Pascal's Faith and the Logic of the Heart

One of the most remarkable statement uttered by G.K Chesterton was this, "The madman is not the man who lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason." Reason is important. Yet, Reason is not everything contrary to what Molyneux who argued that reason and argument prevent civilization from descending to hell. Rational argument is everything! Nonetheless, another thing is needed as well to company human reason that is to say heart, we can use the other term "The knowledge of the heart": borrowing the term from Pascal. Pascal remind on how religious thinker cannot know God as certain as 1+1=2 (even some thinker argue 1+1 not necessarily become 2!). To think about God, there is always a room for mystery. Yet, Mystery does not mean mysterious or ambiguous. Bringing the dimension of transcendent God, we can conclude that God cannot be easily proven through the means of reason but also the means of heart. In one occasion, Pascal says that 'le  coeur a ses raisons qua la raison ne connait pas" (The heart has its reason that reason does not recognize?). Through this statement, some has regarded Pascal as a thinker who promote fideism. Fideism is the idea that someone can believe something without reason (Just-believe/easy-believism) or to present the argument of God without giving a bedrock philosophical reason for God existence. In respond, Pascal's statement need to put in context as Pascal once says," There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration. The Christian religion, which alone has reason, does not acknowledge as her true children those who believe without inspiration." 

Painstakingly, Pascal was not an anti-evidences person. He himself once claim that religion with reason is far better than religion without reason. Probably, because of the emphasis on the depravity of reason presented by Pascal, he was seen by others who do not know him well as anti-reason. If indeed Pascal anti-reason he would not engaged deeply in mathematics at the first place. Moreover, as a thinker he was noted as an intellectual who have capacity to discuss a depth matter of science and philosophy and of course, his expertise, mathematics and developed what we known today as "probability theory". Moreover we can say, he is a sober rationalism as he once says, "contradiction is the poor indication of truth". So apparently, pascal did not elevate heart beyond reason. What actually happening here is that Pascal directs attention to the logic of heart whereby God work miraculously into the heart of man, so that so, people are incline and able to believe the truthfulness of religion, in this case Christianity.

Today, this notion of logic of heart is slowly faded. People put lot emphasis on methods. Especially for the matter of religion, to preach the Word is like giving a talk or we can say in popular term, Public speaking. Preacher have lost their true identity. They preach not what God want them to say as written in the divine text but they are moving away from the text before them when the text is not user-friendly to the modern listener: the message of sin, judgement, repentance are the things are not so popular nowadays. The confidence of the public speaker is located in the method and the presentation of the message not in the Spirit and the idea of the logic of the heart. Without the understanding of the logic of heart implanted deeply, we are tempted to think that people can believe in the truthfulness of Christian faith, through the means of reason alone best with our rhetorical device. Our fault is to think that If people don't believe, either they are too stubborn or our reason is not rational enough to convert the people. It does not necessary work in that direction. In this case, even Pascal Himself appreciate the heart of atheism for he believes if God does not touch the heart of atheist in the first place, no matter how convincing our arguments are, nothing will change their heart. They won't believe in God anyway. Faith is the substance of the logic of the heart. If faith is given by God in the heart of man, people will believe in God even the argument is consider quite weak by the expert, in the most extreme case the children level-like argument. There are people who have a feeling of strong desire of God without ever digging deep the Sacred text. This is one of the simple characteristic of the logic of heart that we can found in our daily life. 

Pascal also distinguished between faith and rational proof. Faith is the ultimate key to convert people.  That is why every people when they are converted, they did not say "I know" but "I believe." When faith is given through the logic of the heart there is a feeling of heart that they need God and surrender to Him to the utmost. Herman  Schultz a theologian concludes, "apologetic can by itself, neither convert nor save." Yet, Reason and rational proof still have a part to remove the obstacle for believing. Many has been asked, then if this is true, why we need to do apologetics? Why need to learn various methods that is rational and logical? Here we need to know that apologetics also have their own place to play in presenting the case for truth. The apologist give the best of human out of the route of reason, contributing as far human can give as a respond for God's love and salvation but eventually, faith fly when reason stop. In fact, human is a rational creature hence, it is logical and a kind of responsibility for us to present an apologetics to human. We cannot present truth by reasoning to animal. The logic of heart does not eliminate the very need for apologetics in the skeptical world of our time. Both reason and heart, once again are one in the whole package of God plan for human salvation. 

It is evident that the logic of heart is known as the core of Christian faith and plainly can be seen in the divine text particularly the writing of the apostle Paul. Richard Swinburne also claim this is the general believe of Christian except those who dubbed to Pelagian Theology. Crucial for everyone to reflect our personal posture in delivering the Word. The question is not whether one believe the logic of the heart or not but whether people confidently believe and put this truth into practice. One simple examination, do we pray to God after our Word delivery, asked for God's mercy so that so our message will touch the heart of the people or do we preoccupied more with our style, our fluency, and our method? (For we are afraid that we looks bad in the eyes of  "audience" in public speaking term). God change the disposition of the heart of sinner through the means of faith, this is the logic of heart. The very thing that Pascal himself was experiencing  in his life as Paul Edwards wrote, "Pascal's heart told him there is a God, there is life after death, and he himself was going to inherit eternal bliss..."