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Name: Amazon.com: Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God: 9780060766917: Connor, James A.: Books
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Rating: 4.3 (52 reviews)

James A. Connor

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Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God Hardcover – October 17, 2006

by James A. Connor (Author)

4.3 52 ratings

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In a major biography of Blaise Pascal, James Connor explores both the intellectual giant whose theory of probability paved the way for modernity and the devout religious mystic who dared apply probability to faith. A child prodigy, Pascal made essential additions to Descartes's work at age sixteen. By age nineteen, he had invented the world's first mechanical calculator. But despite his immense contributions to modern science and mathematical thinking, it is Pascal's wager with God that set him apart from his peers as a man fully engaged with both religious and scientific pursuits.

One night in 1654, Pascal had a visit from God, a mystical experience that changed his life. Struggling to explain God's existence to others, Pascal dared to apply his mathematical work to religious faith, playing dice with divinity: he argued for the existence of God, basing his position not on rigorous logical principles as did Aquinas or Anselm of Canterbury, but on outcomes—his famous wager. By applying to the existence of God the same rules that governed the existence and position of the universe itself, Pascal sounded the death knell for medieval "certainties" and paved the way for modern thinking.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Is there a God? Are you willing to bet your eternal soul on your answer? This essentially is what has become known as Pascal's Wager, a bare-bones approach to challenging the folly of unbelief. Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) is widely regarded as a brilliant mathematician, but he is less well-known as a deep student of religion and the Bible. He and his father were devoted Jansenists, schismatic Roman Catholics seeking to revive Augustine's stern views of judgment, predestination and radical orthodoxy. Connor, professor of English at Kean University in New Jersey and author of Kepler's Witch and Silent Fire, believes that this passion, along with Pascal's insatiable curiosity and his father's deep love for learning, produced the prodigy who would change the way we view both God and the sciences. Driven by the tumultuous events of 17th-century France (vividly recreated by Connor), and meeting resistance not only from fellow mathematicians like René Descartes but from such powerhouses as the Jesuits, young Pascal repeatedly proved himself more than just a "spoiled son of a controlling father," rising above the challenges of his youth and diminutive stature. Written for a general audience, this biography is a compelling and readable study of one of the most influential thinkers in religious history. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Following his biography of astronomer Johannes Kepler (Kepler's Witch, 2004), which dwelt on the religious side of Kepler's life, Connor takes up a near contemporary also beset by problems of faith and reason. Mathematician and mystic Blaise Pascal, Connor notes, matured during a revival of Catholicism in mid-seventeenth-century France. He was an adherent of Jansenism, whose theological parameters are explained amid Connor's narrative of Pascal's illness-plagued life (he died at 39). The account fixes Pascal amid his immediate family and their participation in Jansenism. Recounting the attraction of the Pascal family to the movement, Connor shows the conflict between domestic life and faith. His sister Jacqueline was prevented from entering a Jansenist convent, as she desired, because father and brother Blaise needed her help at home. Meanwhile, Blaise thought about probability and the existence of God, and devised the wager to which Connor's title refers. Well written and well informed (Connor is a former Catholic priest), this biography should interest readers drawn to the crossroads of religion and science. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperOne; First Edition (October 17, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060766913
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060766917
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.85 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,578,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #745 in Historical France Biographies
- #2,846 in French History (Books)
- #8,149 in Religious Leader Biographies

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4.3 52 ratings

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James A. Connor

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James A. Connor is the author of Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother and Silent Fire: Bringing the Spirituality of Silence to Everyday Life. A former Jesuit priest, Connor is professor of English at Kean University in Union, New Jersey; he has also held teaching posts at St. Louis University and Gonzaga University. He is a director of studies at the Lessing Institute in Prague. He holds degrees in geoscience, philosophy, theology, and creative writing, and a Ph.D. in literature and science. He is a prize-winning essayist published widely in such places as American Book Review, Traditional Home, Willow Springs, The Critic, The Iowa Review, and The Iowa Journal of Literary Studies.

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William E. Warner

A wonderful little book about physics and faith

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2007

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As an engineer I had studied all about Pascal's products, the conic sections, the vacuum, and the probability studies. However, until I read this book never could have imagined the sad and inspirational story behind the genius, Blaise Pascal. It is written in short readable chapters that give you a vivid picture on the 17th century in which he lived. The book gives a spectacular vision of the beginning of science as we know it in the 21st century. It also examines the conflict of one man between his faith and his passion for science. I won't tell you how it comes out that for you to read. The only thing I will tell you is that it is not the usual science is good and religion is bad that you find in many book today. Read this book, and if you have children interested in science have them read it too, or better read it to them.

11 people found this helpful

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Clay Garner

''Historians hold that his arguments laid the foundation for some of the most important concepts of empirical science''

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2017

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“The medieval universe was fading away, and the old divine certainties were losing ground. The scientists and philosophers of France were busy casting about for something new to bet their souls on, a new ground of order, a new way to make the universe spin properly, and for most of them, that something was mathematics.’’

Conner provides more than a biography of Pascal. This is closer to a biography of the French world that influenced Pascal, and his intellectual impact in return. Excellent presentation of the new fascination with mathematics. . .

“Everyone in France used it; it was the latest, hottest thing. Those in the inner circles of thought passed around treatises on geometry like junk novels at the beach, while merchants sought new ways to turn their business dealings into numbers. Even the philosophers and theologians turned to mathematics for insight. The great French gardens were finger exercises in geometry; the vast, ostentatious hôtels of the high aristocracy were designed and built according to mathematical principles. Metaphysics, before and after Descartes, was gradually becoming a creature of mathematical logic. The pinnacle of reality was the pinnacle of order, and mathematics was the measure of that order.’’

How influence religion?

“In their deepest hearts, French intellectuals thought that God was the ultimate mathematician, and now Étienne Pascal’s own son had proved himself to be an adept at reading God’s mind, a mathematical prodigy, a child who was born to geometry just as Mozart, 150 years in the future, would be born to music.’’ (614)

Pascal is among the top mathematicians of all time. Yet. . .

“He was neither a neurotic nor a saint. A faithful Catholic, he spent his adult life deeply involved with a heretical group that caused no end of trouble and that in fact so weakened the church through constant nattering argument that it was nearly powerless in the face of the French Revolution. As a scientist, he argued ferociously against the Aristotelian orthodoxy of his day, and many historians would hold that his arguments laid the foundation for some of the most important concepts of empirical science. So, how do we reconcile the scientist and the mystic? I don’t think we can, and that is what makes Pascal so interesting.’’ (329)

Well. . .maybe. . .more than just interesting. . .fascinating!

Time Lines
Introduction:
The Man Who Played Dice with God 1625:
The Witch 1626–1631:
A Dangerous World 1631–1635:
A Thinking Reed 1635:
Blaise Among the Geometers 1585–1642:
Un Bâtard Magnifique 1631–1638:
Madame Sainctot’s Salon The 1640s:
Le Libertin Érudit 1638:
Charming the Cardinal 1639–1640:
Conic Sections 1642:
The Arithmetic Machine 1638:
The Jansenists 1614–1646:
The Void 1646:
Étienne Breaks His Hip January and February 1647:
The Showman 1647–1652:
Jacqueline’s Vocation September 19, 1648:
The Great Experiment 1647:
A Skirmish with the Devil 1608:
Port-Royal and the Clan Arnauld 1643:
The Great Arnauld 1643, 1648–1653:
The Fronde of the Parlement 1648–1654:
Adrift in the World 1652:
The Feud 1653–1654:
The Gambler’s Ruin 1654:
Letters to Fermat 1654:
The Night of Fire 1656:
So Jolly a Penitent 1655–1661:
The Jesuit Menace 1656–1657:
The Jesuit Menace, Part 2 1656:
The Miracle of the Holy Thorn 1658–1662:
Pascal’s Wager 1660–1662:
Port-Royal Agonistes 1658–1662:
May God Never Abandon Me
Epilogue: Oracles, Dicing, and Schrödinger’s Cat

Conner includes numerous details that add flavor, even humor. For instance. . .

“They would drink wine, not coffee (for coffee was a Calvinist drink, a Huguenot drink for the rising bourgeoisie, promoted by the Protestants as a way to awaken humanity from its Catholic alcoholic stupor to a new world of activity and industry).’’

Really? Coffee religion?

Conner does not shy away from the intellectual/religious debate that dominated Pascal’s later years. What is well done is Conner’s effort to present both sides. Hits the problem right on. . .

“Change was everywhere. Doubt was everywhere. And in times of such uncertainty, some people fling off their clothes and run around proclaiming wild new beliefs and wild new freedoms, while others wall themselves into the fortresses of their beliefs and hunker down. These were the two types who were gathering their forces all across France, first in the Jansenist debate over free will, and then later in the bourgeois revolution that swept aside all their society.’’ (751)

Conner contrasts the jesuits as supporters of free-will (catholic) and Jansenist belief in predestination (Calvinism). This is a notoriously difficult concept. Conner does a fair job, even if he is more sympathetic to the Catholic side.

4 people found this helpful

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Daniel Putman

Clarifying the life of a tormented genius

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2013

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This is the best biography of Pascal on the market. Blaise Pascal was a deeply conflicted man who seemed almost constantly to be at war with himself. James Connor does a good job of giving the reader both sides of this conflict. On the one hand, Pascal was a mathematical prodigy with a brilliant and curious mind about the world. Connor does a fine job of explaining his work on probability, his experiments on the existence of the vacuum, and his invention of what is basically the first computing machine, the "Pascaline." On the other hand, Pascal desperately needed the security and comfort of the severe form of Catholicism called Jansenism which told him that his worldly interests were prideful and a block to salvation. Everyone has conflicts to some extent but Pascal's ran to the root of who he was. When he was enjoying his mental and creative work in math and science, part of him was telling him he was deeply wrong in pursuing the work. When he was observing his strictly Jansenist life style, his active mind would not let him rest. While Pascal's contradictions are well-known to history, Connor fleshes out both sides of the man and the theme of self-conflict is a common thread throughout the book.

My only problem with the book is the tendency for Connor at times to overdramatize events. For example, when Blaises's sister Jacqueline left for Port Royal, the Jansenist convent, Connor says, "The next morning, Jacqueline stood in the corridor of the Pascal home, waiting for the carriage to be brought around to take her to the convent. Gilberte (her sister) saw her and turned away, unable to say good-bye for fear of weeping." The author begins another chapter by saying, "By this time, Port Royal had begun to smell like a cult." For me this and similar passages in which Connor gives a clear dramatic "angle" to events took away from the power of the events themselves. Pascal's life was filled with inner tension and drama and Connor does a fine job spelling that out. The story did not need the dramatic flourishes which tend to put the author too much in the picture. The book also has no index which would be invaluable for researching a man with such different facets to his life.

Despite my misgivings, I recommend the book. For anyone who knows only the general outline of Pascal's achievements and struggles, this biography will provide invaluable new information for understanding one of the most brilliant but tormented people in the history of science.

7 people found this helpful

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Normand Hamel

Pascal's Triangle

Reviewed in Canada on December 5, 2015

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What a delightful little book this is! I enjoyed reading it very much. There was not a boring moment. It is written with exceptional clarity. It is also very light reading, for it amounts to only 224 pages that are divided into 32 short chapters, plus the introduction. That is an average of seven pages per chapter. But it is packed with valuable informations. I had the impression of learning something on every page. There are many references to history and philosophy, but the main topics developed are science, religion and politics. For those three elements were the triangle of Pascal's life.

Many people know Pascal through the scientific principles he discovered and the theorems of mathematics he helped to formulate. So we do have a bit of that throughout this uncomplicated book, but likely not enough to satisfy the expectations of those who came here for Pascal the scientist and mathematician. There are other biographies of him that specialize in those fascinating subjects. This is simply not one of them. But there was enough science and math to satisfy my own curiosity. The only disappointment I had was that there were no mention of Pascal's law (which states that pressure exerted anywhere in a confined incompressible fluid is transmitted equally in all directions throughout the fluid such that the pressure variations remain the same). But what I was mainly interested in was Pascal the mystic and I got plenty of that.

What sets this book apart is that we get to know Pascal intimately. I now have the impression to know him better, and even to understand him. The magic of this book is to have achieved this even if we actually know little about Pascal the man. For we only have scant records of his life. But the little we know was put to good use by James Connor, the author of this little gem. The trick used by Connor was to tell us everything we needed to know about the times in which Pascal lived his short life. For you cannot understand the man himself if you don't know anything about France in the Seventeen Century. All this is spiced with a soupçon of math and science here and there. Unfortunately for engineers and scientists the author never goes beyond the high school level. Therefore this book remains accessible for almost anyone, regardless of your background.

There may be a few repetitions and chronological inconsistencies from one chapter to another, but that is because each chapter covers a separate topic over a given period of time. Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that there is no index. But that is minor quibble for a book that opened my mind in every paragraph, filled my heart with each story, and occasionally lifted my soul with the purity of its prose.

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