But it is precisely in this knowledge of our misfortune that, if not our salvation, is at least a feature of our basic human dignity. To know about your suffering, to know about your death. The material world, which kills him, knows nothing. This is the superiority of man, this "thinking reed" over the whole world, his "greater nobility."

A significant place, cited, like many others, in all anthologies. But it is so beautiful in the restrained power of its expression that I write it out: "L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c’est un roseau pensant. II ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour Pecraser: une vrapeur, une goutte d’eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais, quand l’univers Tecraserait, Thomme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu’il sait qu’il meurt, et Tavantage que l’univers a sur lui; Tunivers n’en sait rien» [400].

"All the dignity of a person lies in his thought. But what is this thought? How stupid she is (qu'elle est sotte)!"

In this realization of man's fundamental misfortune there is his nobility, in his awareness of a terrible, painful emptiness ("le vide du cceur, le gouffre infini" — the emptiness of the heart, the endless abyss), moreover, in this emptiness itself, in this very misfortune (for a stone is not unhappy). Apparently, man by nature needs something that he does not have, without which he cannot live. «Toutes ces miseresla memes prouvent sa grandeur. Ce sont miseres de grand seigneur, miseres d’un roi depossede») [401].

Here is the turning point. A person must become aware of his unhappiness, his insignificance, his emptiness, and look for a way out, to seek satisfaction of his longing, his thirst. "Faim de la justice: beatitude huitième (?)" — "Hunger for Truth. The Eighth (?) Beatitude." "Therefore I equally blame those who only praise a man and those who only blame him, as well as those who try to entertain him. I can only approve of those who are looking for a wall – "Je ne puis approuver que ceux qui cherchent en gemissant".

6

"Seek with groaning" is what we are called to do. Pascal believes that "the emptiness of the heart, the infinite abyss, can be filled only by an infinite and imperishable object, i.e., only by God." But how to come to this knowledge, to this certainty, how to be convinced of it? Can this be proven?

Pascal adduces in various fragments of his "Thoughts" (which were sketches of a whole apologetic system) a number of such proofs. But he himself feels their insufficiency: they are proofs for those who already believe. By means of argumentation, one can only reach the point of view of his famous "bet": two decisions: for the existence of God and against. Suppose that God exists, then the value of this truth is so infinite that it infinitely outweighs all the considerations of the other side. Therefore, you need to make up your mind and choose faith in God. For if I am mistaken in this, then my loss means little: all the same, peace and life are of no value. And if God exists and I did not take this into account, then my loss is endless. This is a very serious and intense reasoning, but it proves nothing except how difficult it is even for Pascal to prove God.

But if Pascal proceeds from an analysis of the fabric of human existence, from an analysis of our psychological data, then the answer is obtained in a different way, in the way in which he himself experienced it: through a breakthrough, a breakthrough not from below, but from above, through the activity of God, who himself addresses the heart, himself speaks to it, himself reveals himself to it. «C’est le cceur qui sent Dieu, et non la raison. Voila ce que c’est la foi: Dieu sensible au coeur, non a la raison» [402].

God Himself speaks to the heart. But at the same time, it is not only a revealing, but also a "hidden God", "un Dieu cache". Hidden and close and opening to the heart. Hiding His greatness in His voluntary humility and revealing Himself to a humbling heart. Le Dieu de Jesus–Christ — "The God of Jesus Christ." "Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ." "That they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (Pascal's memorial). Pascal's faith and all his religious experience are vividly and decisively and fundamentally Christocentric. But his gaze is directed first of all to the suffering of Christ. "And me semble que Jesus–Christ ne laisse toucher que ses plaies apres sa resurrection ... II ne faut nous unir qu'a ses souffranees" ("It seems to me that Jesus Christ allows only His wounds to be touched after His resurrection... We must unite only with His sufferings"). This is the way out of our "miserable state": "Christ's suffering and our participation in it. Christ is the answer to our "situation" in the world, to the fundamental law, to the very essence of our present situation, our present existence. One can undoubtedly know God without knowing one's miserable situation, and one can know one's miserable situation without God, but one cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing both God and one's misfortune at the same time" ("On peut done bien connaitre Dieu sans sa misere, et sa misere sans Dieu; mais on ne peut connaitre Jesus–Christ sans connaitre tout ensemble et Dieu et sa misere»). In Jesus Christ is the answer, the only answer, according to Pascal. Without Him, there is despair and sorrow, misere. In Him and through Him, suffering and sorrow become part of the knowledge of God, the path to God, and moreover, participation in His life. For the Christian God is "a God who is humbled and even unto death on the cross" — "un Dieu humilie, et jusqu'a la mort de la croix." And "no other religion preached self-hatred. No other religion, therefore, can please those who hate themselves and who are looking for a Being truly worthy of love. And these people, even if they had never heard of the religion of a humiliated God before, would immediately turn to it if they heard of it" ("Nulle autre religion n'a propose de se hair. Nulle autre religion ne peut done plaire a ceux qui se haissent, et qui cherchent un etre veritablement aimable. Et ceux la, s’ils n’avaient jamais oul parler la la religion d’un Dieu humilie, l’embrasseriaent incontinent»). For this is salvation: to love God and hate oneself ("II faut n'aimer que Dieu et ne hair que soi ... La vraie et unique vertu est done de ce hair, et de chercher un etre veritablement aimable, pour Taimer»). After all, this giving of oneself took place on the cross, so the cross is for us both the way and salvation, but more than that: it is the presence of the Suffering God among us. And Pascal contemplates this Suffering (in his Mystère de Jesus) – the Night of Gethsemane and the Cross: "Jesus ... souffre cette peine et cet abandon dans Thorreur de la nuit. Je crois que Jesus ne s’est jamais plaint que cette seule fois; mais alors il se plaint comme s’il n’eut plus pu contenir sa douleur excessive: «Mon ame est triste jusqu’a la mort… «Jesus sera en agonie jusqu’a la fin du monde: il ne faut pas dormir pendant ce tempsla… Jesus etant dans Tagonie et dans les plus grandes peines, prions plus longtemps» [403].

But He also comforts us from the Cross: we cannot find Him, He was the first to seek us.

"Be comforted, you would not have sought Me if you had not found Me.

I have thought of you in My agony, I have shed My blood drop by drop for you.

It is more to tempt Me than to test yourself—to think whether you will do such and such a thing that is not before you now. I will accomplish it in you, if necessary...