Pensées and the Provincial Letters
About this book
The Lettres provinciales (Provincial letters) are 18 letters written by French philosopher & theologian Blaise Pascal under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Written in the midst of the formulary controversy between the Jansenists & the Jesuits, they are a defense of the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld from Port-Royal-des-Champs, a friend of Pascal who in 1656 was condemned by the Faculte de Théologie at the Sorbonne in Paris for views that were claimed to be heretical. The 1st letter is dated 1/23/1656 & the 18th 3/24/1657. There's a fragmentary 19th letter. Intended as a systematic & coherent defense of the Christian faith, Pascal's Thoughts (Pensées) were assembled after his death from the scattered & unfinished writings he'd been working on. Among other things, the author advances a proposition now known as Pascal's Wager: the idea that a rational person should behave as tho God exists.