Pascal claims that pride and despair can be replaced by the virtues of humility and hope. I will explore in this post what Pascal means by pride and despair as spiritual vices, and how an encounter with Christ in faith engenders the spiritual virtues of humility and hope. When Pascal writes that the knowledge of God creates prides one should understand that such knowledge has been acquired without the proper contextualization: the knowledge of humanity’s own wretchedness or misery. Similarly, the knowledge of humanity’s wretchedness leads human beings into despair if they do not have the knowledge of God. In …

Aquinas in Suma Theologica (II-II, Q.20, A.4) argues that sloth leads to despair. I will briefly explore how sloth might lead to despair, using Rebecca DeYoung’s reinterpretation on the nature of sloth in her book Glittering Vices (Brazos Press, 2009). Young briefly challenges the popular notion of understanding sloth as mere laziness. She argues that the modern concept of ‘sloth’ has departed significantly from the spiritual roots with which it had connections (p. 82). Young’s aim is to retrieve the Christian notion of sloth and clarify the misunderstandings around this concept. Young clings to Aquinas, who is in the middle …