Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Old December 3rd, 2013 #1
Karl Radl
The Epitome of Evil
 
Karl Radl's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: The Unseen University of New York
Posts: 3,130
Default Blaise Pascal on the Jews

Blaise Pascal on the Jews


Blaise Pascal; the famous seventeenth century French inventor, mathematician and philosopher, is not the first person you would think of when you think of geniuses who really didn't like jews. However yet it is most certainly the case as one can immediately see from actually reading what Pascal has to say on the subject in his 'Pensees'.

Before we discuss that however I should point out that in his other theological work; and easily his most delightfully vicious best, 'The Provincial Letters' doesn't mention jews and the closest he gets is a mention of Pharisees. This should not be taken as meaning Pascal didn't go in for criticism of the jews, but rather he had in his mind a far greater intellectual opponent: the Jesuit order. The Letters; written between 1656 and 1657, were an ongoing confrontation with the Jesuits in relation to the Jansenist debate, which was a theological storm in a teacup that occupied much of the seventeenth century and even beyond.

This then indicates to us that Pascal's prodigious intellectual energies were being diverted heavily towards this controversy and away from his other activities such as mathematics and engineering in addition to the subject of the jews.

We can see this in Pascal's posthumously published 'Pensees' when he uses jews as an example to illustrate a point thus:

'Ordinary people have the habit of not thinking of that about which they do not wish to think. “Do not mediate on the passages about the Messiah”, said the Jew to his son. Thus our people are often act. Thus are false religions preserved, and even the true one, in regard to many persons.

But there are some who have not the power of thus preventing thought, and who think so much the more as they are forbidden. These undo false religions and even the true one, if they do not find solid arguments.' (1)

What Pascal is telling us here is simply that the jews are adherents to what Toynbee memorably called a 'fossil religion'. Put another way: Judaism; in Pascal's view, is a superstition that is derived not through the exercise of reason, but rather through the collection of nonsensical doctrines and interpretations that has in turn been replicating and recycling itself for over a millennia.

Thus when Pascal declares that thought undoes false religions by challenging their assumptions by requiring solid arguments and proofs: he is informing of his belief in the superstitious nature of Judaism. As well as the fact; as can be seen by Pascal's use of a parable about a jew talking to his son, that the jews suppress the ability to inquire into ideas that they believe to be dangerous. Therefore preventing the jews from 'seeing the light' in Christianity if you will and enabling them to tenaciously cling to their superstitious fossil religion: Judaism.

This theme of the jews as intellectual cripples and superstitious vagabonds is also seen when Pascal's talks of what James Parkes called 'the conflict between the Church and Synagogue'. To wit:

'And on this ground they [the jews] take occasion to revile the Christian religion, because they misunderstand it. They imagine that it consists simply in the worship of a God considered as great, powerful, and eternal; which is strictly deism, almost as far removed from the Christian religion as atheism, which is the exact opposite. And thence they conclude that this religion is not true, because they do not see that all things concur to the establishment of this point, that God does not manifest Himself to men with all the evidence which He could show.

But let them conclude what they will against deism, they will conclude nothing against the Christian religion, which properly consists in the mystery of the Redeemer, who, uniting in Himself the two natures, human and divine, has redeemed men from the corruption of sin in order to reconcile them in His divine person to God.' (2)

Interpreting this then is not difficult as we can quickly see that what Pascal is arguing here is that the jews do not understand Christianity, because they fear to expose themselves to what it actually believes due to the fact that; as Pascal thought, should they do so then they would have to admit the truth of it. Rather the jews reject Christianity because they don't know what real Christianity is and attack an intellectual straw man of their own creation, which is; in fact, deism not Christianity.

This then indicates the false nature of Judaism to Pascal's mind (as it cannot stare the truth in the eye). While the mention of the belief among the jews that Jesus was not Messiah based on the lack of every sign that could be given by god indicates the fossil/superstitious nature of Judaism, because it uses the letter of the law to argue against the spirit of the law.

In other words: Pascal is pointing out that jews reject Jesus not due to making a reasoned case, but rather because they have interpreted the Bible to mean something additional was required as a sign by god, which was not present in the life of Jesus.

A good approximation of this argument on the part of the jews is afforded by a bunch of grapes. The jews are essentially asserting that when you purchase a bunch of grapes and you find one that is deformed or not ripe then the entire bunch must be rejected or thrown away even if they look and taste delicious because they cannot be grapes due to not being perfect or conforming with expectations. This; as Pascal rightly points out, is ludicrous, because it assumes that because something small is not present or does not meet expectations that everything must be discarded and thus is an irrational position, because it makes an intellectually irresponsible and unsupportable generalization based on a manifestly erroneous assumption.

This idea of the erroneous assumptions of Judaism is pivotal in Pascal's critique of the jews in so far as he points out that it was the jews who originally conceived of original sin (in the sense that Saint Augustine used it), (3) but yet are a failed broken people who are proof of the truth of the doctrines of Christianity (4) and who are also 'irreconcilable enemies' to both it and atheism. (5)

This fanatical and superstitious opposition to Christianity; as well as free intellectual enquiry in general, on the part of the jews: Pascal sees as deriving from the role of the jews as being 'blinded by scripture' (6) in relation to their recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. (7) This lies at the root of Pascal's rejection of the jews as being 'carnal' opponents of Christianity: (8) since those who have not converted have 'heathen' ideas (9) and are accordingly not true jews (who wish to; or have, converted to Christianity in Pascal's opinion). (10)

Indeed as Pascal says the 'heathen should be chosen in the stead of the jews' and points out that the jews are to be rejected and 'treated like strangers' (i.e. exiled and removed from Christian lands as well as rigorously legislated against), because of the offences they have committed against god and his representatives on earth: Jesus and the Church he founded. (11) That said he does not want to the jews to be wiped out en bloc (as some Fathers of the Church recommended), but rather suggests that the superstitions and presence of the jews on earth (who are to be 'separated from all peoples') (12) serve as an example to Christians of what happens when they do not obey god's covenant with them (13) since the jews live in 'perpetual misery' due to their disobedience. (14)

This said Pascal does attribute some positives to the jewish people given that he regards them as 'witnesses' to the truth of Christianity and suggests that they have (in the past) produced some geniuses who are to be admired (but have not since the advent of Jesus). (15) Yet he also points out that the jews were (and are) extremely covetous and obsessed with material things as well as that quintessential jewish fixation: money. (16) This Pascal perceptively holds to be representative of their state of misery in so far as they are unable to drink of the divine wisdom of Christianity

This; so he tells us, led to the downfall of the jews as they had grown obsessed with sex (17) and money (18) leading to their being superseded as the chosen people of god by Christians (19) as well as becoming the principal part (20) of the 'frightful darkness' (21) and 'the wicked' (22) opposing the spread of the light of Christianity.

We can thus see that Pascal's opposition to the jews was; in the context of his time,both strong and significant precisely because he expresses private strong anti-jewish sentiments within a world view dominated by a need to rationalize itself within Christian theological concepts such as 'the jewish remnant' and the idea that the jews are 'living witnesses' to the truth of Christianity. If we but strip these away we can quite easily see that Pascal is referring to the jews as being dangerous, covetous outsiders within European society both historically and currently who pose a significant and ongoing threat to it. Accordingly Pascal wanted to see the jews removed from Christian lands post haste as well as attending to the stripping of their ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the poor.

This then is hardly the viewpoint of a man who liked jews, but rather what would be frequently (but wrongly) called today: an anti-Semite.


References


(1) Blaise Pascal, 'Pensees', 4:259
(2) Ibid, 8:556
(3) Ibid, 7:446
(4) Ibid, 4:289
(5) Ibid, 8:560
(6) Ibid, 8:573; 12:745-750
(7) Ibid, 8:571
(8) Ibid, 9:607; 10:662
(9) Ibid, 9:608
(10) Ibid, 9:609-610
(11) Ibid, 9:610; 10:654; 12:761
(12) Ibid, 9:619; 11:727; 12:773; 12:781
(13) Ibid, 9:610; 618; 10:645
(14) Ibid, 9:640; 10:661
(15) Ibid, 9:620
(16) Ibid, 10:663
(17) Ibid, 10:664; 671
(18) Ibid, 10:670
(19) Ibid, 9:601-607; 11:699-708
(20) Ibid, 12:762-763
(21) Ibid, 12:737
(22) Ibid, 12:759

----------------------------


This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...l-on-jews.html
__________________

Last edited by Karl Radl; December 4th, 2013 at 05:12 PM.
 
Reply

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:21 PM.
Page generated in 0.09142 seconds.