PAUL, THE APOSTLE
172a ses raisons que le raison ne connaît
point; on le sait en mille choses.” (“The
heart has its reasons whereof reason
knows nothing; one knows it in a thou-
sand things.”)
For those undecided about whether
God exists, Pascal argued that there
are prudential, personal reasons why a
person should wager that the God of
Christianity exists and seek salvation in
that God rather than deny the veracity
of Christianity and adopt atheism or
agnosticism. As for the objection that
one’s beliefs about God or anything else
are not under one’s voluntary control, and
thus not a matter one can wager, Pascal
proposed that one can gradually cultivate
belief through liturgical practice. His
works include Lettres provincials (1656–
1657), De l’esprit géométrique (1655), and
Pensées (1670, published posthumously).
PAUL, THE APOSTLE. The Apostle Paul
is a central writer and figure in early
Christianity; when counting his letters
and the letters written in his name, his
writings comprise the majority of the
books of the Christian New Testament.
Very little is known about Paul’s life
outside of a few brief references in his
authentic letters and from the account of
his life given in the New Testament book
of Acts. Though the details of Paul’s life
found in Acts are not necessarily entirely
fictitious, they are highly idealized and at
times conflict with details found in his
authentic letters.
According to Acts, Paul was born
“Saul” in the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor,
and he was supposedly a citizen of the
Roman Empire. As a devout Jew (though
it is disputed to what extent Saul was
involved in traditional Judaism: it has
been suggested that Saul was already on
the margins of Judaism), Saul was an avid
persecutor of the early Christians (this
comes from Paul’s own letters and Acts).
However, according to Acts, Saul received
a vision of the risen Christ while on the
road to Damascus and was struck blind.
After this point, Saul “converted” to Chris-
tianity and changed his name to “Paul.” (It
should be noted that language of “conver-
sion” is often applied to this story, but this
language would not have been used—in
our sense—by Paul himself. After his
vision, he began to believe in Christ, thus
changing from his previous mindset.)
After coming to believe in Christ, Paul
traveled throughout the Roman Empire
preaching the gospel and starting new
churches in most of the cities he visited.
As he traveled from city to city, he kept in
correspondence with the Christian com-
munities that he had helped to form. The
result of this correspondence is a corpus
of letters containing advice, answers to
questions, and theological discourse. The
seven original letters of Paul (Romans,
1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians,
1 Thessalonians, and Philemon) are
thought to be the earliest Christian writ-
ings contained in the Bible.
Because Christianity was not recog-
nized by the Roman Empire, Paul was