Pascal at the PA

Yesterday, I was back at the Pastor's Academy perhaps for the last time. I was at the reading group leading a discussion of a new biography of Blaise Pascal by Graham Tomlin. The book is a fine piece of work and appears to give a full and fair description and assessment of the giant and genius that is Pascal. The below were written to provoke discussion, whuch they did. They plan to look at Oilgrim's Progress next, September 7.

Pastors Academy Reading Group April 27 2026 [GB]

Blaise Pascal, the man who made the modern world by Graham Tomlin [H & S 2025]

Impressions? Did you enjoy it? What did you know of P beforehand? Can we trust Tomlin?

Intro [1-8] Does Tomlin oversell P? Did P anticipate postmodernism?

1 Great Century [9-36] How necessary is this chapter, how helpful? Is P an enigma [13]?

2/3 Majesty of Science [37-59]/Weighing the Air [60-73] Do these chapters help us with the science versus religion debate? What are the differences between P and Descartes? Would it be better today if scientists were more open to changing their minds if the evidence suggests it? [63] Do “Science & theology require different methods”? [72] If so, why? “It is the heart that perceives God not the reason”; true? [72]

4 Nothing Is Certain [74-96] Any libertins or honnete hommes today? What are the differences between P and Montaigne? How did they see death similarly/differently? Where did they differ on attitudes to self? What about man's insignificance/right responses to the human condition? 'What do I know?' or 'What do I do?' [95]

5 Children of Port-Royal [97-123] Is there an argument for sometimes abstaining from communion? What about retreats? [102] What about contrition and attrition? [112] What about pre-communion self-examination? [113] Does Chapter 5 help us on the matter of living out “the spiritual life in the middle of the world”? [121] What about providence – eg P not marrying, escaping his crazy uncle, etc? [120, 122]

6 Night of Fire [124-149] Is there a place for burying a talent? What do you make of P's “second conversion”? How does it compare with Descartes' story? Is it anti-physical at all?

7 Two Champions [150-168] Who are the two champions; what difference does P highlight under their names? Are Protestants far too confident that they, they alone, know the true meaning of the Bible? [159] Is sceptical dogmatism/dogmatic scepticism the right way to think?

8 Demented, Heretical or Jansenist? [169-196] What do we say to the five propositions? Is God a capricious despot moving pawns around? [172] Is there a blurring of Church and world today and will instruction put things right? [174] Were Jansenists Calvinists in disguise? [175; 112/3, 185] Would an entirely different approach help us perhaps? Does ridicule have a place? [176] Is there more of a need for popular writing? [178] Are there things to discuss here about use of technology/ persecution? What about the Jesuit views considered in letters 5 & 7? What do you make of the discussion of grace 186-191? Are both Jesuits and Jansenists wrong? Is it true to say heresy is often driven by an apologetic agenda, the Jesuits being a prime example? [192/3] Was P a Jansenist?

9 Hidden God [197-220] P speaks of the force of truth; a useful phrase? [197] What of his commitment to Romanism? [198] “P was always a too big and independent a mind and a character to fit ...” True or false? If true, good or bad? [199] Ridicule and eloquence might amuse but do not convert – discuss [201] Is the idea of God being hidden useful [202]? “True miracles can never be performed by anyone … to confirm an error” Is that a biblical position? [206] Are false miracles a proof there are true ones? [207] Do people believe miracles or not on the strength of evidence or what's in their hearts? [208] Is this helpful on the incarnation? [209, 220] Is P's doubt over creation's power to convert right? [212] It provides “too much to deny and too much to prove”; true? [213] “... he must see enough to know that he has lost him ...” Useful? [217]

10 Cleopatra’s Nose [221-244] Is P helpful on politics? Did the Jansenists act Jesuitically? [243]

11 Distracting Ourselves to Death [245-267] P was not content with conventional wisdom; is that a good thing? [251] What of P's struggle to balance his love of maths, etc and his love for God? [255] Is P helpful on distraction? Why is the most pleasure in the chase? [260] How do Montaigne and P differ on happiness? What about the long quotation 263?

12 Christianity Is Strange [268-293] Was P pre-suppositionalist? [275] How do we learn to love people? [276/7] Is P's order of arguing his case good? How do we escape thinking only of the past and future? [287] What about the problem of self-deception? Do we need to learn that we are monsters? [289] Is the observation top of 292 about Adam true and helpful? Is Christianity strange?

13 Make It Attractive [294-317] Is it right to say that simply piling up rational arguments for faith is a mistake? [299] What about “All those contradictions which seemed to take me furthest from the knowledge of any religion are what led me most directly to the true religion”? [302] How important is it to stress that we need a Redeemer? [303] What about his approach to Islam and the Old Testament? And the centrality of Jesus Christ? [308] Is the realisation that revelation is paradoxically hidden a helpful insight? [309] “Despite its total implausibility”? [310] The importance of the cross? What about pages 316, 317?

14 Spinning Coin at the Edge of the Universe [318-342] Atheism – not a bad argument but a bad gamble?? [332] What about the power of habit? [334] Confirmation bias?? [336] Three ways to believe? [340]

15 Hate Your Self [343-364] Does P define conversion well? [343] The competitive, deceiving, divided, trivial self and the remedy? The right balance in hating self?

16 If You Only Had a Week to Live [365-388] What do we make of P and his critics?

A light on the hill

On Monday we met at the Pastors Acadmy for our book group. This time the book was a local church history by a man called Caleb Morrell. Phil Heaps kindly provided with two sets of questions and a helpful outline.

1. “What Shall the Harvest Be?”: 1867–1878

2. “A Helper of the Downtrodden and Lowly”: 1878–1882  Joseph W. Parker – 1879-82 ~3yrs

3. “With Conscience Void of Offence toward God and Man”: 1882–1884 Wilbur M. Ingersoll – 1882-84 ~2yrs

4. “We Do Our Own Thinking in This Church”: 1885–1889 William H. Young – 1885-90 ~5yrs

5. “We Have a Leader of National Reputation”: 1890–1895 Green Clay Smith – 1890-95 ~5yrs

6. “The Future Is Bright with Promise”: 1896–1912 Granville S. Williams – 1895–1903 ~8yrs

7. “War, Fuel Famine, and Influenza Epidemics”: 1913–1918 John Compton Ball – 1903-44 ~41yrs

8. “No Modernism Will Be Tolerated at All in This Church”: 1919–1943 9. “Holding Forth the Word of Life”: 1944–1955 K. Owen White – 1944-49 ~5yrs Walter Carpenter – 1949-55 ~6yrs

10. “A Beachhead for Evangelical Christianity”: 1956–1960 Walter A. Pegg – 1956-61 ~5yrs

11. “Jesus Doesn’t Need a Parking Lot”: 1961–1980 R.B. Culbreth – 1961-66 ~5yrs John Stuckey – 1967-71 ~5yrs C. Wade Freeman Jr. – 1971-81 ~10yrs

12. “When a Christian Leader Falls”: 1981–1993 Walt Tomme Jr. – 1982-88 ~6yrs

Harry Kilbride – 1990-93 ~3yrs

13. “Preach, Pray, Love, and Stay”: 1994–2000 Mark Dever – 1994-present ~31yrs

14. “Doing Nothing and Church Planting”: 2001–Present

We all found the book helpful and interesting and there was a good discussion among the seven present on this occasion. Blaise Pascal next in May.

Example questions

1. What did you think of the book? Strengths / weaknesses?

2. Are there any incidents or characters that particularly lodged in your mind?

3. ch.1: What were Thomas Ustick Walter’s strengths & weaknesses, p10f? Do these things often go together? Have you ever had to change any strongly held and loudly trumpeted views, p16?

4. ch.3: What did Walter Ingersoll do wrong, and what can we learn from this episode, p59,62,65?

5. ch.4: How important are “youth, energy and enthusiasm”, p70 and “unyielding determination to succeed”, p73?

6. ch.5: Does it always feel like we are in a time of social decay and moral regress”, p82? (p90,95; p168)

7. In the early 1890s, 65% of MBC’s members were women, p98. How does that compare with our churches? etc.

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2025 Concupiscence

It was good to be with about 30 others at the Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture in the seminary in Finchley last Tuesday evening. The speaker was Matthew Roberts, the author of the book Pride, who spoke on repentance. Matthew has made his mark drawing attention to the whole matter of concupiscence. That was part of his message but there was much more. He must have spoken for over an hour and then there was a decent question session to follow. A good evening. One slight thing is that by now there is no real connection with Dr Lloyd-Jones. Some reference to the Doctor would perhaps have been appropriate.

The Great Divorce and Miracles C S Lewis

We had another book session at the seminary on Monday (May 12 2025). Every third book we choose is supposed to be a classic and so we went this time for C S Lewis. For some reason we went for two - the brief Great Divorce and the longer Miracles.

I was given a copy of TGD when I was younger and a bit more literalistic. Lewis says clearly it is a fantasy not a cosmology of heaven and hell but I couldn't cope, especially with the apparent to-ing and fro-ing between the two. Hopefully, I am more mature now and could see the points being made. The title is a deliberate play on words and ideas, referencing William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. For Blake good and evil, Heaven and Hell, are ultimately reconciled or intertwined. Lewis strongly rejects such ideas. Hence divorce, a total and eternal separation between good and evil, Heaven and Hell. For Lewis, there can be no blending of the two; souls must ultimately choose one or the other. There is a final, irreconcilable break between those who accept joy, truth,and God (Heaven) and those who cling to self-deception, pride or sin (Hell).

Miracles is a more demanding read and takes a long time to get to the main subject, though those final two chapters are helpful. (Sadly, Lewis was unprepared to defend Old Testament miracles in the same way that he does NT ones).

I guess our group reponse was a typical evangelical one. Wow, what insights but how dangerous he can be at times. I Bought my copies in a slip case with five others at a bargain price. Next time in September, it is John Mak Comer's popular Practicing the Way.