Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

• 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.

• Psalm 53:1

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

• Romans 12:2

“ ‘Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that. (Pensées {Thoughts} 188)
“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. (Pensées {Thoughts} 423).’ ”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer (according to Wikipedia).  I think he was more of a Christian writer who happened to be Catholic.  He is the last of the Counter-Reformists mentioned by Tony Lane.

At one point, Pascal followed Jansenism, a splinter group of Catholicism that tried to resolve free will and divine grace.  One of his “thoughts” in writing Thoughts was to reconcile between Jansenism and the Jesuits.  Jansenism has faded in recent centuries, and even Pascal drifted back toward the mainline Catholic beliefs later in life.

Editor’s note: The author is presently two-thirds of the way through the book by Tony Lane.  Blaise Pascal not only ends the discussion on the Counter-Reformation, but the chronology, of sorts, that has been used, the History of Christian Thought.  Next week, we will start the last third of the book, how various movements have become splinters from the Reformation or Counter-Reformation.

Another Editor’s note:  But, meanwhile, the author has been looking at the paragraph numbers or page numbers in the quotes.  The author has Thoughts by Blaise Pascal, and the numbers after the book name in the quotes do not correspond to paragraph numbers or page numbers.  Pascal numbered each thought individually and it does not correspond to that number.  Maybe the numbering got lost in the translation?

But in these quotes from Blaise Pascal, we see a common thread with other theologians.  I have heard that the longest eighteen inches, and the most difficult to traverse, is the eighteen inches between the mind and the heart.

Of course, the “mind” is not necessarily in the brain and the heart isn’t the blood pumping muscle, as Christians refer to the heart as the center of our emotions (Mark Lowry definition), the control center (Bill Bright’s 4 Spiritual Laws), or what part of our psyche drives the rest of us.  The mind being the consciousness and what drives our thinking.

In other words, there is an element of being a Christians that Philosophy can never explain.  It is beyond reason, as Pascal points out.

Let’s look at the three Scriptures above as a whole to illustrate.  It drives the point home that when you become a Christian you indeed become a new creation.  It is not that we no longer have a sin nature.  That is still there, but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is within us telling us not to sin, and giving us the desire to stay away from sin.  But the key with these two verses is that we are transformed to value and desire the heavenly things, and not the things of this earth.  This transformation is to the point that what the unbelievers see is foolishness, the believers see as being the only things in this world that are real.  While the biblical definition of “fool” is someone who does not believe in God.  Thus, we come to Jesus telling us in the Sermon on the Mount to not call someone a “fool.”

We cannot call someone a fool and then expect them to see the love that we show them or listen to us when we explain that their way of life is foolishness.  Thus, we need to follow what Jesus said in that regard.

This is simply trying to explain where Pascal is coming from.  We cannot fully explain the spiritual realm from an intellectual frame of mind.  As the modern idiom might explain, we are about eighteen inches away from the true target.  Part of theology is connected to the heart rather than the intellect, or as Pascal says, reason.  Yet, just saying something like “blind faith” or throwing out reason altogether is not the answer either.  Thomas Aquinas reasoned that theology comes in two parts: revealed theology which cannot be explained by reason and natural theology, which can be explained by reason and is an overlap with the school of philosophy.  For more details, go to this link from nearly four years ago, link HERE.

We come down to that crossroads, where you need to be one of those fellow travelers with Christ to be able to see the heart’s reason.  Then, all the pieces fall into place.  That is one of the things that I have found out about this amazing life of a Christian in a fallen world.  Everyone else may see me as being someone out of step with the world, but all my pieces have fallen into place while the others that scoff at me still have gears that do not quite mesh, causing grinding, resistance, and pain that they cannot quite explain.  Yet, they think their way is more reasonable.

For me, I will stick with God’s plan, and I await the ultimate transformation by the renewing of the mind.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.