Les Écrits sur la grâce, ou de la bonne manière d’être augustinien

Abstract

Abstract This article forms part of the introduction to the volume. It first emphasizes the strata in Pascal’s exegesis of the Decree on justification of the Council of Trent. For Pascal, a logico-grammatical analysis of the proposition ‘God’s commandments are not impossible’ is enough to refute its Molinist interpretation as a permanent power. But, strategically, the Écrits sur la grâce make Molinism a theological error symmetrical to the negation of actual grace by Lutheranism. The same error recurs structurally in theology: Molinists vs Lutherans are to be considered as the new Pelagians vs new Manicheans. The second part of the article focuses on the question that Pascal claims to have considered fully in the Écrits: God’s ‘double délaissement’ of man. The article shows that the target, when asserting the dependence of continued justification on continued prayer (while this latter is not in man’s power) is to differentiate true Augustinism from pseudo-Augustinism.