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How did Blaise Pascal use the writings of Michel de Montaigne and Thomas Hobbes in his religious arguments?

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French philosopher Blaise Pascal — Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal, oil painting by an anonymous artist, c. 1650; in the Musée Carnavalet–Histoire de Paris, Paris. Pascal laid the foundation for probability theory.

To convert his "libertine" friends to Christianity, Blaise Pascal strategically utilized the writings of authors they admired, including Michel de Montaigne and Thomas Hobbes, as a starting point for his religious arguments in the Pensées.1

Pascal viewed Skepticism as a necessary stage in the journey toward faith. He employed Montaigne’s skeptical insights to demonstrate the limitations of human reason and the inherent contradictions of man, who is described as an "incomprehensible mixture of greatness and abjectness". By highlighting these contradictions, Pascal argued that philosophy and worldliness alone fail to provide answers, thereby creating a space for the necessity of grace and Christianity.1

While he engaged with these authors, Pascal also critiqued them. For instance, he famously anathematized Montaigne’s project of self-portraiture, viewing it as a challenge to the religious values of self-abnegation and submission. Ultimately, Pascal sought to move beyond the skepticism of his contemporaries, insisting that while psychological analyses could expose the human condition, true certainty could only be found through the convergence of these insights with the "lines of fact" concerning divine revelation.21