Pascal's Wafer: The Concept of Piety in Blaise Pascal's Theological Anthropology

Abstract

The concept of piety occupies a central, if hidden or obscure place in the theological anthropology of Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). Like many aspects of Pascal’s thought, piety has a two-sided, paradoxical nature stemming from the broader human condition, a condition marked by—indeed, torn between—misery and greatness. On the one hand, for Pascal, an individual can never, in their earthly existence, achieve a sense of certainty or definitive self-constitution through any act, pious or otherwise, no matter how visible or numerous such acts may be. As a product of the Fall, the human self is “hateful” and perpetually incapable of fulfilling, through its own merits or capabilities, any sense of duty or purity before God. As the means by which the human self is “annihilated,” piety hence entails a spirit of endurance and embrace of uncertainty. On the other hand, however, piety does not exclusively entail unceasing, self-annihilating acts. There are also different earthly states of piety—what Pascal refers to as the “beginning,” “progress” and “consummation” of piety—that are increasingly “filled” and directed toward a final, heavenly state. There is thus a way in which annihilating acts and vivifying states of piety work in tandem and toward the same end. This simultaneity and synergy of pious acts and states may be discerned in the three orders constituting Pascal’s anthropology, namely, those of the body, mind, and heart. Crucially and at each step of the way, this process is dependent on God’s action, that is, on grace. As I seek to show, piety, for Pascal, is fundamentally a childlike phenomenon—an act and state simultaneously whereby, rather than a person presenting themselves before God, God presents Himself both before and within the person.