A Seventeenth Century French Mathematician Speaks on COVID-19

Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth century French mathematician.  Yet, Pascal was much more than that.  He was  also an inventor and later in his life a Roman Catholic theologian.  He was educated in the ways of mathematics by his father who was also a mathematician.  His philosophical and theological training was much broader though not in the traditional university settings of the day.

Pascal's work as a theologian is notable in a time in which the Roman Catholic Church was reforming itself within as the Protestant Reformation was taking hold outside the bounds of the Church.  Perhaps Pascal's most famous contribution to theological thought is something called Pascal's Wager.  It is recorded in a theological work he wrote entitled Pensees. The Wager is basically Pascal's argument for the existence of God.

The argument essentially says that one if one believes in God and God does not exist, the believer loses nothing.  Conversely if one fails to believe in God and God does exist, then one has lost everything.  While one might dispute the effectiveness of this argument as an agent for convincing a non believer to believe, one cannot deny its logic.

Pascal's Wager comes to mind in the recent controversy concerning the wearing of masks in public in the face of COVID-19. In spite of the fact that the medical community overwhelmingly supports masking as an effective way of reducing the spread of COVID-19 many refuse to do so.  Some refuse because they do not believe that masking is effective. 

Here one can easily apply Pascal's Wager.  If one masks in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 but the mask does not do so what has one really lost?  However, if one refuses to mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and their going maskless allows others to become infected then there is indeed something lost with the infliction of harm to others.

Pascal's Wager tackles another of the arguments that is given for not masking in the face of COVID-19.  For some going barefaced in public comes from a lack of belief in the severity of the virus and the extent of the pandemic. Again, if the virus is not a real issue one has lost nothing by wearing a mask.  If the virus is a treacherous as reported (and with infections greater than the entire population of Los Angeles and more deaths than the population of Athens-Clarke County there can be little doubt it is) there is much to be gained by masking.

Pascal might possibly be surprised to find his theological argument being applied to a medical setting.  Then again, perhaps he would not.  Pascal died at the age of thirty-nine after a life filled with health complications.  One could easily assume that based on his own logic, Pascal would have done what would give him hope and possibly lessen the pain that was daily part of his life.

In the end, this great French thinker would no doubt hand all of us a mask to wear.