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Presenting itself as a considerable work of positive theology, that is to say, a return to the rigorously established sources of doctrine, the Augustinus, both in the themes treated (grace and freedom, the disinterestedness and merit of the human act, the role of affects, etc.) and in the method followed (the authority of the texts of St. Augustine based on the experience of their author, the metaphor as sign and operator of the passage from theology to experience), is a great work of spirituality. However, by promoting the central notions of the spiritual life as objects of debate in the mid-seventeenth century, the book led to the transformation of the theological and spiritual debate into an anthropological debate.