Duplex delectatio. Note sull'ermeneutica di Agostino tra Giansenio, Pascal e la Scolastica

This article aims to study the Augustinian theme of duplex delectatio in relation to Blaise Pascal’s Writings on Grace and their Jansenist and scholastic background. As is well known, Pascal’s doctrine of victorious delight is directly indebted to the Jansenius’ Augustinus. Furthermore, Pascal seems to embrace from Jansenius the idea that in a state of sin, human desire is oriented only towards pleasurable good and not towards good as such. However, in the Pensées and the Provincial Letters, Pascal directs human desire towards good as such and opens up the possibility that free will could resist grace and, therefore, victorious delight. The sense of this freedom, understood as freedom of indifference, is further explored through certain passages in the Augustinus, highlighting the Scotist background that unites Jansenius and Luis de Molina.