John Tulloch

“ It is time that other hands should arm themselves in its quarrel. It is time that God should raise up intrepid disciples to the Doctor of Grace, who, strangers to the entanglements of the world, should serve God for the sake of God. Grace may no longer count the Dominicans among her defenders; but she will never want defenders, for she creates them for herself by her own almighty strength. She demands pure and disengaged hearts, nay, she herself purifies and delivers them from worldly interests inconsistent with the truths of the Gospel. ”

“ Aristotle was not only one of the most inquiring and encyclopaedical, but also one of the most thoroughly sensible, of all writers, and no one would have repudiated more strongly than himself the idea that the formula of the syllogism can be used to test or explain anything beyond the process of reasoning from certain premisses possessed or assumed, and he is never tired of telling us that the only means of obtaining premisses is by experience and observation of facts. ”

“ Let it be only cried in the streets, “Here is the condemnation of M. Arnauld!” This is enough to give the Jesuits a triumph with the unthinking populace. This is the way in which they live and prosper. Now it is by a catechism in which a child is made to condemn their opponents; now by a procession, in which Sufficient Grace leads Efficacious Grace in triumph; and by-and-by by a comedy, in which the devils carry off Jansen; sometimes by an almanac; and now by this censure.’ The truth is, that it is M. Arnauld himself, and not merely his opinions, that are obnoxious. ”

“ Scientific presumption may suggest the delusiveness of this sphere, just as in former times religious presumption sought to restrain the inquiries of science. It may, when it becomes ribald with a fanaticism far worse than any fanaticism of religion, assail and ridicule the hopes which, amidst much weakness, have made men noble for more than eighteen Christian centuries. But science has no voice beyond its own province. The weakest and the simplest soul, strong in the consciousness of the divine within and above it, may withstand its most powerful assaults. ”

“ But the whole question of man's moral nature is really subsidiary in the Ethics of Aristotle. His question is, What is the chief good for man? and the answer to this question is, It must consist in the evocation and actuality of man's highest faculty, namely, the Reason. Thus, the highest happiness is to be found in contemplation and speculative thought; the joys of the philosopher are beyond compare. A satisfaction of an inferior kind is to be found in the exercise of the moral virtues. Such is, in brief, the view which Aristotle gives of human life. ”

“ He is no enemy of philosophy, but he certainly does not believe it capable of explaining the riddle of human nature. He is so far from being a Pyrrhonist in the sense of resting on Pyrrhonism, that he seeks to mount on its shoulders to a higher truth. Nay, he clearly recognises that man has an inborn faculty for truth which not all the contradictions of his experience can belie. We may and must doubt as to many things; but there are principles lying at the root of human life which are invincible to all doubt. ”

“ Of all the absurdities that have come from the confusion of religion and theology, none is more absurd or more general than the idea that one opinion on a theological question—any more than on a question of natural science—is as good as another. The opinion of the ignorant, of the unthoughtful, of the undisciplined in Christian learning, is simply of no value whatever where the question involves—as it may be said every theological question involves—knowledge, thought, and scholarship. ”

“ To compare the Platonic dialogues with the works of Aristotle, and to trace the agreements and disagreements between them, forms an interesting study in the history of philosophy. But on the whole, the difference between Aristotle and Plato is one of aims rather than of doctrines. Aristotle's aim, almost from first to last, is to be scientific, and to reduce even philosophy to science. ”

“ Look at these men and many others equally significant on the spiritual side as they look to God, or as they work for men, how much do they resemble one another! The same divine life stirs in them all. Who will undertake to settle which is the truer Christian? But look at them on the intellectual side and they are hopelessly disunited. They lead rival forces in the march of Christian thought—forces which may yet find a point of conciliation, and which may not be so widely opposed as they seem, but whose present attitude is one of obvious hostility. ”

“ And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I may lose those qualities without ceasing to be. Where, then, is this me, if it is neither in soul nor body?
“How is it that a lame man does not anger us, but a blundering mind does? Is it that the cripple admits that we walk straight, but a crippled mind accuses us of limping? Epictetus asks also, Why are we not annoyed if any one tells us that we are unwell in the head, and yet are angry if they tell us that we reason falsely or choose unwisely? ”

“ When we are away from the object of our love we resolve to do and say many things, but when we are present we hesitate. The explanation is, that at a distance the reason is undisturbed, but in presence of the beloved object it is strangely moved. In love we fear to hazard lest we lose all. It is necessary to advance, yet who can tell to what point? We tremble always till we reach this point, and yet prudence does not help us to keep it when we have found it. . . . There is nothing so embarrassing as to be in love, and see something in our favour without daring to believe in it. ”

“ So much as this, we say, may be realised—this consciousness of sin on the one hand, and of a living Righteousness and Love far more powerful than our sins, and able to save us from them. These roots of religion are deeply planted in human nature. They answer to its highest experiences. The purest and noblest natures in whom all the impulses of a comprehensive humanity have been strongest, have felt and owned them. ”

“ The thought may be shallow and poor in itself, but in such cases it comes not out of the shallows but out of the depths of a mind torn by distracting doubts in the face of the dreadful problems of life.
Out of the same depth of spiritual experience and trenchant moral analysis comes all that is true and valuable in his so-called ‘Apology.’ That the ‘Pensées’ were more or less designed to form such an Apology—to be woven into the plan of a treatise in defence of the Christian religion—seems beyond doubt. ”

“ Mere authority, if we could find any such authority, would be of no avail to settle any of them. Modern theology must work them out by the fair weapons of knowledge and research, with no eye but an eye to the truth. Within this sphere there is no light but the dry light of knowledge. ”

“ And if I admit it, as you do, so that efficacious grace is still necessary, why I sin against common-sense, I am a blockhead, say the Jesuits. What can I do in this dilemma, of being a blockhead, a heretic, or a Jansenist? To what a strait are we come, if it is only Jansenists, after all, who are at variance with neither faith nor reason, and who preserve themselves both from folly and error?’”
The Dominican, in short, is made to appear very ridiculous in his union with the Jesuits. ”

“ Because I cannot be sure whether the Pentateuch was written, as long supposed, by Moses—or whether the fourth Gospel comes as it stands from the beloved apostle—am I less in need of the divine teaching which both these Scriptures contain? Surely not. That I am a spiritual being, and have spiritual needs craving to be satisfied, and that God is a spiritual power above me, of whom Christ is the revelation, are facts which I may know or may not know, quite irrespective of such matters. The one class of facts are intellectual and literary. The other are spiritual if they exist at all. ”

“ It is a voice within him, a conflicting cry of weakness and aspiration going up everywhere from humanity, that find their answer in Christ. There is the enigma of man on the one side, to him otherwise hopeless, and Christ on the other, holding the keys of the enigma in His hand. The solution appeared to him perfect, according to his study and analysis of the problem—the twofoldness that he found in man, of divine dignity on the one hand, and frivolous, sensual degradation on the other. ”

“ The possession of the earth would not add to my greatness. As to space, the universe encloses and absorbs me as a mere point, but by thought I embrace it. . . . Man is but a reed, the feeblest of created things—but one possessing thought (un roseau pensant) . It needs not that the universe should arm itself to crush him. A breath, a drop of water, suffices for his destruction. But were the whole universe to rise against him, man is yet greater than the universe, since man knows that he dies. He knows the universe prevails against him. ”

“ Men may meet in common worship and in common work, and find themselves at one. The same faith may breathe in their prayers, and the same love fire their hearts. But men who think can never be at one in their thoughts on the great subjects of the Christian revelation. They may own the same Lord, and recognise and reverence the same types of Christian [20] character, but they will differ so soon as they begin to define their notions of the Divine, and draw conclusions from the researches either of ancient or of modern theology. ”

“ With all enthusiasm for its grandeur and unity of purpose, and that moral and intellectual elevation which it everywhere shows, it may be found lacking in breadth and variety, and that familiar interest and charm which strangely often come from the contemplation of human weakness rather than of human strength. There is certainly less to love in him than to admire—less to call forth delight than respect. ”

“ Not to be rational in religion as in everything else is simply to be foolish, and to throw yourself into the arms of the first authority that is able to hold you. In this as in other respects you must "work out your own salvation with fear and [22] trembling," remembering that it is "God which worketh in you." You must examine your own hearts; you must try yourselves whether there be in you the roots of the divine life. If you do not find sin in your hearts and Christ also there as the Saviour from sin, then you will find Him nowhere. ”

“ Christian apology has its own sphere, no less than science; and the evidence which the one desiderates is not the supreme life and power of the other. It may not on this account be the less satisfactory or the less rational when the whole life of humanity is looked at.
If we ask ourselves, in conclusion, what is the chief charm of the ‘Pensées,’ we feel inclined to answer,—their touching reality. They are the utterances of one who thought not only deeply but passionately. ”

“ It is never that he may laugh at man, or that he may rest in the mere contemplation of his follies or extravagances, but because he himself profoundly realised the height and the depth of his being—the grandeur to which he could rise, or to which God could raise him, and the baseness and miseries to which he could sink. Doubtless, as with all concentrated and meditative natures, Pascal delights to dwell on the weaker and gloomier side of humanity. This was partly the result of his Jansenist leanings, but mainly it came from his own intense reality of feeling. ”

“ From the same point of view he thunders vigorously against the horrible impiety of those who dare to be certain that there is no God! He attacks them especially in the ‘Apology for Raymond de Sebonde.’ Having voluntarily set aside revelation, and abandoned themselves to their natural light—all faith set aside—he asks them on what authority they, who know not the essential reality of anything, dare to judge of that Sovereign Being who is infinite by His very definition. He demands upon what principles they rest, and presses them to point them out. ”

“ Constantly searching the foundations of human knowledge,—sifting them as with lighted glance,—they seemed to him at times to crumble away before him. Nothing remained fixed to his piercing look. As few minds have experienced, he felt the awful darkness which encloses all mortal aspiration, and the keenest audacities of human speculation. The incapacities of human reason at such times overwhelmed him, and left him hopeless, or, still worse, in a half-derisive mood. ”

“ Occupying rooms in the house of his friend, who, we have seen, could not bear him out of his sight, Pascal and Mademoiselle de Roannez were necessarily much in each other’s society. What so natural as that he should fall in love, and overlooking all disparity of rank, cherish the secret hope of a union with one so gifted and beautiful?—or why may not ambition have mingled with his love, as he himself implies, and carried him for a time into a dreamland from which all shadows fell away? ”

“ The Christian religion, according to him, alone “understands at once man’s greatness and degradation, and the reason of both the one and the other.” “It is equally important for man to know his capacity of being like God and his unworthiness of Him. To know of God without knowing his misery, or to know his misery without knowing the Redeemer, who alone can deliver him from it, is alike dangerous. The one knowledge constitutes the pride of the philosopher, the other the despair of the atheist. Man must therefore have the double experience, and so it has pleased God to reveal it. ”