Man is Only a Reed, But He Is a Thinking Reed
Pascal's Philosophical Anthropology
Blaise Pascal was an absolute legend of a thinker. A physicist, mathematician, inventor, Jansenist theologian, and most importantly (for me) a philosophical sage. His book, Pensées (French for “Thoughts”), is technically an unfinished work of Christian apologetics, published posthumously. However, it reads like a book of gnomic poetry or proverbs. It’s truly a work of art and perhaps it’s best that it came down to us as is instead of with Pascal’s own editing.
In the Pensées we can find Pascal’s famous Wager for belief in God, and while that’s cool and all, one of his most striking through-lines is his conception of mankind as thinking-reeds. We are incredibly fragile, soft bodied, beings. We are easily snuffed out, the tiniest particle can be our undoing. And yet we are rational beings! We can use our minds to grasp the universe. We can transcend our own time and place through the vehicle of rational thought. We can invent entire histories with our minds. We can contemplate abstract objects, ponder on infinite mathematical sets, build machines to view the impossibly microscopic or distant. We are inventors, builders, narrative fabulators. We are almost smack dab in the middle between to massive universe considered as a whole and the subatomic quantum realm of—well, of whatever is down there. We are somewhere in the middle between gods and ants. We are frail but we are noble—the noblest in all of nature. We are reeds, yes, but we are thinking reeds. What a wonder.
Pascal grounds our dignity in our rational faculties which places him firmly within the “primacy of the intellect” camp when it comes to theological anthropology. That is to say, mankind images God through use of the intellect, the mind, through our reasoning. More recent theologians have taken issue with the primacy of the intellect and others have posited a primacy of emotions or volition or something else like story telling. But we’d be wise abstain from giving primacy to any one category and to instead affirm all of these characteristics (and more!) and note that it’s our capacity for such abilities, along with other properties and relations, which taken together cache out what it means to image God. But hey, if you find the perfect formula then let me know!
Back to the thinking reed. I’ve recently started up a new podcast which many of you will enjoy, called Proverb Peddling. It’s a sub 20minute podcast where I share a wise saying with the audience, I give some analysis, and then help you apply the wisdom therein to our own modern lives. I’ve been collecting wise saying in my wisdom compendium for years and I’m really excited to start sharing them with you all. So read Pascal’s main Thinking Reed quote below and watch the first episode on Pascal’s Thinking Reed on YouTube here (and like, leave me a comment, and subscribe to the channel (it really helps!!)):
and/or watch/listen on Spotify here:
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Pascal’s Thinking Reed Quotation:
“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.
Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well: that is the basic principle of morality.” Pensées, 200/347