Theology Forum Seminar
Philosophy 4600
Fall 2005
Instructor: Wes Morriston
Wednesdays at 3:00pm
A one-credit seminar devoted to theological issues. Can be taken three
times for credit. This semester, we'll be discussing Thomas Morris's
highly readable book on Pascal and the meaning of life. To give you a
quick sense of what this book is about, here are the chapter titles,
followed by a few paragraphs from the first chapter.
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Imagine yourself a victim of amnesia suddenly awakening from a deep
sleep in the midst of some vast forest. Looking around, it seems that
you are equipped for a journey of some kind, but you realize to your
utter astonishment that you have no idea where you came from, how you
got here, where in the world you are, or where you're going. You have
no map or compass. And your surroundings seem, in various ways, very
strange, even dangerous. If someone else were to appear on the scene
who seemed to understand your situation and to have answers for all
your questions, you'd listen. At least, if I were in such a position, I
certainly would. And if this person described the location of our
immediate environs in a way that made sense of what I could see and
hear around me, I'd listen all the more intently to what he had to say
about my origins, mission, and destination. I hope you would too.
This, of course, is a simple image of the human condition. For the most part, we sleepwalk through life. When something does happen to awaken us from our slumber, we sit befuddled, disoriented, perplexed. If someone comes along who seems to be able to help make sense of our situation, it is only reasonable that we should listen. One such person is the great seventeenth-century scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal. In his Pensées (pronounced "Pon-sayz"; a rough English translation would be Thoughts) we have the notes for a book he intended to write, a book that was meant to provide us with that map and compass we so desperately need. The book was never written. Death intervened. But the notes themselves evince such a profound cartography of the spirit that, after three hundred years, the Pensées remains a perennial bestseller. These scintillating and often profound reflections on such topics as the human quest for a happy life, the greatness and wretchedness of the human condition, the nature of faith, the hiddenness of God, and the cogency of a religious worldview constitute a philosophical bequest capable of changing people's lives. I've seen it happen. Mature, intelligent people who have lived long enough to realize how little they know about what really matters in life find in Pascal's thoughts exciting new perspectives and directions for their own thinking. Many people who have almost given up trying to make much sense of their lives find in these notes enough clues, hints, and flashes of insight to spur them on and renew their quest to make sense of it all. In this book I want to explore with Pascal those most important questions for getting our bearings. This will not be a book about Pascal. There are many fascinating studies of his life. Nor will it be a book about the Pensées. It will be a book about what the Pensées are about, a book that employs those notes for the purpose of thinking through again their tremendous subject matter, which is nothing less than the nature of faith, reason, and the meaning of life. I want to join Pascal in attempting to lay out some coordinates for thinking about these things and in trying to chart some appropriate paths to take with our lives in response to what we come to see. |