The Heart Has Its Reasons

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” — Matthew 22:37 (KJV)

Pascal was a scientist and mathematician. He loved proof. So it may surprise you that his most famous single sentence is about something reason can’t do:

“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”

People sometimes take this to mean that feelings matter more than facts, or that you should believe whatever you want. That is not what Pascal meant at all.

By “the heart” he did not mean emotions. He meant the deepest part of us, where we know things directly, without working them out step by step. He gives an example. You know that you are awake and not dreaming. You cannot prove it with an argument, but you know it. In the same way, he says, we know first principles, like the fact that there is space and time and number, by the heart, not by reason. Reason builds on them.

“We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.”

And then he applies this to God: “It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.” Faith, he says, is a gift from God.

But Pascal does not throw away reason. He loved it too much. He says there are two mistakes: “to exclude reason, to admit reason only.” Christianity is not against thinking. You should ask hard questions, study the evidence, and use your mind. Jesus said to love God with all your mind as well as your heart.

Pascal also says that reason is at its best when it recognises its own limits:

“The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.”

This is a good reminder for anyone who thinks science has made God unnecessary. Science is wonderful, and Pascal was a great scientist. But science cannot tell you whether your life has meaning, why there is something rather than nothing, or whether God loves you. Those questions are real, and reason alone cannot finish answering them.

So when you have doubts, think them through. Read, ask, discuss. But also pay attention to the deeper knowing of the heart: the longing for God, the sense that life is more than chance, the way Jesus’ words ring true. God speaks to the whole of you.

One thing to do this week: write down one question about God or faith that bugs you. This week, find one thing to read or one wise Christian to ask about it, and also bring the question to God in prayer. Use both your mind and your heart.