Content of The Letters
Structurally, the first three letters ridicule the dispute between the Thomists and the Jesuits on the nature of salvation, rather asserting a Jansenist understanding of salvation. Making allusion to the Congregatio de Auxiliis, the debate concerned the respective role of grace and free will, Molinists (i.e. Jesuits) claiming that an "efficacious grace" was not necessary to save man, but only a "sufficient grace" bestowed by God to all men, while Thomists claimed that the "sufficient grace," given to all men, had to be assisted by an "efficacious grace," bestowed only to the select few (in accordance also with Augustinism). Pascal thus highlighted, in the Second Letter, that neo-Thomists and Jesuits were using the same term, "sufficient grace", with two different senses, for political reasons.
Read more about this topic: Lettres Provinciales
Famous quotes containing the words content and/or letters:
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome about A.D. 100] hoped that teachers would be sensitive to individual differences of temperament and ability. . . . Beating, he thought, was usually unnecessary. A teacher who had made the effort to understand his pupil’s individual needs and character could probably dispense with it: “I will content myself with saying that children are helpless and easily victimized, and that therefore no one should be given unlimited power over them.””
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Harvey: About this Voltaire.
Helene: What about him?
Harvey: How’d he ever get time to do all he did?
Helene: He lived to be old.
Harvey: Even so, how many letters did he write?
Helene: Oh, I don’t know exactly. Thousands.
Harvey: I can’t remember when I even wrote one.
Helene: You should try.
Harvey: It’s too late. I wouldn’t know where to send it.”
—Tom Waldman (d. 1985)