On Hope: Article 4: Whether only those on the journey possess hope
On Hope exceptthroughcharity.Butthewilldoesnothavethissortofcompleteness before it possesses even an unformed hope.
() The authoritative text from Gregory should be understood to refer to faith, hope, and charity as being virtues; but this is the case for faith and hope only if they are given form by charity. As for the unformed versions of faith and hope, they can sometimes appear earlier than charity.
() The goodness of God as something loved in itself is the object of charity; as something to be gained, however, it is the object of hope. For this reason, charity and hope are different.
() If we mean hope that is unformed, then merit does not come before it, but rather before the thing we hope for. If, though, we mean hope that is formed, then merit comes before hope too. In this case charity also naturally comes before it.
() Stages that come later when something is being built up, come earlier when it is being broken down. That is why in the process of acquiring the virtues hope precedes charity, but in the process of losing them,theoppositehappens:thewrongdoingthatcausesthelossofcharity comes before the despair that causes the loss of hope.
()Thisreasoningshowsthatloveingeneralexistsbeforehope,because the good understood generally is the object of love. That does not mean that charity has to be prior to hope.
() Coming first in the process of coming into being is not a mark of completeness; this is because in this context, incomplete things come before complete ones.
Article : Whether only those on the journey possess hope Objections It seems not, because:
() Just as hope is for something we do not possess – which seems incongruous with the situation of the blessed – so also is longing. But the blessed do experience longing, according to Peter :, 'On whom the angels long to look.' Therefore hope too can be found in the blessed.
() Hope, which has good things as its object, is something more perfect than fear, which has bad things as its object. But some fear is found in the blessed, according to Psalm :, 'The holy fear of the Lord will remain for ever.' Therefore some hope is also found in the blessed.
Article () Just as it is a good but hard thing to obtain blessedness, so it is good but hard to continue possessing it. But before people actually attain blessedness, they hope to attain it. Therefore even after they have attained it, they can hope to continue possessing it.
() Hope and despair are found with respect to the same things. But we can despair about someone else, which is why we are commanded not to despair about anyone who is still on the journey. Therefore we can also have hope for someone else. It is in this way that the saints, who are already in our homeland, are able to have hope for other people who are still on the journey, that they will reach blessedness.
() Rejoinder: hoping for blessedness for someone else is not part of the virtue of hope. But on the other hand charity, like hope, is a theological virtue. But one and the same virtue of charity makes us love ourselves and our neighbour. Therefore one and the same virtue of hope makes us hope for eternal life for ourselves and for others. In this way, when the blessed hope that other people will have eternal life, they seem to be possessing the virtue of hope.
() Prayer flows from the virtue of hope, according to Psalm :, 'Show your path to the Lord and hope in God and he will act.' But it is appropriate for the saints who are in our homeland to pray, and we ask them to do so when we say, 'Pray for us, all saints of God.' Therefore hope can also be found in them.
() It is the same principle that makes something both move to its finishing-point and rest there. But hope is the principle which moves us towards blessedness, as Hebrews :tells us: 'We who have hope that moves forward' (i.e. makes us go forward) 'to within the veil'. Therefore hopemustalsobetheprincipleofrestinginblessedness,andsotheblessed ought to possess it.
() Isidore says [Sent(Is) ..] that justice flourishes with faith and hope. Augustine, too, says [Hand .] that anyone who lives rightly will also believe and hope rightly. But in our homeland, people will possess justice and live rightly, as Isaiah :tells us: 'Your people shall all be just.' Therefore there will also be faith and hope in our homeland.
() Blessedness requires being certain that one will remain for ever in blessedness. It is because they lacked this certainty that the angels were not completely blessed before they either were established or fell, as Augustine tells us [CG .]. But being certain about the blessedness to
On Hope which one is looking forward is part of the virtue of hope. Therefore the blessed do possess hope.
() According to Aristotle [Top ., b], whatever is destroyed by something good must itself be bad. Therefore if the hope we have on our journey were destroyed by blessedness, which is the greatest good for a human being, it would seem as if hope were something bad. That is wrong, since hope is a virtue, as I have said.
() Virtuous activity seems to consist not only in doing or wanting to dowhateverisrelevanttothevirtuewhenoneisableto,butalsoinwanting to do this even when one is unable to. For behaving justly would mean wanting to return some money you owed even if you were not actually able to raise the relevant amount. But the attitude of the saints in our homeland is such that they would be wanting to look forward to blessedness even if they did not have it. Therefore they are actively hoping. But activity flows from the relevant disposition. Therefore they possess the virtue of hope.
() Anselmsays in On Likenesses that the saints after the resurrection will be strong enough to move the earth. He does not mean that they will move it, or do anything similar (since everything will always be in the best possible place), but that that is how perfect they will be. Therefore in a similar way, the disposition of hope, which is one of the perfections of the soul, will be able to exist in the blessed even though there is no opportunity there for them actively to hope.
() The goodness of God is not greater than his majesty. But charity, which has God's goodness as its object, will remain when we are in our homeland. Therefore so should hope, which has God's majesty as its object.
() If you destroy the foundations and the walls, you will destroy the roof. But faith is the foundation of our spiritual building, and hope, which raises up, functions like a wall. Therefore if faith and hope are taken away from the blessed, charity, which works like the roof, will not be able to stay. That must be wrong, because 'charity never fails', as St Paul says in Corinthians :.
() Those who are looking forward to something that will satisfy their desire once they get it seem to hope for that thing. But the souls of the blessed are looking forward to their bodies being glorified, as Actually a collection of Anselmian sayings.
Article Augustine says [LCG ..]. Therefore they do possess the virtue of hope.
() Christ had full possession of blessedness from the first moment of his conception. But Christ also had hope, since the words of Psalm
:, 'I hoped in you, Lord', are said in his person, as the gloss explains.
Therefore the blessed can possess hope.
But on the other hand () Romans :says, 'Who hopes for what he can see?' But the saints are already enjoying the full vision of God. Therefore they do not possess hope.
()StPaulinCorinthians:provesthatcharityisgreaterthanfaith and hope on the grounds that charity does not fail, while faith and hope will vanish, with the arrival of 'what is complete'. But 'what is complete' refers to the condition of blessedness. Therefore faith and hope do not remain in the condition of blessedness.
() Augustine says [GMarr .], 'A disposition enables us to act when we need to: if we do not act, we are still able to act.' From this we can see that a disposition cannot exist where it is not possible to engage in the relevant activity. But it will not be possible actively to hope in our homeland, because that would involve focusing on a blessedness we did not yet possess. Therefore we cannot possess the disposition of hope there either.
My reply Once you remove whatever gives a thing its type, it follows that it will no longer be of that type. For example, if you remove the substantial form from a natural body, then its type will change. But just as a form gives a natural thing its type, so the object gives a moral act, and therefore also a moral disposition, its type. Therefore if you remove the principal object of some disposition, it will not be possible for the disposition to remain.
The object of hope simply speaking, is a future good that is hard, but possible, to get, as I have already explained. That is why if the object ceases to be good, or future, or hard, or possible to get, then hope will disappear, in accordance with its general character. The object of hope as a theological virtue, however – that is, its formal object – is the help of God, to which it holds on. It is true that the formal object embraces
On Hope several different material elements in the things that we hope for, but the former is principal and the latter are secondary or additional.
We can understand this last point in two ways: (i) with respect to the thing we hope for; and (ii) with respect to the person doing the hoping.
(i) Here the principal object of the theological virtue of hope is the full enjoyment of God, which makes its possessor blessed; other things that we hope for, whether spiritual or temporal, are ordered towards this end.
(ii) Here the principal object is that one hopes for blessedness for oneself; secondarily, one may hope for other people to possess it insofar as they are in some way united with one, and one desires and hopes for their good as one's own.
As long as this principal object remains, then – i.e. as long as the good of blessedness, which is hard to get, remains in the future and as long as it is still possible for the person hoping for it to get it – then the virtue of hope can remain. Then, through this virtue of hope, we hope not only for blessedness in the future, but also for the other things that are ordered towards this. The same virtue of hope enables us to hope for blessedness for other people and for whatever else is ordered towards that. But if we remove the principal object of the theological virtue of hope by making eternal blessedness something already possessed rather than something in the future, then this virtue will no longer be of the same type. That is why the blessed cannot possess the sort of hope that is a theological virtue.
However, the saints can hope for other things, by holding onto God's help, in connection with either themselves or others; they do this, though, according to the general character of hope, rather than according to its character strictly as a theological virtue. We can give a parallel example fromtheoppositesituation,i.e.amongthewicked,asfollows.Theprimary object of charity is God; hence as long as one loves God, one also loves one's neighbour in God, through the same virtue of charity. But if one ceases to love God, one will still be able to love one's neighbour in a natural way, though not through the virtue of charity; for charity, as such, will disappear once its primary object has been removed.
Replies to objections () The word 'longing' is not used here in a strict sense, of something that is in the future, but simply to mean 'not weary of', in the way that Ecclesiasticus :says, 'They who eat me will hunger for more.'
Article () Fear is related to something bad. Every limitation can be included under the description 'bad'. Human beings, though, have three limitations:
(i) that they incur punishment, and 'slavish' fear particularly focuses on that; (ii) that they incur guilt, and 'filial' or 'devout' fear particularly focuses on that; as long as we are on our journey, where we are still able to sin.
Neither of these types of fear will exist in our homeland, when we will have lost our ability to incur guilt or punishment, according to Proverbs
:, 'They will enjoy plenty, once the fear of bad things has been taken away.'
(iii) The third type of limitation is part of our nature and comes from the infinite distance between God and every creature, and this can never be removed. The 'reverential' fear we will have in our homeland will focus on this; it will make us show reverence to our creator in the light of his majesty, glancing back from this to our own little selves. But the object of hope, which requires blessedness still to be in the future, will be removed once we acquire blessedness; that is why hope will not remain.
() The continuation of blessedness does not have the character of something future, because insofar as a person is blessed, he participates in eternity, in which there is neither past nor future. That is why in the context of blessedness we talk of 'eternal life'. Even if we granted that it could possess the character of something future, it still does not have the character of being something hard to get, at least not for someone who has already attained it. For blessedness brings with it not just the possibility but also the necessity of never sinning and of always abiding in it. For this reason, hope, as we have characterised it, must wholly disappear.
() The reasoning is based on things that are included in hope not primarily, but only secondarily.
() As long as the principal object of hope remains, those who hope for what is good for themselves and for others will do so through one and the same virtue of hope. Once the primary object of hope has gone, one can have hope for other people in a different way, but not through the virtue of hope.
() It is appropriate for the saints to pray just as it is for them to hope, but not through the virtue of hope understood as a theological virtue.
On Hope () If you take the first principle that moves something towards its finishing-point, then it is true that the principle of movement towards the finishing-point is the same as the principle of resting in it. But if you take some secondary and instrumental principle, then there will be principles of movement that cease when the thing reaches its finishing-point, just as a ship stops when it reaches harbour, and so does the driving-force of the wind. In this way, charity, which is the primary mover, remains when we reach the finishing-point of blessedness; however, hope, which is a secondary principle appropriate to the process of getting there, does not.
() Those authorities are speaking about justice and living rightly in the context of the present life, where we are moving towards living rightly.
() The blessed are certain that their condition will never change; such certainty, though, does not come from something future to which they are looking forward, but comes from something that they have already received. Therefore it is not part of the character of hope.
() As Aristotle says [Phys ., b], in the context of change we use 'more' and 'less' to stand for contraries, so that instead of 'black' and 'white' you have just 'less white' and 'whiter'. Similarly, you have
'better' and 'less good' instead of 'good' and 'bad'. In this way, then, when blessedness arrives and makes hope disappear, it is not a case of good driving out bad, but of better driving out less good, just as youth does to childhood.
() The object of a virtue can be missing in two ways: (i) while the possibility of having it remains; in this way even if you do not possess the object you can have the virtue and act virtuously, on condition that you have the ability to get it; (ii) when it is impossible to possess it, and then you can no longer either have the disposition or engage in the activity, for they would both always be pointless. It is in the latter way that the object of hope cannot exist in our homeland, because blessedness could not at any subsequent time become something future.
() The strength that the saints will possess will be a result of a preexisting principle, that is, their holding on completely to God, who is all powerful. This will not be ordered towards an end, but will rather follow the end in question, as I have said. That is why the reasoning works differently for hope, which is given to us only for moving towards the end.
() Although the majesty of God is not less than his goodness, the relation between charity and goodness is different from that between hope and majesty. Charity of its own character includes union, and that is why
Article it comes to completeness in our homeland, while hope includes distance, and that is incompatible with the condition of being in our homeland.
() Faith and hope have the character of foundation and wall respectively with reference to the complete element in each, i.e. insofar as faith holds on to the first truth, and hope to the supreme majesty of God. They do not have this character with reference to the incomplete element in each, i.e. for faith the things not yet seen and for hope the things not yet possessed.Thatiswhyintheconditionofcompleteblessedness,whencharity
(which includes in its own character no element of incompleteness) will be complete, faith will be succeeded by a more complete foundation, i.e. clear vision, and hope by a more complete wall, i.e. full possession, in accordance with Corinthians :, 'Run so that you will possess.'
() The bodily glory of the saints is a result of the glory of their souls. That is why when they already have glorified souls, which is a more powerful thing, bodily glory no longer has the character of something hard to get.
() The hope that Christ exercised was hope in its general sense. He did not possess the theological virtue of hope, because for him blessedness was not future, but present.