Abstract
Pascal reveals that spiritual formation must always focus on Christ. We must first understand that we are evil and why we are evil; once we are aware of this human plight we all suffer from, spiritual formation begins by developing an awareness that allows us to do something about this situation. We must use our reason to evaluate our problem and, having been made aware of it, we should move forward by looking exclusively at Christ. A Christian must never succumb to scepticism by using his reason; on the contrary, our God-given reason must be used spiritually by asking vital questions about life and death. By using our reason the right way, Pascal explains that we must then understand that we are at the same time sinful and great, which in turn allows us to move towards Christ with all we are: body, mind, and heart. In Pascal, spiritual formation is an attempt to move towards God by allowing Christ to supernaturally dwell within us as real presence and perfect love.
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Simuț, C.C. (2022). ‘Let Me Never Be Separated from Him’: Spiritual Formation as Total Submission in Blaise Pascal. In: Spiritual Formation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97447-3_9
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