19 June 1623 AD. Blaise Pascal Born

19 June 1623 AD.  Blaise Pascal was born.

Dr. Rusten tells the story.  Rusten, E. Michael and Rusten, Sharon. The One Year Christian History. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2003. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Christian-History-Books/dp/0842355073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393302630&sr=8-1&keywords=rusten+church+history

Pascal was born to an upper-class family in central France.  His father, Etienne, an attorney, magistrate, and tax-collector, loved languages, math and his children’s education.  He moved the family to Paris.  The children were homeschooled. At 12, Blaise was working in geometry and, by 16, drew the attention of Rene Descartes.   Blaise’s principles would be used in the theory of probability.

But, Blaise was also digesting Scriptures.  He recorded his spiritual journey:

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars…He is to be found only by the ways taught in the Gospel…Righteous Father, the world has not known Thee, but I have known Thee…let me not be separated from Him eternally…This is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and the one whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ…Let me never be separated from Him.  We keep hold of Him only by the ways taught in the Gospel.”

A few days after Pascal’s death, a house servant discovered the above sewed into Pascal’s coat—the original and a copy, dated 23 Nov 1654, the date of his devotional piece and obviously important to him.  It had remained in the coat until Pascal died 8 years later in 1662.  Before that death, he wrote the Pensees.

Sources

Bechtel, Paul M. “Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662).” NIDCC. 749.

Cailliet, Emil. The Emergence of Genius. New York: Harper, 1945.