True to his whole conception of religion as the free choice of the heart and will, Pascal does not find any special difficulty in the fact of so many rejecting Christianity. It is of its very nature that it cannot be forced on any mind. The God of the Gospel can only be reached by faith. To all without faith, or the inner eye to see Him, He is a Deus absconditus, “a God who hides himself.” In one of his letters to Mademoiselle de Roannez, he dwells upon this idea, which also continually recurs in his Thoughts:—
“If God continually revealed Himself to man, faith would have no value; we could not help believing. If He did not reveal Himself, there could be no such thing as faith. While hiding Himself, He yet reveals Himself to those who are willing to be His servants. . . . All things hide a mystery. All are a veil which conceal God. The Christian must recognise Him in all. . . . There is light enough for those who wish to see, but darkness enough for those who are of an opposite disposition. . . . For God would rather move the will than the intellect. Perfect clearness would cure the one, but injure the other.”
And so this great mind comes round once more to its central thought, that religion is born not of science, but of love and faith. Christianity appeared to Pascal divine—as the only true interpreter of human experience; and where this experience bore no witness to it, and found no blessing in it, the fault and the misery were its own. The divine light was not gone because men did not see it, when they were not willing to see it. page 204This may seem a hard saying,—a paradox of faith rejoicing in its own illumination, rather than an utterance of reason challenging the world. But can a divine appeal ever go further? 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.