I'm reading Pascal's Pensees at the moment, and I am really worked up about this man's writing. He's so articulate at expressing his opinions and justifying them. What do the members of this forum think about him?

I read the entire provincial letters a few years back via the internet on RomanCatholicism.org, and I confess I knew the book to be on the index, however I am reminded that in days when we had Popes it was often the case that certain individuals could receive permission to study heretical writings for a period of time, so it was with the lay Cardinal Gasparo Contrarini and the writings of the heresiarch Luther.

As such I believing that their was no valid Pope could not request permission to read such writings so in the absence of such authority what was I to do.

Now what I remember about the book was that the first couple letters revolved around Antoine Arnaulds impending expulsion from the Sorbonne and the Jesuitical Molinists and the Dominican Thomists agreeing on the term "proximate power" as a hall mark of orthodoxy while no doubt both had a different idea in mind as to what that term meant. The later letters dealt mainly with the teachings of the Jesuit casuists.

That is pretty much all I remember about the book, as to my opinion of Pascal the man I would probably have to reflect on the matter further ... I know that his devotion to Jansenism was no doubt solidified by external factors such as the miracle(?) of the holy thorn which healed his niece from some sort of problem with her eyes and the stiff resistance of his beloved sister Jacqueline to signing the formulary.

A certain version of Pascal's Pensees are on the Index, but only if they contain the notes of Voltaire. There are some historians and philosophers (Peter Kreeft for one) who allege that Pascal was not a Jansenist, but merely sympathetic. I think that may be true, and that he might have been guilty by association. A similar situation might be found with Johann von Staupitz, whose association with Martin Luther resulted in von Staupitz having several works placed on the Index, yet all Catholic sources that I have seen agree that von Staupitz was no heretic.

A certain version of Pascal's Pensees are on the Index, but only if they contain the notes of Voltaire. There are some historians and philosophers (Peter Kreeft for one) who allege that Pascal was not a Jansenist, but merely sympathetic. I think that may be true, and that he might have been guilty by association. A similar situation might be found with Johann von Staupitz, whose association with Martin Luther resulted in von Staupitz having several works placed on the Index, yet all Catholic sources that I have seen agree that von Staupitz was no heretic.

I personally find it hard to believe that Pascal was not a Jansenist, indeed I find it more probable that he was even more committed to Jansenism than many of his coreligionists, for when it came time for the nuns of Port Royal to sign the formulary, Pascal backed the view of his sister Jacqueline Pascal that to sign the formulary amounted to a denial of the doctrine of efficacious grace, rather than the view of other Jansenists that it was ok to sign it so long as a distinction was made between matters of faith and matters of fact, the Pope in their view being infallible only in matters of faith.

So if anything Pascal was more of a Jansenist than say Pierre Nichole.