Why is the Book of Thoughts profoundly socially critical and highly independent of thought? (II)

In 1670, Pascal's book Book of Thoughts was first published in France. The book has become one of the classic works in the world's intellectual and cultural history with its sharpness of polemics, depth of thought, and fluency of writing, and has had a far-reaching influence on the later generations, and is regarded as the founding work of French classical prose. The Book of Thoughts is characterized by profound social criticism and a high degree of independence of thought, and is full of the author's cool observation of human feelings. Pascal's language is plain and unadorned, and his essays are written in a friendly and lively manner. The Book of Thoughts has never been out of print since its publication. Together with Montaigne's Essays and Bacon's Treatise on Life, it has been hailed as one of the three classics of modern European philosophical prose. With his unique method of revealing contradictions, the author of this book repeatedly expounds the opposition between the two limits of man's infinity and infinity, argues the paradox that man is both sublime and great, but also very weak and powerless, and reveals the moving theme of "man is great because of his thoughts" with genius. This theme had a great influence on Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, and a number of advanced thinkers, literary figures and dramatists in France, thus leaving an indelible mark on the history of Western intellectual development.

Pascal's theory of thought is centrally embodied in his book The Book of Thoughts. On the one hand, it inherits and develops the tradition of rationalism, criticizing everything by reason; on the other hand, it points out the inherent contradiction of reason itself and its boundaries under the dominant idea that all truths must be presented in the form of contradiction, and reveals the contradiction by his unique method, the so-called "Pascal's method", from the bipolar to the bipolar, and from the bipolar to the bipolar to the bipolar. With his unique method of revealing contradictions, the so-called "Pascal's method," he examined the so-called nature of man and the theoretical problems of the world, life, society, history, philosophical knowledge, and religious beliefs, etc., starting from the opposition of the concepts of the two poles (he himself was the founder of the modern concept of limit). It is interspersed with several elements of dialectical thought, but also shrouded in a heavy layer of pessimistic agnosticism.

The book of Thoughts concentrates on Pascal's theological and philosophical thoughts. Pascal was a very religious thinker, particularly influenced by the ideas of the Ransomites. He believed that man was completely in sin and could only be saved by the gift of God. He stood on the side of the Ransomites and engaged in a tit-for-tat and fruitful controversy with the Jesuits. The strong religious overtones set him far apart from the rationalist currents of thought that were dominant at the time, but he did not deny or devalue human reason. In fact, on the other hand, he inherited the rationalist tradition of rationalizing human nature, life, society, philosophy and religion. Perhaps it can be said that Pascal in this book is separating the issues of religious belief and rationality and addressing the issues related to them from different aspects. Pascal argues that the existence of God and the corruption of human nature are two fundamental religious truths, and that to deny either of them is to fall into atheism. He sees atheism and natural deism as the greatest obstacles to Christian faith. But again, man cannot prove the existence of God through reason. Man is a reed that thinks; however, man's thinking about religious beliefs only proves the finiteness of man's ability to think; it does not prove the existence of God, and reason is useless to religion. Man's relationship to God is one of faith, and faith is a gift from God. While reason cannot prove that God exists, it can tell us that we should choose that God exists. Pascal presents a gambling argument for belief in the existence of God. It means that on the question of whether God exists or not, one can choose that God exists or that God does not exist, but one cannot choose not to make a choice, one has to make a choice about it in life, one has to place a bet. When betting on the existence of God, if God exists, those who believe in God will win all, have unlimited gains, and will achieve happiness. If God does not exist, there is not much to lose.

In Pascal's view, human reason makes man realize the misery of his situation. But this does not at all lead one into pessimism; on the contrary, the knowledge of man's misery makes him greater and stronger. However, many of the ideas that run through the book of Thoughts do have a negative connotation, such as the fragility and frailty of life, the dreamlike nature of life and the impermanence of the world, the inability of reason to ascertain faith, and the reliance on one's intuition and emotions, and so on. There are plenty of places in the book where theological polemics are engaged in, which at first glance would seem to make a modern reader feel stuffy. Yet some of the glowing snippets of his thought often exist right in the middle of the theological gaps. The Ransomite doctrine he inherited was essentially a Calvinist variant of the Reformation, representing the requirements of the primitive accumulation of capital. All theological theories are no more than a disguise for secular interests, and by reducing theology to the secular, it is not difficult to discover the substance of the ideas that lie beneath the theological veneer. Moreover, although the Ransomite-Jesuit polemic was fought within a narrow field of theology, Pascal's own thought highlights this narrow scope on many important issues, both in terms of ideological content and in terms of methodology.

Pascal was an outstanding mathematical and scientific scientist of his time and made an outstanding contribution to the development of human science. He believed that the study of nature required the full utilization of human reason. His scientific research work also had a positive impact on the formation of his worldview. His polemics against the Jesuits also embodied some glorious modern ideas and methods of thought. His opposition to the dogma of ancient authority, his use of experiments to prove the existence of a vacuum, and his opposition to the dogma that "nature is afraid of a vacuum" are all positive reflections of the spirit of modern science.

The system of this book is idealistic, but it has its distinctive historical and progressive significance in inheriting the tradition of Montaigne and other "anthroposophists" and promoting the bourgeois theory of human nature, which is in sharp confrontation with the official theological theories of the Catholic Church represented by the Jesuits. It and the author's own other book, The Foreign Correspondence, reflect an important aspect of the activity of the system of thought of the middle-class opposition on the continent of Western Europe in the early modern period.