Pascal and Disbelief: Catechesis and Conversion in the Pensees Book

	List of Illustrations
	Acknowledgments
	Avant-Propos
	Introduction	1
I	Pascal and the Unbelievers	49
	Le Libertinage erudit	51
	Two Cautious Skeptics: La Mothe le Vayer and Gabriel Naude	66
	The Survival of the Radical Tradition: Covert Atheism and Clandestine Manuscripts	81
	Pascal and Deism	90
	"La Religion a la mode": The Popularization of Deist Ideas	110
	Pascal and the Libertins erudits: A Reassessment	113
	L'Honnete Homme	119
II	Isaac de La Peyrere and the Discovery of Pre-Biblical Time	131
	Du Rappel des Juifs	135
	La Peyrere and the Problem of the Peoples of the New World	144
	La Peyrere's Arrest and Conversion	148
	The Systema theologicum ex prae Adamitarum hypothesi	151
	La Peyrere's Critique of Genesis	155
	Biblical History Versus the Deep Abyss of Time	157
	La Peyrere and La Libre Pensee	162
	La Peyrere and the Origins of Modern Biblical Criticism	166
	La Peyrere's Rejection of the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch	169
	The Legacy of La Peyrere	171
III	Pascal and the Non-Christian Religions	177
	Pascal and Islam	182
	Du Ryer's L'Alcoran	186
	Pascal and Grotius	193
	"Histoire de la Chine": Pascal and the Challenge to Biblical Time	211
	Martini's Sinicae Historiae	218
	Pascal and the Jesuit Mission to China	224
	Le Vayer's De la vertu des payens	228
	Fragment 822 and Neo-Augustinian Theology	235
IV	The Preface to the Apology	243
	Fragments 418 and 427: The State of the Texts	243
	Pascal's Interlocutor in Fragment 418	248
	The Unbelievers in Fragment 427	275
	The Tragedy of Disbelief	295
	The Pseudo-Libertins	309
	The Uses and Dangers of Skepticism	314
V	Catechesis and Conversion in the Pensees	327
	Pascal's Chercheur	327
	The Catechumenate as a Model for Conversion	335
	The Faith of the Simple	343
	The Limits of Apologetics	350
	The Evolution of the Chercheur	362
	Pascal's Categories of Disbelief	366
	The Role of Argument in the Apology: The Hardened Skeptics Reconsidered	373
	Bibliography	387
	General Index	397
	Index to "Pensees" cited	407