The Gallican Context for Pascal’s Writings on Grace

Abstract This article sets Pascal’s views on grace in the context of the intense disputes within the Catholic Church of his time, which were particularly divisive in France. The effective repudiation of St Augustine’s teachings on grace, to which the church would never openly admit, was largely driven by the pastoral needs of the Catholic Reform, yet the Jansenists, themselves determined but conservative supporters of such reform, could never accept such compromises with the world. For all the charm of his writings, Pascal advocated an austere form of Christianity which reflected both his own deep inner tensions and the radical pessimism of Jansenism.