Why Pascal’s Wager Still Pays Off (with Graham Tomlin)

The patron saint of cultural apologetics is Augustine of Hippo, author most famously of City of God and Confessions. Second place is up for debate. But you’ll get a lot of votes for a 17th-century disciple of Augustine, the Frenchman Blaise Pascal. Graham Tomlin describes Pascal as the “man who made the modern world” in a new biography. Tomlin is the director of the Centre for Cultural Witness in Oxford, England. He writes of Pascal that “it is hard to think of anyone who has impacted so many fields of human endeavour in such a short time.”  Here’s a taste from Tomlin about Pascal’s accomplishments: he basically invented probability theory; proved the existence of the vacuum; laid the foundations of integral calculus; conducted the first modern scientific experiment; developed theory that made possible the hydraulic press; demonstrated that air has weight; designed and built the first mechanical calculating machine, which led to what we know as the computer; set the trend of wearing wrist watches; and built the first public urban transportation system in Europe.  And did I already mention he was one of the most effective and enduring cultural apologists of all time, perhaps second only to Augustine? Tomlin writes, “His was a Christianity founded in a profound experience of God, an intense devotional life and a form of faith that offered a radical alternative to the comfortable assimilation to culture that the Church of his day often seemed to promote.” Let’s talk to Graham Tomlin about this remarkable man, who lamented man’s inability to sit quietly by himself, who observed, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” In This Episode: 00:00 – Pascal’s wager and living as if Christianity is true 00:49 – Introducing Blaise Pascal, the cultural apologist who helped make the modern world 02:36 – Pascal’s remarkable inventions, including public transportation and the Pascaline 05:42 – Augustine’s influence on Pascal’s theology of desire, fallenness, and grace 08:11 – Why Pascal trusted reason in science but not as the starting point for faith 10:46 – Pascal’s “Night of Fire” and encounter with the living God 16:43 – Why Pascal went to war with the Jesuits 20:20 – Jansenism, Calvinism, and Pascal’s understanding of grace 25:51 – The hiddenness of God as an argument for faith 32:38 – How human misery points toward human greatness 39:46 – What Pascal’s Wager actually means 48:45 – Pascal, Jonathan Haidt, and the psychology of belief 49:05 – “Make it attractive”: Pascal’s enduring strategy for cultural apologetics 51:59 – How Pascal anticipated both the modern and postmodern worlds 59:22 – What Pascal would say about modern science and scientism 1:01:43 – Why Pascal’s faith speaks to people who have looked into the abyss 1:03:21 – Outro Resources Mentioned: Blaise Pascal by Graham Tomlin  Pensées by Blaise Pascal  The Provincial Letters by Blaise Pascal  Confessions by Augustine  City of God by Augustine  The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt  The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt  The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics    — — — 📫 SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/gospelbound 🎁 Help The Gospel Coalition build up a renewed church for tomorrow. Let's Build Together: Donate Today at https://www.tgc.org/together 🎧 Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen ▫ Apple Podcasts: <a href="https://podcasts.a