On Hope: Article 1: Whether hope is a virtue
On Hope The first question is whether hope is a virtue.
The second is whether hope is found in the will as its possessor.
The third is whether hope is prior to charity.
The fourth is whether only those on the journey possess hope.
Article : Whether hope is a virtue Objections It seems not, because:
() Virtue does not relate to both what is good and what is bad, but only to what is good. That is why Augustine says [FC ., ] that no one uses a virtue in a bad way. But hope is related to both good and bad, as some people have good hopes and some have bad hopes. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() God works virtue in us without us, as I have already said. From this it is clear that virtues precede, and do not result from, merit. But hope is a result of merit, because it means 'a confident expectation of future blessedness that flows from grace and merit', as Peter Lombard says [Sent
..]. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Rejoinder: hope does not presuppose meritorious activity, but only a meritorious disposition. But on the other hand the disposition that is the basis of merit is charity. Now hope precedes charity rather than presupposing it. For the gloss says on Matthew that hope produces charity. Therefore even the disposition of hope does not presuppose merit.
On Hope () Virtue is a tendency of something perfect, according to Aristotle [Phys ., b]. On that basis, he proves elsewhere [NE .., b] that shame is not a virtue, because it affects those who are imperfect. But hope is also a tendency of those who are less than perfect, because they are still separated from what is good. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() No emotion is a virtue, since we are neither praised nor blamed for emotions, as Aristotle says [NE .., b]. But hope is one of the four principal emotions.Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Rejoinder: the type of hope that is an emotion is not a virtue, only the hope that is a feature of the mind. But on the other hand all the emotions of the sensory desire possess some analogue in the mind. For both the sensory and the intelligent desires contain not only hope and love, but also longing and pleasure and so on. However, apart from love, the other emotions do not give their name to virtues. Therefore neither should any virtue be called hope.
() There are three classes of virtue: (i) moral, (ii) intellectual, and (iii) theological.(i)Buthopeisnotamoralvirtue,becauseitisnottracedbackto anyofthecardinalvirtues.(ii)Norisitanintellectualvirtue,becauseitdoes notbelongtothepowerofcognition,butrathertothatofdesire.(iii)Noris it a theological virtue, because it is a characteristic of a theological virtue to consist in an extreme rather than a mid-point, according to Deuteronomy
:, 'You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart.' Hope, however, holds a middle position between presumption and despair.
() Virtues, in particular theological ones, are a supernatural gift, divinely infused into us. But we do not need any supernatural gift to hope for eternal blessedness, because since what is good naturally attracts our desire, the highest good, which is blessedness, will naturally attract our desire to the greatest degree. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() The activity of charity is more perfect than the activity of hope. But a created nature is capable of acting with charity without any gift of grace, according to the view of those who say that human beings and angels, in their natural created state, loved God above themselves and above everything else. Surely that seems to be acting with charity. Therefore far more are we capable of acting in hope without the gift of grace. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
The four principal emotions are joy, sadness, hope, and fear. These concern, respectively, a present good, a present evil, a future good, and a future evil. See ST aae ..
Article () According to Aristotle [NE ..–, bff.], we can be more certain about virtue than about any skill. But that is not true of hope, since it derives from grace and merit, about which we cannot be certain, according to Ecclesiastes :, 'No one knows whether he is worthy of hate or love.' Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Every virtue can coexist with charity. But hope cannot coexist with charity, because it involves separation, while charity involves union;
Dionysius says [DivNames .] that love is a force that unites. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() The whole fullness of grace and virtue was found in Christ, according to John :, 'We have seen him full of grace and truth.' But hope was not found in Christ, because anyone who sees does not hope, as Romans
:tells us. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Virtue gives us pleasure in doing things. Hope, by contrast, brings ussuffering,accordingtoProverbs:,'Hopethatispostponedtroubles the soul.' Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Virtue is pleasurable per se, as Aristotle says [NE .., a].
However, neither hope nor memory is pleasurable in itself, as Aristotle also says.Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() No virtue makes an action bad. But hope can make an action bad, in the sense that it can make an action difficult. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Hope is a kind of expectation, as I have said. Expectation, though, involves separation. Therefore the greater the hope, the greater the separation from the good you hope for, which is blessedness. But the greatest virtue will not be the furthest separated from blessedness; rather it brings us as near as possible to it. Therefore hope is not a virtue.
() Memory is of past things in the way that hope is of future things.
But the memory of the past is not a virtue. Therefore neither is hope for the future.
But on the other hand () The virtues lead us to blessedness, for happiness is the reward of virtue, as Aristotle tells us [NE .., a]. Hope, though, does lead
This is most likely a loose reference to NE .., a.
This objection trades on an ambiguity in the Latin words, which an English translation inevitably clarifies, between 'makes an action bad' and 'makes a bad action'. Aquinas's reply disentangles the ambiguity.
On Hope us to blessedness; for, as Hebrews :puts it, 'we have hope that moves forward' and moves us forward 'to within the veil', which, as the gloss explains, means the blessedness of heaven. Therefore hope is a virtue.
() Corinthians :says, 'Now, though, there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three.' But faith and charity are virtues. Therefore so is hope.
() Gregory says [MorJob .] that the three daughters of Job signify the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Therefore hope is a virtue.
() The precepts of the law we are given are about acting virtuously.
But we are given several precepts about acting with hope. For example, Psalm :says, 'Hope in God and do good.' Therefore hope is a virtue.
My reply We understand dispositions from their related actions and actions from their related objects. Therefore if we want to understand whether hope is a virtue, we need to think about the character of its actions.
Now it is clear that hope involves some movement directed towards the good by a power of desire; the good in question, however, (i) is not something already possessed, as in the case of joy or pleasure, but (ii) is still to be attained, as in the case of longing for or lusting after something.
There are two differences between hope and longing. (iia) Longing can be for any good in general, and therefore it is located in the sensual desire. Hope, though, is for a hard good, i.e. one difficult to obtain. For this reason it is located within aggression. (iib) Longing is simply for something good, without reference to whether it can be obtained or not.
Hope, though, focuses on a good as something that can be obtained. Its very meaning includes a certain confidence about acquiring the good.
Hence we need to bear in mind four aspects of the object of hope: first, that it is a good; that distinguishes hope from fear; secondly, that it is a future good; that distinguishes hope from joy and pleasure {cf. (i)}; thirdly, that it is a good that is hard to obtain; that distinguishes hope from longing {cf. (iia)}; that it is a good that can be obtained; that distinguishes hope from despair {cf. (iib)}.
Therearealsotwowaysinwhichwecanpossesssomething:(i')through our own power; and (ii') through someone else's assistance. For we sometimes say that things are possible when we mean 'possible through our friends', as Aristotle makes clear [NE .., b]. Accordingly, we
Article can sometimes hope to attain something through our own power, and sometimes through someone else's help. Hope of the second sort involves expectation inasmuch as one looks to the help of another. Then, indeed, hope must be directed towards two objects: (ii'a) the good we want to obtain; and (ii'b) the person on whose hope we are relying.
The supreme good, which is eternal blessedness, is something that we can only only obtain with God's help, according to Romans :,
'Eternal life comes by the grace of God.' Therefore the hope of obtaining eternal life has two objects, i.e. eternal life itself, which we are hoping for {cf. (ii'a)}, and God's help, through which we hope to get it {cf. (ii'b)}.
Similarly, faith has two objects, i.e. the things that we believe and the first truth to which these correspond.
Faith, however, only has the character of a virtue insofar as it holds on to the witness given by the first truth, believing whatever that reveals. As Genesis :tells us, 'Abraham believed in God and it was counted to him as righteousness.' Consequently, hope possesses the character of a virtue precisely when someone holds on to the help provided by God's power in order to acquire eternal life. Indeed, if one were to rely on human help, whether one's own or someone else's, and try to obtain the fullest good without divine assistance, that would actually count as a vice, according to Jeremiah :, 'A curse on those who put their trust in human beings, and make mere flesh their arm.'
Now the form of the object of faith is the first truth, and we assent to the content of faith through this, as if through a mediator; the matter of the object of faith is just that content of faith. In the same way, then, the form of the object of hope is the help that comes from God's power and compassion, since our hope is stirred by these towards the goods for which we hope; the matter of the object of hope is just those goods.
Again, everything that is the matter of faith is referred to God, even though some of these things are created things – for example, when we believe that all created things come from God, or that the fleshof Christ was assumed by the Son of God in a personal union. In the same way, everything that is hoped is also ordered towards the ultimate, single, thing for which we hope, which is to enjoy God. For with an eye to that enjoyment, we hope for God to help us not only in spiritual, but also in physical, ways.
That is, the human nature.
On Hope Replies to objections () Hope cannot be related to something bad insofar as it holds on to God's help. For no one can hope too much concerning God. But when people hope in a bad way, this happens because they do not hold on to God, but to their own virtue or false opinions: for example, when people take it for granted that they are going to be saved even if they continue to sin.
() The description of hope as 'the expectation of future blessedness that flows from grace and merit' can be understood in two ways. The expectation can be understood (i) to 'flow from merit' with reference to the person doing the expecting, in the sense that his expectation is caused by his previous merits. The objection holds against this interpretation: it makes the description false; or (ii) to be 'from merit' with reference to the thing he is expecting. In this sense, the description is true: for he is expecting that he will acquire blessedness through the grace of God and through merit.
() In the sense just explained, meritorious activity and dispositions are notanecessaryprerequisiteforhope.Theyareaprerequisiteforachieving the object of hope, i.e. blessedness. That is why it is possible for us to hope even without meritorious activities or dispositions, having merit only as our aim.
() With reference to the matter of the object, hope is a tendency of someone who is imperfect, because he does not yet possess what he hopes for. However, with reference to the form of the object, i.e. to divine help, hope is a tendency of someone perfect: for human perfection consists in holding on to God. The same is true for faith: it is imperfect in that one does not yet see what one believes, but perfect in that it holds on to the witness of the first truth. That is how it can be a virtue.
() Hope is an emotion when it means a movement of the sensory desire, which cannot aim at God. That is why that sort of hope is not called a virtue. It is only the movement of the mind, which has the potential for God, that is called a virtue.
() The only virtues that can take their names directly from an emotion are the theological ones. This is because the intellectual virtues relate to the power of knowledge, while the emotions are found in the power of desire. The moral virtues, on the other hand, establish a mid-point in the emotions, and so they cannot take their name straight from the
Article emotion, but only from their being moderated; hence we get 'temperateness', 'courage',and so on.
However, when the movements of the human mind touch God in any way, then they are connected with virtue. That is why the names of these movements, or emotions, can be given directly to the theological virtues. Moreover, since the object of the theological virtues is God, i.e. the supreme good, it is clear that the emotions that have a bad object cannot give their names to theological virtues. Similarly, since the theological virtues are needed for the period of our journey, when we are still aiming at God, the emotions that have as their object a good that is actually present, such as pleasure or joy, are not the names of virtues; rather they are actually part of blessedness. For this reason 'pleasure' is classed as one of the gifts of blessedness. Finally, longing involves a movement towards the future, but without at the present time holding on to God himself or having any spiritual contact with him. That is why no virtue gets its name from longing. Hence only hope and love are left to provide names for theological virtues.
() The reason that moral virtues are found in a mid-point is that they havetoobservethestandardofreasoninrespectoftheirdistinctiveandper se object, i.e. human emotions and behaviour. But everything that is measuredbyastandardhastothatextentthecharacterofamid-point,because it can fail to match the standard by being either too much or too little.
Again, intellectual virtue means hitting the truth, which is the good of the intelligence. However, the truth of the human intelligence takes its standard and measure from what the thing is that it understands.
Therefore opinions are true or false depending on whether the thing is so or not. That is why intellectual virtue too lies in a mid-point with regard to its own distinctive object, i.e. one grasps just what is the case about something, neither more nor less.
On the other hand, theological virtue has for its object the first standard itself, which is not measured by another standard. Consequently, all that is needed here to possess the character of a virtue is to reach the standard in some way or another. Because of this, a theological virtue does not lie in a mid-point with respect to (i) the form of its own distinctive object. It can lie in a mid-point with respect to (ii) the matter of its object. This happens, forexample,whenthecatholicfaithaboutGodtakesamiddlelinebetween fortitudo, literally 'strength'.
On Hope the heresy of Sabellius, which confounds the persons of the Trinity, and the heresy of Arius, which divides their substance.In the same way, the object of hope with respect to its matter, consists in a mid-point insofar as someone can hope to acquire blessedness in different ways {cf. (ii)}; with respect the form of its object, which is the help of God, it does not lie in a mid-point: for no one can rely too much on God's help {cf. (i)}.
() The goods that move the desire are suited to us, for we do not naturally desire things that are not so suited. The fact that eternal blessedness can be a good that is suited to us derives from the grace of God. For that reason, hope, which focuses on that good as something that is, in this way, suitable for us to possess, is a gift that is infused in us by God.
() To love God above everything else can be understood in two ways.
(i) In one sense, the goodness of God is the beginning and end of everything that exists by nature. It is in this sense that not only rational animals, but also non-rational animals and even inanimate things love
God above all else, at least to the extent that they are able to love. This is because each thing loves the good of the whole of which it is part more than it loves its own good; that is why it is natural for a hand to risk being wounded in order to protect the whole body. In human beings, this natural love of God is corrupted by sin. But in their original, undamaged, natural state they were able to love God above all things in the way I have explained.
(ii) Someone can love God above all things as the object of blessedness, by sharing a sort of fellowship with God in having a mind endowed with reason, and can be united with him in a spiritual way. Love of this kind is something that no creature can engage in without grace.
() Virtue makes us incline towards our own activity in a moderate way, as Cicero tells us [Inv .]; that is why the certainty of hope, as with other virtues, characterises the reliability of our inclination when we act, rather than our awareness of an object or of its distinctive principles.
() It is in feeling that we are united by charity; thus, if you love a friend, you think of him as 'another yourself', while if you love God, you think of him as more than yourself. This can still happen, however, when there is an actual distance between you and the thing you love. That is how charity can coexist with hope.
Sabellians held that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were simply different manifestations of an utterly unitary God. Arius denied the divinity of Christ.
Article () Hope possesses both a kind of incompleteness and some completeness. Insofar as it is complete, it has the character of a virtue. Christ possessed hope utterly in this sense, since he held utterly on to God's help.
However, he did not possess hope insofar as it is something incomplete, just as he did not possess faith in that sense either.
() Hope does not cause the soul distress; rather it brings it pleasure, in that it makes the thing one hopes for present in some sense insofar as one is confident of achieving it. That is why St Paul talks in Romans : of 'rejoicing in hope'. But the delay in acquiring the thing you hope for can sometimes cause distress.
() Pleasure comes from two things: (i) the object of the activity; (ii) the activity itself. (i) The first type of pleasure is not distinctive of virtue, because some virtues involve grieving about their object, for example, repentance. (ii) The second type of pleasure, from the activity, is distinctive of virtue, because anyone who possesses a virtue gets pleasure from doing whatever is in accordance with the relevant disposition. That is how someone who is repentant can rejoice to be grieving. In this way hope, when it gives us pleasure in the thing we hope for, does not give pleasure in itself, but in something else, in the sense that it makes us think of the thing as present. But it also gives us pleasure in itself to the extent that it gives us pleasure in our own activity.
() We can understand 'do a difficult action' to mean two different things: (i) cause the difficulty in the action. On this interpretation, the objection would hold. However, hope does not make an action difficult in that sense, because it does not introduce, but rather reduces, the difficulty of an action; (ii) carry out a difficult act, i.e. the act is already difficult. In this way, hope can perform a difficult action, because it makes us attempt to do difficult things.
() The gap between a finishing-point and a starting point is covered by some kind of movement. The type of movement it is, though, depends upon the end, not upon the gap. That is why from the fact that something moving must be separated from its destination, it does not follow that the more separated it is, the more movement there must be. That method of argumentonly holds for things that are qualified per se. With a natural movement, we can see that the nearer it gets to its conclusion, the more intensive it becomes. The same is true for hope. scientia arguendi: the text is problematic.