The Moral Virtues: Hope
Understanding Hope in the world of Despair
Definition of Hope
Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven, placing our trust in God and not on our own strength.
Associated Vices: Despair & Envy
Hope is closely related to faith, but where faith is submitting to God, hope is the trust in the promise of things unseen. Without faith, there can be no hope, as hope is fruit of a truly, deeply held faith, not just some vain knowledge.
Romans 5 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
Hope is Experiential
A key notion of hope is that it is based on previous experiences. In the verses above, Paul makes the point that suffering has produced endurance, which produced character, which has ultimately produced hope. But what does that mean?
In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul recounts that he has been beaten, shipwrecked, lost at sea, stoned, and more. Yet, Paul has never been abandoned by God. In fact, it is through these trials that God has proven faithful. As Deuteronomy 31 says: “[God] will not fail you or forsake you.”
By recounting all of the trials of his life, Paul is making that case that his sufferings have produce the endurance and character required to live a life of hope. This is not an empty hope, a blind faith in the idea that ‘it’ll all work out,’ but rather it is a hope based on experience, based on the events of Paul’s life.
This is similar to the cries of David in the Psalms. David lived a life of triumph and tragedy, but there was always a hopeful end to his lamentations. Even the famous opening to Psalm 22 is easily misunderstood. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is not the end of the Psalm, it is just the opening line. As David prophesies to all of the anguish that Christ will endure, it ends with the hopeful finish: “They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”
Suffering & Hope
Paul’s hardships highlight one of the key characteristics of hope. Suffering is one of the hardest questions for anyone to answer, and one that requires far more exploration than this article allows, but in short, suffering provides an opportunity to grow our faith.
2 Corinthians 12 Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant. 8 I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Here Paul highlights that the thorns in his flesh were a key in his humility, in that through his own weaknesses and sufferings, he was forced to rely on God, so that it was not through his own works, but through the works of God. This directly ties into Paul’s sense of hope, in that Paul had been tried, beaten, and left for dead, but yet God had never forsaken him. Given his history, Paul could be confident that no matter what he would face in the future, he could have a reasoned hope that God would always provide for his needs.
As we will see in the Christian writings, this hope will be a foundation for the early church martyrs. The vast majority of church leaders in the first 300 years after Christ were hunted, tortured, and killed for their faith. From the Apostles to Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and thousands of others, these early church leaders faced the greatest threats imaginable, but did so with unwavering hope, which was a direct result of their core faith in God.
Knowledge does not Always produce Hope
As previously said, knowledge of something is not enough to produce hope. James makes the point that knowledge of God is not faith, and the difference is in how we orient our lives.
James 2 19 You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that—and tremble with fear.
Only by willfully submitting our lives to Him do we exercise faith; however, there are those that know God yet reject his will for their lives. In these cases, instead of hope and faith, the same knowledge of the Almighty produces despair, or even terror.
When, then, we believe that good is about to come, this is nothing else but to hope for it. Now what shall I say of love? Without it, faith profits nothing; and in its absence, hope cannot exist. The Apostle James says: The devils also believe, and tremble. — that is, they, having neither hope nor love, but believing that what we love and hope for is about to come, are in terror. - St. Augustine
Many of us know how we should live our lives and we know what produces a stable family (humility, monogamy, virtue), yet we give in to the vices surrounding us. In that sense, there is a despair in living a listless life and terror in the revelation of our true character.
Oscar Wilde once wrote that: “For he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die.” In this quote, Wilde is saying that those who live secret lives will eventually pay the consequences for their conduct, even if it was hidden in the shadows from others. For these people, there is terror that their true character will be revealed, often the complete opposite of the facade that they have build as a disguise. The sins of our life will eventually be revealed. With multiple lives, we will have to experience multiple deaths.
This is where knowledge and faith diverge. For those that know, but choose to not believe, such as the demons from James’ epistle, there is despair and terror. But for those that know and choose to believe, there is hope. Knowledge of the truth, combined with the faith of a well-lived life, results in the hope of God’s promises for our lives.
What did God Promise?
"What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross." - Flannery O’Connor
What is the hope that Paul writes of in the epistles? For many, they think that God offers an easy life, or perhaps freedom from suffering. In fact, it is the opposite. Just look at the words of Jesus in Luke 9: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Nothing about taking up a cross sounds easy. So where is the hope?
God never promises an easy life, much less the 'opium of the masses' as described by Karl Marx. What God promised was a comforter through the hardships and the promise of eternal life to come. Notice here that God never promised that we would understand our suffering or be able to rationalize the purpose. Perhaps we will never know the why behind our suffering. But Paul says that our hope is in the resurrection, not in earthly comforts. It is the eternal hope that is the secret for the Christian, looking beyond what troubles we may face on this earth.
Associated Vices
The two vices most closely associated with Hope are Despair and Envy.
Despair is the complete loss of hope, and can be manifested in a number of ways, from depression to nihilism. Despair is often seen as a byproduct of atheism, since a terminal life, especially one that is explained as the random product of chemicals firing in the brain, lacks objective meaning or purpose. This has led atheists to the logical conclusion that moral restraints are simply a hinderance to pleasure, which many have argued is the ultimate aim of the atheistic worldview.
Envy on the other hand, is the sad or resentful coveting of what others have. Both envy and hope often arise from social comparison, where individuals evaluate their own standing relative to others. Envy is the result of a ‘zero-sum’ mindset where one feels resentful because they see another person's advantage, and desire it for themselves.
Conclusion
Hope was a revolutionary idea in the world of philosophy. As Augustine stated, even the most virtuous men struggled with the tragedies in their lives. The answers provided through the Great Books, primarily personal virtue and stoicism, were not sufficient for the real-life struggles that humans face. Virtue, as stated by Aristotle, had been an end to itself, but this did not answer the toughest questions that humans asked: How could one find hope in suffering?
Paul’s answer was that suffering was not an end unto itself, but rather a means by which we grow our faith and experience hope in our lives. Aristotle said that virtue had no external end, but the early Christians disagreed. Virtue was the way in which we sanctify ourselves by becoming more like Christ. Jesus did not promise comfort; he promised a cross. But more importantly, he promised the hope of the resurrection, the promise of a life to come, a life eternal. By uniting ourselves to Christ through our sufferings, we have a mechanism for hope in our lives, no matter what we face, with the promise of uniting to God’s eternal love. Love…love is the end result of all of this; but, that is a topic for the next article.