Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. The Penseés is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

This 1908 book contains selections from Pascal's Pensées, translated into English. The first part concerns the 'Misery of Man without God'; the second part discusses the 'Happiness of Man with God'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Pascal and his theological ideas.

For much of his life Pascal (1623-62) worked on a magnum opus which was never published in its intended form. Instead, he left a mass of fragments, some of them meant as notes for the Apologie. These were to become known as the Pensées, and they occupy a crucial place in Western philosophy and religious writing. Pascal's general intention was to confound scepticism about metaphysical questions. Some of the Pensées are fully developed literary reflections on the human condition,, some contradict others, and some remain jottings whose meaning will never be clear. The most important are among the most powerful aphorisms about human experience and behaviour ever written in any language. This translation is the only one based on the Pensées as Pascal left them. It includes the principal dossiers classified by Pascal, as well as the essential portion of the important Writings on Grace. A detailed thematic index gives access to Pascal's areas of concern, while the selection of texts and the introduction help to show why Pascal changed the plan of his projected work before abandoning the book he might have written. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Created by the seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician Pascal, the essays contained in Human Happiness are a curiously optimistic look at whether humans can ever find satisfaction and real joy in life – or whether a belief in God is a wise gamble at best. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) earned recognition as a renowned mathematician, physicist--and a man after God's heart. As he came to the forefront of geometry and physics, he turned his considerable analytical abilities to study religion or, as he said, to "contemplate the greatness and the misery of man." Pascal's classic defense of Christianity--Pensées--persuaded many a skeptic in his time. Today, editor James Houston has organized Pascal's meditations into a logical progression of thought that contemporary readers can enjoy in Mind on Fire. Described as a "Masterpiece of theological scholarship," Mind on Fire also includes selections from Pascal's Letters to a Provincial, a description of his conversion in his own words.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is known in the English-speaking world principally for the wager (an argument that it is rational to do what will affect belief in God and irrational not to), and, more generally, for the Pensées, a collection of philosophical and theological fragments of unusual emotional and intellectual intensity collected and published after his death. He thought and wrote, however, about much more than this: mathematics; physics; grace, freedom, and predestination; the nature of the church; the Christian life; what it is to write and read; the order of things; the nature and purpose of human life; and more. He was among the polymaths of the seventeenth century, and among the principal apologists of his time for the Catholic faith, against both its Protestant opponents and its secular critics. Why Read Pascal? engages all the major topics of Pascal's theological and philosophical writing. It provides discussion of Pascal's literary style, his linked understandings of knowledge and of the various orders of things, his anthropology (with special attention to his presentation of affliction, death, and boredom), his politics, and his understanding of the relation between Christianity and Judaism. Pascal emerges as a literary stylist of a high order, a witty and polemical writer (never have the Jesuits been more thoroughly eviscerated), and, perhaps above all else, as someone concerned to show to Christianity's cultured despisers that the fabric of their own lives implies the truth of Christianity if only they can be brought to look at what their lives are like. Why Read Pascal? is the first book in English in a generation to engage all the principal themes in Pascal's theology and philosophy. The book takes Pascal seriously as an interlocutor and as a contributor of continuing relevance to Catholic thought; but it also offers criticisms of some among the positions he takes, showing, in doing so, how lively his writing remains for us now.

Do you long for the closeness with God that you've tasted in fleeting moments? You can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. In this rich resource Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply and model the seven paths to intimacy with God from Christian history.