly fun and compelling book to read, considering its subject matter, its age and its programmatic nature, but it does lose some of its literary interest after the 10th letter, when the tone changes and the letters become too serious and redundant.
I must say that this book made me laugh out loud several times, and that I always found it very intriguing, like some sort of a theological noir, with strong comedy. The satire and irony are strong, but never really inhuman or cruel. It is also an example of perfect argumentation. Pascal is, for me, the smartest of all writers.

[Maurice]

A good read. Found the style of writing a challenge.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pascal goes after the Jesuits, and it ain't pretty. In the end, he makes a strong case for humility and Christian unity. Thanx, Blaise!

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's unusual to read a contentious book where one agrees wholly with the arguments the author is making, finds his irony biting and his jokes (written 350 years ago!) still funny, and yet remain glad that while the writer undoubtedly won the literary battle, he lost the theological war. For Blaise Pascal wrote in defence of the rigour of his spiritual brother at Port-Royal, the Jansenist school and convent that, following an Augustinian view of the depravity of human nature, produced as the sculptural expression of their theological view versions of the crucifix where Jesus' arms are raised above his head, the hands almost touching, to indicate the narrow way to salvation and that few shall walk that narrow path. But, significantly, around the same time as Pascal was writing and the Jansenist controversy was at its height, St Mary Margaret Alacocque, also in France, had visions of Jesus in which he told her to spread the devotion to his sacred heart. The pictures and statues - perhaps the most typical of popular Catholicism - show Jesus with his arms spread wide, open to all. So while Blaise Pascal had by far the best of his argument with the lax-minded Jesuits and their tendency to write off sins - and by way of a side effect, inventing French lettres and paving the way for Montaigne - God answered personally against the Jansenist tendency to restrict the Divine Mercy. But then, God did speak to Blaise Pascal, in fire and light, and answered for him as well, in the Sacred Heart.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai lu "Les lettres provinciales" parce que l'on parlait énormément du jansénisme il y a cinquante ans quand je faisais mon premier cycle à l'université de Toronto. La professeure qui m'avait enseigne "Phèdre" de Jean Racine a qualifié la pièce de Janséniste. (En bref, le péché de Phèdre était du au fait qu'elle n'était pas prédestinée pour le salut.) L'idée était raisonnable car après tout Racine a été éduqué à Port-Royal le couvent où Pascal a écrit "Les lettres provinciales". L'année après j'ai lu à l'université "Port-Royal" de Henry de Montherlant qui était un hommage à l'esprit rigoriste de Port-Royal. J'ai lu "Les lettres provinciales" finalement dans le but d'enquêter sur une légende.
Si on est motivé "Les lettres provinciales" plait beaucoup. Pascal a été un grand maitre du polémique. Son ton satirique fait rire le lecteur du 21e siècle autant que le lecteur du XVIIe siècle. Le seul hic est qu'il est nécessaire de connaitre la philosophie scolastique et le casuistique Jésuite afin de suivre les arguments de Pascal. Ce n'est pas une lecture pour tout le monde.

[Aaron Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you ever wanted to know why Blaise hated the Jesuits give it a read.

[Nemo]

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest you also be like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he be wise in his own eyes.
Proverbs 26:4,5

Blaise Pascal, a Catholic theologian, scientist and brilliant thinker, wrote these letters to defend his Jansenist friends against charges of heresy by the Jesuits.

I tend to think that Pascal is a kindred spirit of Kierkegaard. First, they both strongly object to the academics of their time who substitute abstraction and speculation for the concrete and specific moral demands of Christianity on the individual. Second, they both employ irony to great effect, following the tradition of Church Fathers such as Tertullian and Augustine. One cannot help but feel their passion when they laugh at the folly of their opponents, and weep over their blindness at the same time.

Pascal criticizes the Society of Jesus for holding many contradictory doctrines. It doesn't surprise me, since minds as diametrically opposed as Voltaire and Descartes both came from their midst. As Aristotle put it, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

The Jesuits' moral reasoning, casuistry, seems to be an attempt to reconcile the Christian doctrine of Charity with secular social norms, such as the concept of honour as demonstrated in the practice of dueling and honour killing, and the concept of reciprocal justice known as "an eye for an eye".

Pascal sharply criticizes the Jesuits for condoning calumny and murder on plausible pretences. For example, some Jesuits write, “Honour is more than life; it is allowable to kill in defence of life; therefore it is allowable to kill in defence of honour." One might replace "honour" with "liberty" or "property", or anything else he deems valuable, to justify murder, as Locke justifies killing in defence of private property in his treatise on government.

(Read full review at Nemo's Library)

[cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Counted as one of the greatest works in the French language, Pascal's letters are a brilliant mix of acumen, well constructed argument, and withering wit. He launched an assault on the moral theology of the Jesuits during the height of the Jansenist controversy and left a rather amusing and enlightening work what is beautiful in its turn of both phrase and thought.

The first half of the letters is Pascal's attempt to relate the opposing views in the controversy and to illuminate the Jesuit views in all their folly. The second half (which is, unfortunately, a bit more functional and less engaging) is a mix of parry and riposte as Pascal swats away the arguments of his opponents. For the first time in my life, i found myself wising that I read French.

[Kata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading it in Hungarian translation as "Vidéki levelek".

[Travis Armes]

letters 1-8

[Jake McAtee · Rating 3 out of 5]

In which Pascal trolls Jesuits. FWIW, Voltaire once said this was "the best-written book that has yet appeared in France.”

[Evan Þ. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally got around to reading this book, some years after reading the short biography of Pascal which prompted me to put it on my list. This's a set of pseudonymous letters written in 1656-1657 during the Jansenist controversy, where Pascal (himself a Roman Catholic) humorously defends Jansenism (a movement within the Roman Catholic church) against accusations of heresy, and attacks the Jesuits (strong opponents of Jansenism) for their casuistry.

I prepared myself to read this by a quick skim of the Wikipedia and Catholic Encyclopedia articles on Jansenism, and this was a good thing. Pascal assumes his audience is familiar with the details of the controversy, and I found myself almost lost at several points. But also, I found myself oddly placed - I'd been sympathetic to the Jansenist understanding of salvation because I found it similar to Calvinism (I'm not quite a Calvinist, but very sympathetic); yet that was exactly the grounds on which Rome had condemned it as heresy, and exactly the accusation from which Pascal was defending it. He makes a prima facie case distinguishing it on a few points, but I'd need to read more if I wanted to better judge.

The greater part of the letters, though, ridicules the Jesuits for how they minimize sin and the need for repentance, such as by holding up "probable opinions" (i.e. any theologian's superficially-plausible claim) that something isn't a sin, and by carefully distinguishing motives to say that people haven't actually committed serious sin. If Pascal is at all correct, I'd agree with him and condemn the Jesuits as dangerous heretics. But just the same, Pascal's total lack of diplomacy makes me totally understand why this book was suppressed.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone except people specifically interested in the history of the Jesuits, or of the Jansenist controversy.

[Taka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly good. Contrary to what you might expect from its dull front cover (of a provincial town, supposedly), these polemical letters written by Pascal to satirize the Jesuits are quite amusing and easy to read. He writes really, really well and clearly (a mathematician at work?) with superb rhetoric and the fervor of someone who believes in what he's writing. I actually liked the letters better than his incomplete and fragmented Pensées, though that might also have to do with how pretty knowledgeable I was about the theological points discussed in them (after reading all the books for research). But with a little bit of orientation about grace and human free will, I don't think you have any problem following the letters, especially the first ten—after that, it gets serious, long, and technical, though the same mastery of rhetoric is still there.

[Patrycja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand the importance of this letters and their probable impact on the Catholic Church and the way the theological disputes were perceived. Having said so, somewhere in the middle of it I though about throwing it outside my window. The behaviour of the Society of Jesus seems so bizarre ( although it is true ) that I just couldn't wrap my head around it. But it highlights the bad consequences of doing to much to accommodate as many believers as possible, forgetting the sources and importance of basic rules which should not be changed or made easier for them as they are the foundation of the whole religion. And more often then not, they do more good than the average person is aware of.

[Francisco Barrios · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dieciocho cartas y un fragmento que evidencian, con base en las obras jesuitas en boga en tiempos de Pascal, los excesos cometidos por la Compañía de Jesús y sus casuistas.

Si bien a ratos la argumentación teológica anquilosa el contenido mismo de las cartas, la lectura de un Pascal polemista que emplea la ironía más sutil y demoledora es un deleite. Algunos argüirán que sería deseable, para el gran público, una edición que purgue a las cartas justamente de la polémica teosófica; sin embargo, a mi juicio, no podría disfrutarse de aquélla sin ésta.

Un libro pesado a ratos, pero gratificante al final.

[Zbigniew Zdziarski · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a rhetorician Pascal was. I can see now why he "is read today as one of the greatest masters of French prose." His wit and satire to unmask corruption and logical flaws in the Jesuit teachings are exceptional. By the end of the first letter I stopped caring about the theological debates being expounded by Pascal. Who cares (so to speak) when you're witnessing such fluent prose combined with a genius mind like his? Nobody stood a chance against that. Beautiful.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stylistically very good with some useful critiques of Jesuits and Molinism. Pascal was no fan of Reformed eucharistic theology and he makes some ambiguous comments on soteriology from which Protestants would dissent.

[Maxime N. Georgel · Rating 5 out of 5]

On ne voit plus les jésuites de la même manière après cette lecture ! Très bien écrit, bien sûr.

J’ai lu une édition Larousse ancienne avec des extraits choisis.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super sarcastic and funny. But I probably would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about Jesuits and Jansenists.

[Atrona Grizel (Sov8840)]

I watched a clock run backward and felt time unravel, revealing the illusion of progress as nothing more than a desperate loop of repetition.