Pascal on Calvinists and Molinists

I’ve recently learned that Pas­cal was not a fan of Calvin­ists (or Calvin­ist) or Molin­ists (or Molin­ism), at least on the issue of pre­des­ti­na­tion. Two groups which seem to be inter­act­ing with each other more and more each day. Flip­ping through Pascal’s Pensees, we read:

Calvin­ists

The opin­ion of Calvin­ists is: That God, in cre­at­ing men, cre­ated some to damn them and oth­ers to save them, through an absolute will and with­out any fore­seen merit. That, in order to exe­cute this absolute will, God made Adam sin, and not only allowed, but caused, his fall. That in God there is no dif­fer­ence at all being doing and allow­ing. That, God hav­ing made Adam sin and thereby all human­ity in him, he sent Jesus Christ for the redemp­tion of those he wished to save when he cre­ated them, and that he gives them char­ity* and sal­va­tion unques­tion­ably. That God aban­dons, and dur­ing the whole of their lives deprives of char­ity, those he decided to con­demn when he cre­ated them.

That is the appalling opin­ion of these heretics, inju­ri­ous to God and unbear­able to men. These are the shame­less blas­phemies by which they estab­lish in God an absolute will with­out fore­seen merit or sin to damn or save his crea­tures.¹

Pas­cal appar­ently wasn’t all that fond of Molin­ists, either, in their extreme con­tra­dic­tion of Calvinism.

Molin­ists

Hat­ing this abom­inable view and the excess in which it abounds, the Molin­ists took up not only an oppo­site opin­ion, which would have been enough, but an absolutely con­tra­dic­tory one. That is that God has a con­di­tional will gen­er­ally to save all human beings. That to achieve this Jesus Christ became incar­nate to save them all, with no excep­tion, and that, His grace being offered to all, it depends on each indi­vid­ual to use it well or badly. That God, hav­ing seen for all eter­nity the good or bad use which would be made of his grace, wanted to save those who would make good use of it and damn those who would mis­use it, not hav­ing on his own part any absolute will either to damn or save any one man.

This view, con­trary to that of the Calvin­ists, pro­duces a quite dif­fer­ent effect. It flat­ters the com­mon sense, which the other one shcosk. It flat­ters it and, mak­ing men mas­ters of their sal­va­tion or damna­tion, excludes from God any absolutely will, and makes sal­va­tion and damna­tion derive from numan will, whereas in Calvin’s view both derive from divine will.²

An inter­est­ing per­spec­tive from three hun­dred or so years ago, as these basic argu­ments against both Calvin­ism and Molin­ism are still around today in one form or another.