Challenging Modern Atheism and Indifference: Pascal’s Defense of the Christian Proposition

by Pierre Manent, Paul Seaton (translator), Daniel J. Mahoney (foreword)

Challenging Modern Atheism and Indifference is the first English translation of Pierre Manent’s penetrating engagement with the seventeenth century polymath and apologist for the Christian faith, Blaise Pascal.

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), was the first Christian apologist to address modern human beings on their own terms and present a defense of the Christian religion that still resonates today. A major publishing and intellectual event in France when it first appeared in 2022, Challenging Modern Atheism and Indifference is Pierre Manent’s investigation of Pascal’s exploration of Christianity in the wake of a sharp atheistic turn at the dawn of the modern state and modern science. Comprehensive in scope and profound in treatment, this engagement with all of Pascal’s writings, including his famous Pensées, appeals to the reader’s head and heart. Manent emphasizes the joy that comes from engaging the truth of faith, and he argues that we are diminished by forgetting the unique and distinctive contributions of Christianity.

More than brilliant exegesis, Manent enlists Pascal in a much greater to make what he calls “the Christian proposition” concerning God and man intelligible to Europeans who have made it their business to ignore the religion that founded Europe and the larger Western world.

Genres: Philosophy

375 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2025

About the author

Pierre Manent est directeur d' etudes a l' Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, membre fondateur de la revue Commentaire.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a very interesting read. There are some good arguments within the book, and a few that could be a bit stronger. But the author did a good job bringing the questions and answers.