The last blog was an introduction to the theologian/philosopher/scientist Blaise Pascal. He is rightfully receiving more attention as some of his thoughts (Pensees) are a wonderful examination of human existence and the connection to the Gospel. The last blog recounted Pascal's suggestion that the unending sense of need that people try to fill actually points to the Gospel of Christ. The hole that seems endless can only be filled by something (or someone) that is endless.
Here's where I think it gets interesting and pretty accurate in terms of how people actually live. Pascal tells us that people use diversion in their life to avoid realizing that they are, in fact, empty. What he meant by that through busyness and entertainment people can actually try to remove the dissonance that they feel so strongly. The word that Pascal uses is "diversions". Yikes! Here’s a guy who lived a long time ago and yet I think he's pinpointed something that is true! Think about everything that people try and fill their emptiness with, craving something like meaning and purpose, satisfaction and fulfillment, but nothing seems to actually work. If a person doesn't want to acknowledge a personal Creator God who made them and knows the depth of their aching need and the void inside of them, what must they do to "ignore" so great an impulse? Pascal suggests that people divert themselves in order to avoid the real solution.
Pascal writes, "We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it." The shallowness of our lives is so apparent from the "stuff" that we put in our lives to fill us. I'm sorry but there is no amount of information about Jon and Kate Gosselin that adds to the "good life". People cannot face the fact that they are empty and so they fill their lives up with junk. Pascal uses a French word that is very direct and literally means "crap." I think it's what the apostle Paul gets at in Philippians 3:8 when he uses the Greek word, "scubula". It does not literally mean "dung" or "refuse". Those are too sanitized. You get the shock value of the contrast?
All of this is connected to our heart. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to watch over our hearts from out of our hearts flows our real life. What Pascal did write was, “The heart has reasons that reason does not know.” For an old dead dude, that’s pretty accuate! Pascal was focused more on the hearts of people rather than trying to rationally prove God's existence. I think the formal proofs for God’s existence are helpful and they have their place. But what if we followed the lead of Pascal and C.S. Lewis and Ravi Zacharias and Kierkegaard and start with the condition of people and what they feel in every day life? I think that would help the gospel message connect more with people.
