Abstract

Blaise Pascal reacts against contemporary and previous fideist use of scepticism in Christian apologetics. He starts a new tradition of Christian thought by reconstructing scepticism in terms of Christian categories. Montaigne, Charron, and La Mothe Le Vayer use the arguments and uphold the commitments of the Ancient sceptics to intellectual integrity, tranquility, detachment, and suspension of judgment. They recommend scepticism as a first step towards faith. Pascal uses the sceptical arguments, but rejects and reverses these commitments. Kierkegaard and Shestov carry Pascal's Christianization of Pyrrhonism further by radicalizing the opposition between Christian and Ancient sceptics commitments. All three ground epistemological scepticism on, and adjust it to, the Christian doctrine of the Fall of Man. They use scepticism not as propaedeutic to Christian faith, but as means for its clarification