Hope (Theological Virtue)

Introduction

Scripture on Hope

The virtue of hope is a great good for man. It is good for man in this life and necessary for the attainment of Heaven. By the virtue of hope, we are certain that God will grant us what we need to enter Heaven and enjoy Him. The certainty of hope is so complete that the man of hope possesses already, in a way, the object of hope. Because hope is such a necessary virtue for man, the Word of God points out hope’s importance and points to Christ as the one we can confidently place our trust in.

“For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24).

“This hope is like a firm and steady anchor for our souls. In fact, hope reaches behind the curtain and into the most holy place” (Hebrews 6:19).

“Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:2).

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5)

“But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim 1:12).

“To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Sacred Scripture clearly attests that one of Christ’s greatest gifts is hope. The person who lives in the hope which Christ gives is firmly anchored to Christ and directs his whole life toward an ever more perfect union with the Trinity as his final supernatural goal and end.

Hope in the Early Church

It was their profound hope in Christ that allowed the apostles to preach fearlessly in the face of persecution and martyrdom. This same hope upheld the early Church in the midst of persecution and suffering. St. Ignatius of Antioch refers to Christ as “the perfect hope” (Smyrnaeans, 10). It was his hope in Christ that allowed him to face his martyrdom with confidence and joy: “Let me be food for the wild beasts, through whom I can reach God. I am God’s wheat and I am being ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, so that I may prove to be pure bread” (Romans, 4).

It was also hope in Christ and the power of His resurrection that allowed St. Polycarp, when tied to the stake of his martyrdom, to look up to Heaven in prayer and proclaim: “O Lord God Almighty, Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ…. I bless you because you have considered me worthy of this day and hour, so that I might receive a place among the number of the martyrs in the cup of your Christ to the resurrection to eternal life” (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 14:1 and 2).

St. Chrysostom writes beautifully of the hope we have in Christ, even after a fall, in two letters to a childhood friend, Theodore. Theodore had abandoned his monastic vows and left the life he shared with Chrysostom for worldly pursuits. According to Chrysostom, since Christ’s mercy is more powerful than human sin, we must never fall into despair. Thus, it is not so much human frailty and sin that prevents us from entering the Kingdom but falling into despair in response to our own sin. For despair prevents us from turning to God, Who alone can heal and save us. “For to have fallen is not a grievous thing, but to remain prostrate after falling, and not to get up again” (Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall, Letter I, 7).

St. Chrysostom reminds Theodore that no sin is more powerful than God’s transforming mercy:

Do not then despair of the most perfect change. For if the devil has such great power as to cast thee down from that pinnacle and height of virtue into the extremity of evil doing, much more will God be able to draw thee up again to thy former confidence: and not only indeed to make you what you were before, but even much happier. Only be not downcast, nor fling away good hopes, nor fall into the condition of the ungodly. (Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall, Letter I, 1)

St. Chrysostom was well acquainted with human frailty, but he knew that God created us “that He might offer us the kingdom of Heaven, not that He might cast us into Hell” (Exhortation, Letter I, 9). Chrysostom’s confidence in God’s loving plan of salvation allowed him to hope, not only for his own salvation, but for that of his beloved, though fallen, friend.

Spe salvi on Hope

Because “in hope we are saved,” the Church never ceases to call us to place our trust in Christ our savior (Romans 8:24). In an age that has largely abandoned its hope in Christ for a faith in progress that inevitably leads to despair, the encyclical letter Spe salvi is a powerful reminder that “man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope” (Spe salvi, no. 23).

Pope Benedict reminds us:

Our contemporary age has developed the hope of creating a perfect world that, thanks to scientific knowledge and to scientifically based politics, seemed to be achievable. Thus Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which would be the real “Kingdom of God.” This seemed at last to be the great and realistic hope that man needs. It was capable of galvanizing—for a time—all man’s energies. The great objective seemed worthy of full commitment. In the course of time, however, it has become clear that this hope is constantly receding. (Spe salvi, no. 30)

Hope for anything less than God as our final goal, or hope placed in any creature less powerful than God as our ultimate helper, will always fail us and lead us away from our true, supernatural end in God. Lesser hopes are necessary, but they need to be subordinated to our one great hope. Lesser helpers are needed but can only be relied upon as part of the providential order of God, in Whom alone we place our certain hope. Spe salvi takes pains to make these points repeatedly and with clarity:

Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life. (Spe salvi, no. 31)

The great importance of hope for the Christian, and the many ways our hope can run off course, show the need for a renewed emphasis on this virtue. The virtue of hope gives us the certainty that God will grant us what we need to enter into the beatitude of perfect supernatural communion with Him. There is no way to be closer to Heaven in this life than to struggle to attain it through a certain hope, a hope which does not disappoint.

I. Hope’s Place in the Moral Life

St. Thomas Aquinas is a particularly helpful guide in trying to place the theological virtue of hope in the larger picture of sacred doctrine as a whole and the moral life more specifically. Aquinas understands theology to principally treat God in Himself. Yet theology treats not only God in Himself but also all things in relation to God insofar as God is their beginning and end (ST I, q. 1, a. 7).

Broadly construed, moral theology is the consideration of man’s return to God through his free, graced, human actions (see ST I–II, q. 6, preface). Aquinas considers the virtues theologically as principles of free, graced actions whereby we attain God as our final, supernatural end (see ST I–II, q. 6, preface).

This framework presupposes God’s gracious will and call to make us partakers of the divine nature—sons in the Son—through the saving work and grace of Christ. It presupposes too that the grace of Christ is ordered to the glory of the Beatific Vision as its end (see ST II–II, q. 24, a. 3, ad 2). Sanctifying grace, flowing to us from Christ our head, is a created participation in the very nature of God Himself. As an entitative habit, sanctifying grace first makes us partakers of the divine nature on the level of our being. Yet our being has implications for our actions. First act, on the level of being, is ordered to second act, on the level of operation.

If we are children of God through Christ’s grace, ought we not act as though we were, and, in so doing, receive the reward of a child and heir? For Aquinas, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Yet we do not have any natural principles within us that are proportionate to supernatural actions in keeping with our dignity as sons in the Son. This is why God infuses the theological virtues into our souls. Aquinas explains:

And because such happiness surpasses the capacity of human nature, man’s natural principles which enable him to act well according to his capacity, do not suffice to direct man to this same happiness. Hence it is necessary for man to receive from God some additional principles, whereby he may be directed to supernatural happiness, even as he is directed to his connatural end, by means of his natural principles, albeit not without Divine assistance. Such like principles are called “theological virtues.” (ST I–II, q. 62, a. 1)

The theological virtues, as good operative habits, are principles of human actions. They reside in the intellect (faith) and the will (hope and charity) as habits of the soul which are the immediate principles of graced human actions that direct us to God as our supernatural end. One might say that the theological virtues are the “natural” consequences of sanctifying grace. Aquinas notes: “Just as the soul’s powers flow from its essence so from grace there flow certain perfections into the powers of the soul, which are called virtues and gifts, whereby the powers are perfected in reference to their actions” (ST III, q. 62, a. 2).

The theological virtues are “natural” with respect to the divine nature in which we participate by sanctifying grace. They are wholly above human nature and make us capable of actions that far outstrip our natural human powers. They direct us to an end that is entirely supernatural.

As a final point, it is important to note the relationship between the theological virtues and the infused cardinal or moral virtues. Doing so will fill out the picture of virtue’s role in the moral life and highlight the governing role of the theological virtues in the Christian life.

If the theological virtues order us rightly to God as our final supernatural end, the infused cardinal virtues put us in right relationship with all of created reality in view of this supernatural end. The infused cardinal virtues allow us to treat all created things and persons as (non-reductive) means to our final supernatural end. “Some of the infused virtues ordain the faculties to the end or goal, and others dispose them in regards to the means. The first group are the theological virtues; the second group are the moral virtues” (Royo and Aumann, The Theology of Christian Perfection, 61).

As a theological virtue, then, hope is a principle of supernatural human actions, which put us in right relationship with God as our final supernatural end. It is a saving virtue bestowed upon us by the grace of Christ. As St. Paul reminds us: “In this hope we were saved” (Rom 8:24). As a theological virtue, hope has God as its immediate object and directs us rightly to Him as our final end. God Himself is our helper, and supernatural union with God Himself is the end of our hope.

II. The Object of Hope

In General

The theological virtue of hope is a habit. Habits are known from their acts, as Aquinas often reminds us. Acts (human actions in this case) are in turn known by their objects (ST II–II, q. 4, a. 1). Therefore, in order to better understand the theological virtue of hope, it is necessary to first understand its object.

The theological virtue of hope receives its name from the passion of hope. Aquinas gives a general definition of hope first in his treatment of the passions: “hope is a movement of the appetitive power ensuing from the apprehension of a future good, difficult but possible to obtain; namely, a stretching forth of the appetite to such a good” (ST I–II, q. 40, a. 2). This definition applies to hope analogically across the various ways in which we correctly use the term (hope as a passion, as a natural act of the will, and as a theological virtue). For hope considered in general across its various analogical meanings, there are four characteristics of its object: it must be future, good, difficult, and possible. Let us consider each of these briefly in turn:

• The object of hope is in the future, or not yet attained. We do not hope for what is already possessed. Hope’s purpose is to spur us on to the attainment of the good. Once the good is attained, hope terminates in joy.
• The object of hope is good (real or perceived). We fear, rather than hope for, looming evils.
• The object of hope is difficult. We are not properly said to hope for something that is easy to obtain and readily within our grasp. Mere desire suffices for an object which is not difficult to obtain. Hope is necessary when we need to boldly rise up and fight to overcome some difficulty in attaining the good.
• The object of hope is possible. Hope gives us its characteristic energy and joy in the pursuit of a difficult good precisely because it looks ahead to the attainment of that good. Once the good we seek is seen as impossible, this whole dynamic breaks down in despair of what we once hoped to obtain (see De spe, a. 1).

Hope’s object, considered in all its analogical applications, must be a future good, which is difficult but possible to obtain. Hope denotes a stretching forth of the appetite (sensitive or rational) to such an object. Having considered the object of hope in general, we can now examine the object of the theological virtue of hope in particular.

As a Theological Virtue

By faith, we know we are called to a good, supernatural end which surpasses all of our natural powers (see 1 Cor 2:9). For this end we are entirely dependent upon God. God indeed comes to the help of His people. In Christ, God reveals Himself to us as our friend Who calls us to share in His own life and enter into communion with Him. Christ reveals that He is our helper, strong to assist us in reaching the end to which He calls us: “And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace” (Jn 1:16). “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). Apart from Christ, we cannot advance one step along the way to our supernatural end. But with Christ as our helper and friend, we can do all things. He, in His infinite power, transforms us and divinizes us. What we hope for as Christians is possible to us only through the assistance of Christ, Who comes to us as our friend and omnipotent helper.

The theological virtue of hope is seen to be good and virtuous in that it attains God as our supernatural helper. Clinging to God, Who is the first rule and measure of all of our actions, is manifestly virtuous. In hope we cling to God as our help, Who makes the unheard of good of divine communion in friendship possible to us:

Now a thing is possible to us in two ways: first, by ourselves; secondly, by means of others… Wherefore, in so far as we hope for anything as being possible to us by means of the Divine assistance, our hope attains God Himself, on Whose help it leans. It is therefore evident that hope is a virtue, since it causes a human act to be good and to attain its due rule. (ST II–II, q. 17, a. 1)

If God is our helper, what should we seek from Him? St. Thomas says:

We should hope from Him for nothing less than Himself, since His goodness, whereby He imparts good things to His creature, is no less than His Essence. Therefore the proper and principal object of hope is eternal happiness (ST II–II, q. 17, a. 2).

The proper object of hope is God Himself as our supernatural end. This end is attained by God’s own help. God is both helper and goal when it comes to the theological virtue of hope. God is the object of hope in a twofold sense. He is that which we hope for (i.e., the quod object, as the scholastics would say). God is also the friend Whose assistance makes the hoped-for good possible to us (i.e., the quo object in scholastic terminology).

Although the virtue of hope implies an imperfection inasmuch as we have not yet attained God as our goal, hope is perfect with respect to its clinging to God as helper, powerful and ready to assist us in the attainment of our goal. There is one thing necessary, one pearl of great price and one infinite God Who can assist us in attaining the pearl of Himself. We see then that hope is of great importance for mooring and focusing all of our efforts on the one thing necessary. In this sense, hope is indeed “a firm and steady anchor for our souls” (Heb 6:19).

It is clear that entering into supernatural communion with the Trinity is the primary goal of our hope, but may we legitimately hope for anything else when exercising this theological virtue? Aquinas argues that we can, so long as what we hope for is ordered to the attainment of eternal life (see ST II–II, q. 17, a. 1, ad 1). In this way, hope can take up the whole host of noble aspirations that are typically associated with a fulfilling and good human life. A single person can hope to find a spouse, have children, and find joy and peace in family life. A seminarian can hope to persevere through seminary formation and become a priest. A father can hope to get a better job and buy a home. All of these things are noble and good aspirations, and thus they can be part of the hope that a Christian possesses.

As Christians, however, we can never place our final end in anything but God. The noble but secondary aspirations of hope must always be tied to our final end. We hope and pray for these good things insofar as they are able to draw us and others closer to God. Should we fail to obtain these secondary goods, we trust in God’s providence. The more we grow in the theological virtue of hope, the more we refer all things to God and trust in His goodness, mercy, power, and love. Failure to obtain these secondary objects of hope is an invitation to greater trust for the person who knows and lives by the truth that “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom 8:28).

Thus, because God is the proper and principal object of our hope, it is clear that hope is a theological virtue. Hope, along with faith and charity, are called theological virtues principally because God is their proper object (inasmuch as they refer to God directly in the mystery of His triune life) and direct us rightly to Him as our final supernatural end. Faith, hope, and charity are also called theological virtues because they are infused by God and made known to us by God’s own revelation (see ST I–II, q. 62, a. 1). As we have seen, God is the object of hope in two senses: He is our helper (quo object) and our goal (quod object). Having determined God as the object of hope, we must next turn to the subject of hope.

III. The Subject of Hope

What power of the soul does hope perfect such that, by its act, hope can lead us to God as our final supernatural end? Broadly speaking, the soul has two kinds of higher powers: apprehensive powers, which allow us to know reality, and appetitive powers, which move us to the good once it is known. These powers exist in man on both the sensitive and rational levels. At the sensitive level, man possesses sense knowledge of a particular object of sensation, and the sensitive appetite, which inclines us to seek goods and avoid evils which we have apprehended with our senses. We share this kind of knowledge and appetite with the animals, though we experience them in a different and higher way owing to the fundamental unity of the soul, which includes higher powers of knowledge and appetite. These higher, rational powers of knowledge and appetite are the intellect and will, respectively. They are unique to man, who is able to abstract the universal from the particular objects he experiences through his senses.

Since the basic notion of hope is that of a stretching forth of the appetite and movement toward a difficult yet possible future good, it is clear that hope must pertain properly to one of the appetitive powers of the soul: either the sensitive appetite for particular goods sensed or the rational appetite for the good as known by reason. Of course, the proper object of Christian hope is not a sensible good but an intelligible (or more properly a superintelligible) one (see ST II–II, q. 18, a. 1). It is clear then that the will, or intellectual appetite, rather than the sensitive appetite (the seat of the passions), is the proper subject of the theological virtue of hope.

Although the proper subject of Christian hope is the will, it is very closely connected to, and in fact presupposes, the intellect enlightened by faith. Appetites can only tend to the good as known. Faith, which resides in the intellect, is what presents the superintelligible good of eternal life to the will as a good we can tend to. We cannot tend to a good that is unknown, and the supernatural good of eternal life is known to us only by faith. Hope, therefore, which is found in the will, presupposes faith in the intellect.

For this reason, faith is prior to hope in the order of generation. Although all three theological virtues, as habits, are infused at Baptism, the actions that are characteristic of these operative habits unfold in a certain order. Faith in a good, loving, and merciful God and in the concrete manifestation of His mercy and promise of eternal life in Christ leads to hope. Hope, in turn, invites us to see God as good not only for what He does for us, but in Himself because we come to see that God’s goodness to us has a deeper source in the innate goodness of God. And the essential goodness of God is greater than the particular manifestation of that goodness in His promises to us. Therefore, hope leads dispositively to charity, whereby we love God not only for what He can give us but also for Who He is in Himself. Charity is last in the order of generation but first in the order of perfection, for by it we cling to God most immediately for His own sake. Faith and hope cling to God as the source of saving truth and eternal life, but charity clings to God as friend simply for the sake of His own goodness. Thus, although all three theological virtues have God as their object, charity has God as object most immediately and perfectly as the infinitely loveable, uncreated Good. Charity then must inform and guide our hope. It must command hope’s act and direct it to the greater love of God (see ST II–II, q. 18, a. 7 and 8).

In the sense of the faculty that hope perfects, its proper subject is the will. But in the sense of persons who have hope, what subjects (or persons) can be said to possess this virtue? Can hope be in the blessed, for example, or in the damned? Aquinas argues that hope is, properly speaking, a virtue of the wayfarer alone. Hope cannot be in the damned because they are aware that their damnation is eternal (see ST II–II, q. 18, a. 3). They know that eternal life is no longer possible for them; and since hope is for a possible future good, they can no longer hope for it. Therefore, nothing of the virtue of hope remains in the damned.

The blessed do not have hope because, for them, beatitude is no longer future or absent but present and attained. What we hope for, they possess and enjoy. While the blessed do not, strictly speaking, have the theological virtue of hope, this “lack of hope” in the blessed is in no way parallel to the lack of hope in the damned. Certainly, the blessed do not hope for what they already possess, but one who passes from hope to the very joy to which hope is ordered has not lost but gained. The person who has hope is imperfect with respect to the hoped-for good. He is imperfect with respect to the quod object of hope, or the good to which hope directs us.

But the wayfarer who hopes is already perfect with respect to the quo object of hope—with respect to clinging to God as merciful helper and friend. And this clinging to God as the source of our blessedness will continue in beatitude. It is also the first reason for the virtuousness of hope: “This is why hope has the nature of a virtue: because a human being embraces help from divine power to reach eternal life” (De spe, a. 1).

We cling to God as the source of future beatitude now and, God willing, we will continue to cling to God as the source of our present beatitude in Heaven. In fact, the theological virtue of hope receives its character as a virtue principally owing to this very clinging to God as helper and friend. So, although we cannot be said to have hope in Heaven, we continue to have what is the most formal ratio of hope’s virtuousness in Heaven. Once more, the very reason for “losing” hope is the attainment of the good hope directed us toward. In beatitude, hope is then retained in what is already perfect in the hope of the wayfarer—clinging to God—and gives way to joy in what is imperfect in it, having not yet attained the good thing hoped for.

Similarly, Aquinas argues that Christ, according to His humanity, did not need the theological virtue of hope because He possessed the Beatific Vision from the first moment of His conception. Like the blessed, He did not hope for the vision of God as something not yet attained. He did hope for lesser goods not yet possessed. While His body was passible, He hoped for the glory of His resurrected and impassible body. The principal object of the theological virtue of hope, however, is the enjoyment of God, and Christ in His humanity was always in possession of this good:

Although Christ was a comprehensor and therefore blessed as to the enjoyment of God, nevertheless He was, at the same time, a wayfarer, as regards the passibility of nature, to which He was still subject. Hence it was possible for Him to hope for the glory of impassibility and immortality, yet not so as to the virtue of hope, the principal object of which is not the glory of the body but the enjoyment of God. (ST II–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 3)

Even before His glorification, Christ had the perfection of hope’s embrace of the divine help, but He never had the imperfection of the lack of beatitude. As Aquinas indicates, “Hope combines a perfection with an imperfection. Insofar as it has a perfection, it has the nature of a virtue. In this respect it was in Christ to the fullest, since he embraced divine help to the fullest. Insofar as it is characterized by imperfection, however, Christ lacked hope” (De spe, a. 1, ad 12).                                                                                                       

It should be noted that the imperfection of hope is only relative to our final perfected state. In our current state as wayfarers, we could not be expected to have already attained the hoped-for object. And inasmuch as the hoped-for good is supernatural and divine, merely hoping for it is a higher virtue than the actual attainment of any merely human excellence:

Faith and hope imply a certain imperfection: since faith is of things unseen, and hope, of things not possessed. Hence faith and hope, in things that are subject to human power, fall short of the notion of virtue. But faith and hope in things which are above the capacity of human nature surpass all virtue that is in proportion to man, according to 1 Cor. 1:25: “The weakness of God is stronger than men.” (ST I–II, q. 62, a. 3)

Thus, in sum, the blessed in Heaven and Christ before His glorification did not have the theological virtue of hope, but they had and have the most formal ratio of hope’s virtuousness: the embrace of the divine aid. Once more, what is imperfect in hope is perfected when the object once hoped for is attained. In the blessed, hope gives way to the happiness which it directed them towards and enabled them to attain.

IV. The Certainty of Hope

One of the most consoling aspects of Christian hope is its certitude. We know that God is our merciful and omnipotent friend. No one can take us out of the hands of His providence. Our hope is certain; Scripture gives abundant witness to this:

And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5). But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. (2 Tim 1:12)

Yet certainty seems to pertain to the intellect rather than the will, wherein hope is placed. Seeing this difficulty, Aquinas is careful when taking up the questions of hope’s certainty to explore the way in which certainty can be present in hope. Aquinas distinguishes between essential and participated certainty. “Certainty is found in a thing in two ways, essentially and by participation. It is found essentially in the cognitive power; by participation in whatever is moved infallibly to its end by the cognitive power” (ST II–II, q. 18, a. 4).

Participated certainty is found, for example, in the works of nature. We can see animals working uniformly and (barring impediments) certainly toward an end which they do not themselves know cognitively. A bird builds a nest, and a spider spins a web with expert skill, implying some kind of sharing in the mind and determined ordering of God, the author of nature. We can say, then, that the spider and bird participate in the certainty that is found in the intellect of God: “In this way [i.e. by a participated certainty] we say that nature works with certainty, since it is moved by the Divine intellect which moves everything with certainty to its end” (ST II–II, q. 18, a. 4). Participated certainty, akin to the certainty found in nature, belongs to hope in an analogous and higher way.

The certitude of hope finds its first cause in the certitude of the divine ordination (see Super Sent., III, d. 26, q. 2, a. 4). God is certain of His plan for us and works unfailingly to carry this out. Since God’s plan for us is supernatural, we are not naturally capable of knowing it. God must reveal His plan to us. We receive this revelation in faith. Thus, by faith we are certain of God’s gracious and merciful plan for us. This certainty of faith is first and essentially in our intellects, yet the will (wherein hope resides) is nothing other than the intellectual appetite.

The theological virtue of hope is in the will as subject. Therefore, there can be no essential certainty in our hope insofar as our hope resides in us. We take it from faith, however, that God moves us to eternal life with an unfailing certainty. In the Divine Intellect, then, God is certain of His plan and ordination, which brings man ultimately to Himself. He is certain that everything He does leads man to Himself. Thus, it is God Who is primarily and essentially certain that He moves man to Himself and brings man to life everlasting (see ST II–II, q. 20, a. 1).

The man who has faith shares in this knowledge of God. Thus, through faith, man is explicitly aware and certain that from God comes pardon to sinners, the life of grace, and, finally, eternal life. By faith, we are certain that there can be no insuperable obstacle to our salvation, for God “will have all men to be saved, and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).

Now this certainty is in man’s intellect. This certainty is through faith, which is prior to hope. As by faith, the intellect understands the motives of hoping for eternal life to be certain, the will, by hope, inclines to the good of eternal life as a good which God moves man toward with certainty. In this way, the will embraces eternal life as a good which is certain in the way described. In brief, in an act of the will, one makes an act of hope for eternal life, and this hope participates in the certainty of faith, for our knowledge moves us to hope. Since our knowledge is certain, there is certainty in our hope, and God’s ordination of man to Himself is the first source of this certainty.

Of course, we are not complacent that our place in Heaven is guaranteed. The saints remind us to hope for everything from God’s mercy but to remain ever mistrustful of our own weakness. The sad possibility of our own free, willful rejection of God’s offer to us remains. However, the Christian walks in joyful security, certain in the hope that his Father is infinitely good and merciful. God is faithful even when we are unfaithful. To the very last moment, He never tires of pursuing His lost sheep. Sons in the Son know that their Father sent His only Son to die for all. Our hope in God is certain and unfailing because, if anyone is lost, it is never for lack of God’s goodness or mercy. God’s plan for us is mercy, and our Lord proclaims in His saving deeds: I take on death that you might have life; you will send yourself to hell only over my dead body. One of Christ’s greatest mercies to us is to offer us this certain and saving hope in Him.

V. Sins Against Hope

The theological virtues do not essentially lie in a mean with respect to their proper object. Just as we cannot believe in God too much or love Him too much, we also cannot hope in Him too much. But we can hope in God too little. We can even lose our hope and enter into despair. And although we cannot hope in God too much, we can hope in the wrong way. We can hope to obtain the crown of glory without repentance and interior transformation in Christ. We can also hope to obtain salvation by our own strength rather than through reliance on the goodness and mercy of God.

Despair

For a Christian, the virtue of hope gives meaning and purpose to the whole of life and to every activity. One thing is necessary: to attain the pearl of great price. To know who we are, what we are about, and where we are going brings joy and peace. Christ Himself is our anchor and hope. He gives our whole life direction and meaning. Thus, hope brings joy to the Christian and is a foretaste of beatitude.

Yet, the experience of sin and the emptiness, disappointment, and movement toward despair that follows in its wake can be all too real. God may be merciful, but His mercy is not for me. The temptation to accept this lie is the temptation of despair.

Aquinas sees despair as a sin because it is a movement of the will away from God as our sure help and final end. Thus, turned away from God, the person who despairs can only restlessly move from one fleeting pleasure to the next. He is torn asunder interiorly by disordered desires for mutually exclusive goods, none of which can satisfy or give rest. True despair is horrifying and torturous. It is, of all sins, one of the most disintegrating.

The good news is that the movement toward despair is not a movement in accord with the truth of Jesus Christ. Despair is a movement of the will not in accord with the truth. God cannot save me. God will not save me. My sins are too great to be forgiven. These are all lies told to us by the Father of Lies.

It is wrong to live according to what is false, and it is very wrong to live according to what is false concerning God’s loving plan of mercy for us. Aquinas analyzes the sin of despair through this lens:

Every appetitive movement which is conformed to a true intellect, is good in itself, while every appetitive movement which is conformed to a false intellect is evil in itself and sinful. Now the true opinion of the intellect about God is that from Him comes salvation to mankind, and pardon to sinners, according to Ezekiel 18:23, “I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted, and live”: while it is a false opinion that He refuses pardon to the repentant sinner, or that He does not turn sinners to Himself through the grace of justification. Therefore, just as the movement of hope, which is in conformity with the true opinion, is praiseworthy and virtuous, so the contrary movement of despair, which is in conformity with the false opinion about God, is vicious and sinful. (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 1, trans. modified)

To despair is to abandon God as He has revealed Himself to us. Hope embraces God as helper and friend. Despair lets go, abandons God, and leads us into more sin. Aquinas argues that the sin of despair is the greatest of sins with respect to the danger it puts us in: “Hope withdraws us from evils and induces us to seek for good things, so that when hope is given up, men rush headlong into sin, and are drawn away from good works” (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 3).

Aquinas distinguishes between two kinds of despair: failing to see salvation as good enough to pursue or considering it impossible to obtain.

Despair #1: That Heaven Is Not Worth the Effort

Hope’s object must be both possible and good. We can fail in hope either by abandoning our quest for beatitude as not good enough to be worth our effort or as impossible to obtain. Aquinas’s treatment of this first form of despair deserves renewed attention in an age that has largely lost its taste for spiritual goods.

Since the person who hopes must be willing to pursue a good despite the arduous difficulty in attaining it, he must be focused more on the goodness of the object hoped for than on the difficulty in attaining it. This form of despair becomes a real threat when the allure of earthly goods and bodily pleasures turns the mind downwards, and spiritual goods lose the sweet savor they once had. Falling away from hope can then take the form of a gradual shift of attention from the heavenly to the earthly. The person who no longer seeks Heaven and abandons God as his unfailing help falls into despair. Earthly pleasures, most of all, have dulled his spiritual senses. Aquinas recounts this sad movement as follows:

Now, the fact that spiritual goods taste good to us no more, or seem to be goods of no great account, is chiefly due to our affections being infected with the love of bodily pleasures, among which, sexual pleasures hold the first place: for the love of those pleasures leads man to have a distaste for spiritual things, and not to hope for them as arduous goods. In this way despair is caused by lust. (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 4)

This is the quiet despair of those who gradually slip away from the practices of the faith as they slowly become more and more engrossed by some disordered earthly pleasure. Without perhaps even realizing it, at some point God is no longer clung to as the source of the good of beatitude. This shift is not so much because Heaven is seen as impossible but because it is simply not worth the effort. Earthly goods and pleasures become an idol, and the whole of life is ordered to them on a fundamental level. Christ warns us against turning away from the pearl of great price and He alone Who can help us attain it: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21). Greed, lust, gluttony, craving for dopamine hits from technology—these can all lead our hearts into this movement toward despair which Christ warns against.

Despair #2: That Heaven Is Impossible for Us

The person who despairs in the second way may still see Heaven as a great good—even the greatest of all goods—but, owing to an oppressive sadness at the difficulty of attaining this good (often owing to a consideration of their own misery and sinfulness), abandons God as merciful and capable helper and falls into despair. Heaven is no longer pursued as a possible good but is seen as impossible and despaired of. Aquinas sees this kind of despair as coming principally from the sin of sloth. For Aquinas, sloth is not simple laziness but is principally sadness at the difficulty of attaining spiritual goods, especially the divine good (God Himself) (ST II–II, q. 35, a. 2). Sloth of this kind is directly opposed to the joy proper to charity and has the effect of leading us into despair.

Aquinas describes well the human process of falling into this kind of despair:

That a man deems an arduous good impossible to obtain, either by himself or by another, is due to his being over downcast, because when this state of mind dominates his affections, it seems to him that he will never be able to rise to any good. And since sloth is a sadness that casts down the spirit, in this way despair is born of sloth. (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 3)

The person who falls into this kind of despair allows his downcast state of mind to dominate the truth that from God “comes salvation to mankind and pardon to sinners” (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 1). Aquinas is clear: God pardons the repentant and turns sinners back to Himself by His grace (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 1). To despair, then, is to deprecate the divine mercy, the greatest of God’s attributes, as manifesting at once God’s omnipotence and love. To cling to God in hope is to live a life in praise of God’s goodness, power, and mercy. To despair is to live a life which denounces these precious truths about God. This form of despair is, in fact, a manifestation of self-centered pride. We remain focused on ourselves as though we were the first source of our salvation.

Considering our own sinfulness and weakness, apart from the divine aid, we would indeed be right to despair. But this is not to consider things according to the revelation of God’s love and mercy. It takes humility to see that not even our sins are great with respect to God’s power to heal and save. It takes virtuous courage to turn away from our own misery and cling to the God Who saves. It takes the gift, the infused virtue of hope. And it is in this hope that we are saved (see Rom 8:24).

It is important to note that the sin of despair does not take place merely on the level of the sensitive appetite (i.e., on the level of the passions or emotions). It might seem to one who is suffering from severe grief or depression, for example, that they have given way to despair. Such persons should be encouraged by the understanding that the sin of despair is not a mere feeling but a willful abandonment of God as helper and goal. Such difficult experiences are an invitation to cling to God as our friend, help, salvation, and goal. We can cling to God in hope at the level of the will even while beset with feelings of sorrow and hopelessness on the level of our emotions. This clinging, at the level of the will, is more decisive than any feelings we might experience involuntarily but seek to move past and reject, however persistent they may be.

A practical indication that one has not fallen into the sin of despair is that one still seeks God at the level of one’s willful actions. Such a person chooses not to fall into all manner of sin and vice in the void that true abandonment of God, as a deliberate choice of the will, entails. Aquinas reminds us that when hope is truly given up “men rush headlong into sin, and are drawn away from good works” (ST II–II, q. 20, a. 3). The person who is still seeking God and is on some level sincerely seeking to do good and avoid evil, even with limited success, can rest assured that he has not given into the sin of despair.

Can Despair Ever Be Good?

While it goes against the very core of the Gospel to despair of entering into the rest of Trinitarian communion, it does not go against our faith to despair of goods that are less than God Himself and not essentially related to obtaining union with God. Despair, in the broader sense of giving up hope for some lesser good we desire, can be in accord with right reason. We can see this in the animal world. A hungry cheetah, upon seeing a gazelle, runs after it in hope of catching it. But many hunts do not end successfully. If a cheetah did not give up an impossible chase, it would become overly exhausted. A cheetah that obstinately refused to give up a futile chase would eventually die from exhaustion and starvation. In such a case, it is better to despair of the catch so that it might soon recover and run after an easier target.

At times, we must abandon something that we have undertaken as too difficult for us to continue or no longer worth the effort required. Prudence and good sense dictate that our efforts should be used to obtain goods which are truly within our reach, as well as truly good for us in our particular circumstances, rather than waste our energy on what is either impossible or not worth the effort required.

At other times, we may be prone to give up too easily and too soon. Often more courage and long-suffering are needed for a worthwhile good. Yet these truths do not mean that we should not, at other times, abandon an impractical pursuit and expend our energy toward a goal better suited for us. This is not despair but prudence. It bears repeating, however, that our own beatitude may never be despaired of. With the assistance that God has promised us, eternal life is never impossible and always worth the effort.

Presumption

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God’s almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit) (CCC no. 2092, emphasis added).

Presumption #1: Expecting Salvation by Our Own Efforts (Without God’s Help)

One form of presumption is to hope to obtain salvation through our own power. This, according to Aquinas, is most directly contrary to the virtue of magnanimity, which “holds to the mean” in the kind of hope which concerns goods we have the ability to obtain (ST II–II, q. 21, a. 1). This kind of presumption is sinful in that it is a movement of false confidence in our own powers to obtain a supernatural end without God’s assistance. We cannot obtain salvation by our own efforts, so this kind of “hope” is based on a movement of the will that is not in keeping with the truth. Supernatural beatitude is not within man’s own power to obtain apart from God’s help.

This act of presumption stems from a false confidence in our own abilities, and it has immediate implications for our relationship with God. Those who fall into this kind of presumption do not cling to God as their help and support but trust themselves to accomplish what only can be received from the hand of God. Presumption, then, despises the divine assistance and fails to cling to God. Since God is the immediate object of hope, this sin is particularly grave. It entails an immediate turning from God.

Presumption #2: Expecting Salvation Without Conversion or Merit

It is important to note that, with respect to hope’s proper object, it is impossible to hope too much in God. We cannot trust in God’s goodness, power, and mercy too much. As we have seen, the theological virtues, with respect to their formal object, do not lie in the mean. If they did, attaining the virtue would require us to avoid excess and defect alike (see ST I–II, q. 64, a. 4). In truth, we cannot hope in God’s goodness too much. There can be no immoderation in clinging to God as the source of beatitude.

Yet, we can hope in the wrong way. It is not in keeping with the truth about God that He will forgive us without first bringing us to repentance or give us the crown of glory without first allowing us to merit that crown by His grace. With respect to us, and per accidens, presumption is a kind of immoderation in hope. In this form of presumption, man hopes for things from God that would be unbecoming of Him to grant—pardon without repentance or glory without merit (see ST II–II, q. 21, a. 1). Since hoping for something unbecoming of God deprecates the divine power, goodness, and justice, it is a sin. Moreover, this kind of presumption is worse than relying on our own abilities to save ourselves without God’s aid. As Aquinas explains, it is worse to detract from the divine power than to exaggerate one’s own (see ST II–II, q. 21, a. 1, ad 1).

Although presumption can be seen as a kind of excess of hope, this is only accidental (with respect to hope’s proper quo object) and in relation to us. In reality, this form of presumption does not hope for too much from God, but too little (see ST II–II, q. 21, a. 1, ad 2). It is asking for too little from God that He forgive us without bringing us to repentance and changing us interiorly. God not only forgives but does so by bringing us to real interior repentance, healing, and transformation. Similarly, God not only gives the glory of eternal life to His children, He also makes them worthy of it such that He truly crowns our merits. These merits are only our merits secondarily. They are first and foremost God’s own gift to us, and stem from the love that He has shed forth in our hearts. Love is the principle of merit. “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). All the same, God truly associates us with His work in us and allows us to merit the gift of Himself that He has planned for us. It would be too little to hope for the crown without first being transformed by God’s love and made capable of meriting the crown of glory by God’s merciful gift. It is a far greater mercy to save us with true inner healing and to reward us after making us truly worthy of that reward than to give us eternal happiness without first fitting us to receive it.

The depth of God’s mercy is seen in the fact that despair is a greater sin than presumption. This is because it distorts the truth about God more grievously. Aquinas observes that “presumption is a sin, but less grave than despair, since, on account of His infinite goodness, it is more proper to God to have mercy and to spare, than to punish; for the former becomes God in Himself, the latter becomes Him by reason of our sins” (ST II–II, q. 21, a. 2). God’s will is to save us. This is becoming to God by reason of Himself, while to punish us becomes God in relation to our sins, which are not from Him. God’s mercy is the foundation of all His works toward us and its power remains even more manifest in His subsequent deeds: “In every work of God, viewed at its primary source, there appears mercy. In all that follows, the power of mercy remains, and works indeed with even greater force” (ST I, q. 21, a. 4). Despair is graver than presumption because it is a greater distortion of Who God is and Who He must be for us.

VI. Charity as the Form of Our Hope

Charity is the fundamental form of the Christian life. It is the form of all of the moral virtues, such that no virtue may be called a virtue apart from the influence of charity (see ST I–II, q. 65, a. 2; II–II, q. 23, a. 7). Charity is said to be the form of the virtues as the efficient and final cause of virtuous actions. Since the end is the first principle of human or moral acts, Aquinas explains that the form of a human act is taken chiefly from its end (ST II–II, q. 23, a. 8). As odd as it sounds, charity is said to be the form of the virtues, not as their intrinsic form (formal cause), but as their efficient and final cause. Charity is the first motive cause of all the virtues in commanding their acts. It is their final cause in directing the acts of the other virtues to their own end: the love of God. Charity stands at the beginning and end of all true and complete acts of virtue: all acts which are capable of directing man to God as his final supernatural end. This has important implications for the virtue of hope.

Aquinas speaks of hope as love of concupiscence for God. We love God as a good for ourselves when we hope. It should be noted that hope does not treat God as a good for us in the same way that a donut, for example, is a good for us. We want a donut for ourselves and because of ourselves. However, in hope, we seek God as a good for us because of Who God is in Himself. “We desire God for ourselves, not because of ourselves, but because of him” (Royo and Aumann, The Theology of Christian Perfection, 387). While this is an important qualification to how hope is loving God with the love of concupiscence, still more is needed for the complete perfection of the act of hope—it must be commanded on account of our love for God and directed to our love of God as to its end.

When we love God with the love of charity, we desire to fulfill His will as though it were our own. God’s will for us is that we should possess Him perfectly in beatitude. The person who has charity, then, does not simply hope for God as a good for himself, but also, and even more, hopes to fulfill God’s own will in being receptive to the gifts that God himself desires to give him. We unite our wills to God’s (as is characteristic of charity) when we desire to receive the very gifts He longs to give us.

It satiates Christ’s thirst to lavish His gifts upon us. These gifts are what allow for the deepening of our love for Him, and He thirsts for our love, as St. Mother Teresa has so often reminded us (see Mother Teresa, Varanasi letter). To thirst for our love is nothing other than to thirst for a willing recipient of His gifts to us, for “we love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). St. Thérèse’s Oblation to Merciful Love highlights this point. She offered herself as a victim to merciful love; that is, she realized that our God desires souls who are willing to receive His gifts and made herself available to receive them. God’s greatest desire is to lavish His gifts upon us and consume us in His transforming love:

Does not Your Merciful Love need them [victims] too? On every side this love is unknown, rejected; those hearts upon whom You would lavish it turn to creatures, seeking happiness from them with their miserable affection; they do this instead of throwing themselves into Your arms and of accepting Your infinite Love. O My God! Is your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? It seems to me that if You were to find souls offering themselves as victims of holocaust to Your Love, You would consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that You would be happy not to hold back the waves of infinite tenderness within You…. O my Jesus, let me be this happy victim; consume Your holocaust with the fire of Your Divine Love. (Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 180–181)

Thérèse’s first desire was to receive the gifts of God, not because they were good for her, but to satisfy the longing of her Lord to give them. If we are friends of Christ who seek to satiate His ruinous thirst, we must seek to fulfill His desire to bestow His gifts upon us by seeking and gladly receiving gifts from His merciful hand. Hope informed by charity seeks to fulfill the desire of the one we love. His thirst is to pour out His mercy upon us, and to satiate it, we must allow ourselves to be consumed and transformed by His love.

It is not that the Christian does not seek his own good and salvation, but that he does this first as the fulfillment of the will of the one he loves more than himself. And the will of God for us is not first of all that we do good things for Him, but first and foremost, that He may have free rein within us to do good things for us. Charity, informing our hope by commanding its act and directing it to the greater love of God, ensures that our first and greatest joy in Heaven will be to see God face to face and delight in the fact that God, our greatest friend, is in perfect possession of the infinite good. In this joyful gaze outward, we are perfected, beatified, and share most perfectly in the life of the one Whom our heart loves (see ST II–II, q. 28, a. 1, ad 3).

VII. Jesus Christ Our Hope

If hope, in its general signification, is an appetitive movement to a future good which is difficult yet possible to obtain, whatever causes the good to be known as possible is a cause of hope. The Second Vatican Council points squarely to Christ as the one Who makes hope possible in the sense of fully revealing our final supernatural end:

The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. (Gaudium et spes, no. 22)

But Christ not only preaches the gospel. He also accomplishes the salvation which He announces. Christ, in His whole life, culminating in the Paschal Mystery, saves us and calls us to the supernatural end which His saving actions make possible. Christ is our hope. He was sent by the Father to free us from sin and call us to eternal life. In His words and deeds, Christ makes beatitude possible to us and reveals and calls us to this newest of things that He ushers in as our new head. Christ is our savior and our hope. Our hope comes from Christ, is centered on Him, and leads us back to the Father in Him through the love of the Spirit that He sheds forth into our hearts, being caught up in the inner life of the Trinity through Him. The person who hopes for salvation need only to cling to Christ and imitate Christ’s way of life.

Our hope and the whole of the moral life must be centered on Christ: “…Christian morality consists, in the simplicity of the Gospel, in following Jesus Christ, in abandoning oneself to Him, in letting oneself be transformed by his grace and renewed by his mercy, gifts which come to us in the living communion of his Church” (Veritatis splendor, no. 119). Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. He is our hope. Placing our trust in Him, we shall never be disappointed.

Conclusion

Hope is a theological virtue, a good operative habit which God infuses into our souls. By it we are able to act as the children of God we have become by grace. We lean on God as our aid and steadfastly hope for consummate union with Him in beatitude. The virtue of hope is found in the will of a wayfarer but presupposes faith in the intellect, which makes known God’s plan of salvation for us. By the virtue of hope, we remain firm in our pursuit of beatitude as a future good which is difficult, but possible, by God’s grace, to obtain. God is the object of hope in a twofold sense, being both helper and goal. Hope puts us in right relationship with God as our final end. Since God is the ultimate rule and measure of human acts, and hope attains God as help and goal, it is manifestly virtuous.

Hope is perfected and formed by charity. The person who loves God wills what God wills. Since God wills our salvation, charity commands us to hope and directs the act of hope to the greater love of God. Since charity is friendship, Heaven’s greatest delight, and our greatest hope, is that we might forever commune with our dearest friends: the Father, Son, and Spirit. This delightful communion with the Trinity is our greatest perfection and perfect joy. Heaven is to be supernaturally caught up into the very inner life and communion of the Trinity.

The person who wishes to grow in hope must first guard against the sins of presumption and despair. God’s goodness, power, mercy, and promise of salvation stand at the core of the revelation of Christ, which leads us to a certain hope. Although we must always have a healthy distrust of ourselves, we know that, with Christ as our friend and help, there can be no insurmountable obstacle to our salvation. In this sense our hope is certain. We know that He Who has begun the work of salvation in us can bring it to completion. Hope brings joy and peace to the Christian. It is a beginning and foretaste of the consummate union with God to which it directs us. For the Christian, there is one thing we hope for. This unity of purpose brings peace to the Christian, who does not move from one fleeting desire to the next, but remains steadfastly anchored to Christ. In this hope, we are saved.