HKB
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Often appears with: superstition · pride, vanity, and humility · faith vs proof · custom shaping belief · custom and unwritten law · conversion and faith
Usually: reflection (1) · censure (1) · skepticism (1)
“Custom is the source of our strongest and most believed proofs. It bends the automaton, which persuades the mind without its thinking about the matter.” Blaise Pascal, Pascal's Pensées · insight
Pascal distinguishes faith from proof, criticizes superstition and pride, explains how custom shapes belief and converts the mind’s reasons into stable conviction, and classifies people into three spiritual types.
248 *A letter which indicates the use of proofs by the machine.*--Faith is different from proof; the one is human, the other is a gift of God. *Justus ex fide vivit.*[97] It is this faith that God Himself puts into the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument, _fides ex auditu_;[98] but this faith is in the heart, and makes us not say *scio*, but *credo*. 249 It is superstition to put one's hope in formal…