Pascal writes his thoughts on what exactly the creation- the world around us- is meant to reveal about God. I’ve done my best to take the ideas and put them in an order I can articulate. Any confusion you as a reader may have is probably due to my insertions.

Christianity teaches men two truths: 1) there is a God that men can know, and 2) there is a corruption in their natures which renders them unworthy of Him.

Romans 1 tells us that that God’s invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature have been made plain through creation. We understand then that God reveals himself through nature as well as personal revelation. Pascal states that there is no point in trying to prove the existence of God, or other points of doctrine through natural reason since such knowledge apart from Jesus is useless and barren. The God of the Bible isn’t simply a God of mathematical truths, He is the God of love- who makes men both aware of their sinfulness, and aware of His mercy. for them, and who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself.

If the world existed to instruct man of God, His divinity would shine through every part of it indisputably. But since it exists by and for Jesus- and to teach men both their corruption and redemption, creation displays itself toward that end. Creation indicates neither a total exclusion, nor a manifest presence, of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides himself.  

Man needs to have some hint of God in creation, but not so much as to believe he possesses Him. He needs to see enough of God to know he lost Him.  

We weren’t in the garden with Adam, so we don’t understand the glory of Adam’s state, or the nature of his sin, or its transmission to us. And knowledge of this would be useless to us as a means of escape from it. What we need to know is that we are miserable, corrupt, and separated from God.  

So we get enough of a glimpse of God through creation to understand both that He must be out there, and that we don’t have Him; enough to feel like we should know him, but don’t.