The fallout of the French Revolution would prove that Pascal’s arguments about God…and his observations about the human condition, were right….Even today, Pascal’s writing has lost none of its fire, nor has the fruits of his intellect, passion, and eloquence dedicated to God diminished.

On August 19, 1662, French philosopher, mathematician, and apologist Blaise Pascal died at just 39 years old. Despite his shortened life, Pascal is renowned for pioneering work in geometry, physics, and probability theory, and even for inventing the first mechanical calculator. His most powerful legacy, however, is his Pensées, or thoughts, about life’s biggest questions, including God and the human condition.
Pascal’s intellect garnered attention at an early age. At 16, he produced an essay on the geometry of cones so impressive that René Descartes initially refused to believe that a “sixteen-year-old child” could have written it. Later, Pascal advanced the study of vacuums and, essentially, invented probability theory.
His life radically changed the evening of November 23, 1654, when Pascal experienced God’s presence in a powerful way. He immediately and radically reoriented his life and thinking toward God. He described the experience on a scrap of parchment that he sewed into his jacket and carried with him the rest of his life:
FIRE—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certitude, certitude. Heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. My God and thy God. Thy God shall be my God. 
From that moment, Pascal dedicated his life to serving God through his writing. His ideas on apologetics were collected and published after his death in a volume entitled, Pensées, or “Thoughts.”
Best known of his ideas is “Pascal’s Wager.” Facing uncertainty in a game of life with such high stakes, he argued, it makes far more sense to believe in God’s existence than to not: “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
Pascal also offered keen diagnoses of the human condition, such as this:
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Our God is not like those despots or tyrannical madmen we know from history. Our God is more powerful than them and, thankfully, far better, for He is good and without sin. We can find confidence, hope, and trust in His sovereignty.

History is replete with the stories of despots and tyrants who wielded unbridled power with cataclysmic results. Everyone knows the horrors of the Hitlers of the world. Shakespeare famously wrote about a man who committed atrocious acts of paranoid murder to keep power in Macbeth. In both history and fiction, the adage “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” has proved true, time and again. Indeed, unchecked power often leads one down the downward spiral of destruction. Scripture itself speaks of such accounts, with the story of King Saul of Israel standing tall as a surprising example of how power may corrupt a man.
Thus, when we speak of the sovereign power of God, there are generally a few questions that people raise about God and His power. Those varied questions generally fall under one of two categories: 1. Just how far does God’s power extend? 2. Can we trust God’s power?
To answer the first question, we must remember that God is not like man. His power is not limited by any external factors. Nothing can interfere in history that could somehow stop God from completing something He intended to do.
Consider the time when Balak, king of Moab, tried to hire the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. God would not permit him to do so, instead leading Balaam to declare, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num. 23:19). The extent of God’s power is such that once He has determined to do something, He does it. Period.
Though God does act in time and space, His sovereign decrees transcend time and space. From the Covenant of Redemption, wherein the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit covenanted to save sinners, to the rise and fall of kingdoms (Acts 17:26), to the number of our own days (Job 14:5, Ps. 139:16), God has ordained all according to His infinite wisdom, goodness, and power.
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Written by Nicholas K. Meriwether |
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
In his magisterial ‘The City of God Against the Pagans’, interestingly, written not long after Rome had established Christianity as the official religion of the Empire (AD 380), Augustine rejects the idea that church and state should or could be combined. He lays out a Christian vision of the meaning and purpose of human history, and locates in this history two “cities.” The City of God is the universal Church, composed of God’s elect from every nation, tribe, and culture. This City is eternal, and will be perfectly instituted only with the return of Christ. The other is the City of Man, the earthly City, composed of all forms of government outside the Church—cities, states, nations, empires, monarchies, aristocracies, democracies. This City is mortal, full of sinful pride. It frequently arrays itself against the City of God, and will be judged harshly when Christ returns (Rev. 20:7-8). However, both Cities are subject to natural law.

There is no civil law, nor can there be any, in which something of natural and divine immutable equity has not been mixed. If it departs entirely from the judgment of natural and divine law (jus naturale et divinum), it is not to be called law (lex). It is entirely unworthy of this name, and can obligate no one against natural and divine equity.
Althusius, Politica
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.
George Washington, Farewell Address
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. 
John Adams
[NB: Please see the following previous articles in this series: 1, 2, 3, and 4.]
We’ve now reached the point where the question can be asked, What role does natural law play in government and society?
Two stipulations to begin. First: Christians should be fully involved in civic affairs, vote, influence legislation through petitioning public officials, seek elected office, etc. Of course, Christians have at times acted imprudently, and even destructively, nor do I mean to suggest that involvement in politics does not incur moral risk, as does political quietism. But let us not neglect the immensely positive impact Christians have had upon their state and society, such as William Wilberforce, William Booth, Abraham Kuyper, and Evangelical opposition to slavery prior to the Civil War.
A second stipulation: While there are fine works on natural law and the state written by Catholics, and much of it is compatible with Protestant approaches, the work of Protestants, especially Reformed Protestants, has been comparatively neglected. A comprehensive program for Protestant political engagement can be developed from within its ranks, as it were, with one critical addition, which is the political theology of Augustine. It is wholly unnecessary that Protestants rely on Catholic thought, even when Catholic ideas are compatible with Protestantism. My thoughts below reflect engagement with John Calvin (d. 1564), Peter Martyr Vermigili (d.1562), Heinrich Bullinger (d. 1575), Richard Hooker (d.1600), Johannes Althusius (d.1638), Samuel Rutherford (d.1661), John Winthrop (d.1649), Richard Baxter (d.1691), Samuel Willard (d.1707), James Wilson (d.1798), Friedrich Stahl (d.1861), and Groen van Prinsterer (d.1876).
The Program and the Conundrum
These theologians would all agree with the following:
1) The purpose of law is to serve the common good. The laws of the state are not merely for protecting citizens from harm, or protecting private property, rather they are for encouraging virtue, or moral decency, in the citizenry in order that the society may flourish.
2) The common good is based upon the Ten Commandments. Recall that the Ten Commandments include the First Table, requiring the worship of God. Thus, laws should also encourage spiritual development in the citizenry.
As an example, here is a quote from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided a policy for admission of new states to the union. Note the integration of religion, morality, and learning:
Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.[1]
3) The consent of the governed is the basis for state authority. This is the most “modern” part of their consensus.[2] Almost any formulation of the basis of state authority in the modern period draws from the consent of the governed, including our American constitutional order.
The Conundrum: Does Consent of the Governed Undermine Natural Law?
Unfortunately, as most of us know by now, the third point does not comport well with the first two. One has only to consider that laws that codify and extend abortion, LGBTQ ideology, and socialist redistribution, violations of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th commandments, respectively, and thus inconceivable on the basis of natural law, are the products of democratic voting procedures that have elected legislators, governors, and in some cases, judges, who affirm such rights and policies.[3] In fact, the most electorally powerful plank in the Democratic Party’s current political campaigns is to protect and extend abortion rights, arguably up to and including the birth of the child. This would be political suicide if there were not millions of Americans, arguably a majority, who want elective abortion to be fully legal and accessible to all women. Our country is essentially divided between “Red States,” which generally support natural law, including recognition of the First Table as well as a natural law understanding of human sexuality, marriage, and family, and “Blue States” that reject it, including the rejection of the First Table, and the celebration and promotion of non-Christian religions and recognition of and support for alternative sexual identities. The affirmation vs. rejection of natural law is the most fundamental division in Western politics, because this division is both moral and spiritual, the most fundamental human commitments.
The American people have it in their power to uphold the original, natural law-friendly US Constitution through voting for people willing to do so to restore prayer in the public schools, outlaw abortion, and end same-sex marriage, but there are seemingly no longer enough voters to achieve this. And increasingly, the Christian faith is coming under attack, such that citizens who are known to hold to traditional natural law are no longer able to win elections in many parts of the country.
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