God's promise

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Often appears with: the problem of evil and theodicy · salvation conditions · providence and divine governance · prayer and worship · prayer · grace

Usually: reflection (1) · crisis of belief (1) · reverence (1)

Quotable

“Prayer presupposes a grace which it is not within our power to obtain.” Blaise Pascal, Pascal's Pensées · insight

Pascal's Pensées primary

Blaise Pascal · c. 1660 (notes compiled earlier/later, as left unfinished at his death)
SECTION > SECTION XIV (15/16)

A translator explains a disputed fragment about prayer: God promises to answer requests, but humans lack the grace needed to ask rightly, so prayer presupposes grace.

Then God abandons the first in this sense. It is doubtful, however that this fragment should be included in the *Pensées*, and it has seemed best to separate it from the text. It has only once before appeared--in the edition of Michaut (1896). The first half of it has been freely translated in order to give an interpretation in accordance with a suggestion from M. Emile Boutro…