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"Who needs God? Man can make it on his own!" That was the rallying cry of many French thinkers in the 1600s. Voltaire and Descartes and others questioned the validity of Christian faith. Their solution was to live by reason alone.

But one French intellectual, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal, one of the foremost scientists of his day, was moving the opposite direction.

Pascal, with his younger sister, was reared and homeschooled in Paris by his father (his mother had died when he was three). The young boy was a prodigy: by age 10, he was performing original experiments. In his late teens, he invented the first calculating device (some call it the first "computer").

This invention made him famous, thrusting him into a wide-ranging scientific career. He tested the theories of researchers like Galileo. He formulated his now famous law of hydraulics: pressure on the surface of a fluid is transmitted equally to every point in a fluid. He wrote influential papers on the concept of vacuum, and on the weight and density of air. He developed the theory of probability, still used today. He invented the syringe, the hydraulic lift, and is credited with inventing the wristwatch and mapping the first bus route in Paris.

From doubter to defender
As Pascal explored the physical world, he also explored the spiritual. In Catholic France, a movement called Jansenism was growing. Sharing many similarities with Calvinism, Jansenists taught God's election and divine grace, rather than good works, were the key to salvation.

In 1646 Pascal came in contact with Jansenism, and though he struggled with it himself, he introduced it to his sister, Jacqueline. She fully embraced it, moving into a Jansenist convent in Port-Royal.

	We shall never believe with a vigorous and unquestioning faith unless God touches our hearts

Ten years later, Pascal was a follower, too, defending Jansenism fiercely against Catholic critics. In January 1656 Pascal wrote Les Provinciales, 18 brilliantly satirical essays attacking the Jesuits and arguing for the need for divine grace.

He also began making notes for a new book, a defense of the Christian faith for skeptics. But Pascal never got a chance to see it published. His frail health (he was plagued by illness all his life) finally gave out in 1662. He was only 39.

Secret notes
Sewn in the lining of his waistcoat, a piece of paper was discovered, documenting an experience Pascal had on November 23, 1654:

"From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past twelve … FIRE … God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not of the philosophers and savants. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace."

Also found among his papers, after his death, were notes for his defense of the faith. They were published by the Jansenists as Pensees ("thoughts"). Pascal portrayed humankind as suspended between wretchedness and happiness. Helpless without God, people try to avoid the horror of their lostness by engaging in distractions. Pascal said reason and science could not help a person come to know God—only by experiencing Christ can people know God.

"Do not be surprised at the sight of simple people who believe without argument," he wrote. "God makes them love him and hate themselves. … We shall never believe with a vigorous and unquestioning faith unless God touches our hearts."

In the Pensees, we also find one of the most famous lines in Christian literature: "The heart has its reasons which reason does not know."

Pascal's scientific achievements were enormous indeed, but his articulate defense of spiritual reality—energized by a profound and personal conversion to Christ—is his greatest legacy.

Adapted from CHRISTIAN HISTORY magazine. To subscribe to CHRISTIAN HISTORY, call 1-800-873-6986.

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