All? Or Nothing? Or Neither?

"For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything."

I really like the comparison Pascal made here. We are nothing compared to God, but we are everything compared to the nothingness (whatever that may be). We are in the middle of the spectrum.

<-↓--------------------↓----------------------↓->
The Nothing                               Man                                   The Infinite

While reading this small portion of the text, I could not help but think of the natural hierarchy in which we live in:

God

Man

Plants, Animals, etc.

I really can't think of any other what to put that concept than in the way Pascal did. We are everything to things ranked under us and have dominion over them. But the Infinite still reins supreme over all. 

The text goes into man's ability to understand in the following paragraphs. He basically says that since man cannot understand everything, they rush to other things. They look to nature for answers. This reminds me of something I learned my first semester in Dr. Mashburn's class. It is the same concept. Man fails to understand the nature of God and why He does/did certain things, so they look for ways to explain this. They seek answers in nature. In nature, people can see the amazing work of God. But man will still never be able to conceive the things he wants, because we cannot think like God. Man is basically on this everlasting search for knowledge that isn't available to man. Only the Infinite has the abilities to conceive the extremes, as the text would say.

So far, I am really enjoying reading this small bit of Pascal's writing.

Sydney Snow

P.S. I commented on Kayla's and  Drew's posts.