A Brief Book Notice from Books At a Glance
Eight Quotes from Douglas Groothuis’ Beyond the Wager: The Christian Brilliance of Blaise Pascal
- “Scientist, inventor, philosopher, mystic, and theologian, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is more often quoted (or misquoted) than understood.” (1)
- “Blaise Pascal’s renown in his own day came chiefly through his achievements in science and mathematics.” (21)
- “In the case of Christianity, he argues that revelation, reason, and experience all contribute in different ways to justifying religious belief.” (29)
- “Pascal was one of the great scientists in his day and remains one of the greatest of Western civilization. He was also a man of deep religious conviction and an apologist for Christian faith.” (29)
- “In rejecting natural theology, Pascal walked a philosophical tightrope stretched between the dangers of skepticism and dogmatism.” (73)
- “Blaise Pascal took Jesus Christ to be the fulcrum of existence.” (106)
- “Pascal applied his great genius to laud his great master, Jesus Christ.” (148)
- “Pascal’s wager is a well-known and much-debated argument in philosophy. Unlike many philosophical debates, it captures the imagination and triggers strong passions on both sides.” (164)