Provincial Letters Containing an Exposure of the Reasoning and Morals of the Jesuits to Whic... Book

As someone for whom the disputes in the book were irrelevant, I have to say that I found Pascal's methods of argument very impressive. It's just hard to believe that the Jesuits could have been as malevolent as portrayed by the author.

Even if one has no interest in religious doctrines this book is important as a historical record of what was going on in the Catholic church after the Reformation. The religious issues had religious and political importance. It was a life and death matter if a certain party was condemned as heretical. I don't know if Pascal could have been in danger from the Jesuits but things could have gone bad for him in a big hurry. It doesn't seem to have mattered to the Jesuits that his arguments were stronger than theirs. If they could have pulled the right political levers he might have been condemned by the secular authorities as well. I'll have to look up Jansenism and see if there was a price to pay because they held different views than the established Church. It's Pascal's point that the views of theirs that he presents were orthodox but I think they did differ on some doctrine.

In any case it's interesting to read the arguments of someone who argues so well.

It was impressive to see that he explicitly defends Galileo against the condemnation of the Church, though I don't know if the Church had reversed its stand on a stationary earth by the time of this work. Pascal was both a man who understood theology very thoroughly and a man of science. I think that is a good combination.