ANTHROPOLOGICAL-THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON HOPE IN LIGHT OF SPES SALVI OF BENEDICT XVI
BY PAUL IKECHUKWU OGUJIOFFOR
Introduction
Man is a being that has total dependence on God. This dependency is not void from his personal effort or search for higher good. Hence he makes use of intellect, moral will and spiritual strength to go towards the Eternal and Highest Good (Summum bonum). Hope is of the human spirit as conative openness to reality, as outreach in search of the meaning and value of life. This value finds its fulfilment in God. In search of this value we cannot do without oppositions be it human, psychological or theological. Therefore be it as it may, the need for the use of intellect and knowledge is very much advocated towards our trust and hope in God. In fact it is a moral obligation which is our human nature ought to be complimented with from the God.
Hope as a virtue
In hope we were saved Rom 8: 24. As one of the three theological virtues, the three things that last 1Cor 13:13, hope has traditionally been understand together with faith and love as the modalities which described Christian existence. While Christian hope is a spes docta “learned hope”, hope itself is a fundamental human affect. In scholastic theology hope was understand as a part of the supernatural organism of the state of grace. In the state of glory love remains, but faith gives way to vision and hope cedes to possession. This is an interesting variation on the traditional Catholic teaching that faith and hope are caritate formata “formed by love”. In the light of Trinitarian formulation of the foundational Christian mystery of God’s self-communication to humanity through Christ and in the Spirit, hope becomes human hospitality for the divine guest.[1]
Therefore, hope is the enduring orientation of human will toward final union with God, considered as a goal that can be attained with God’s help, but without divine help impossible to attain. The theological virtue of hope was contrasted with two opposing vices, despair and presumption. Despair leads the individual to conclude that one cannot attain salvation, even with God’s help, whereas presumption leads the individual to believe that one is sure of salvation, or can attain it readily through one’s own efforts.[2] In his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas set out goal of human life as the happiness of seeing God and defends the attainability of this goal.[3] Discussing the theological virtues, he assert that “hope is such a disposition that embraces as its object a future good, namely eternal life or enjoyment of God”.[4] “Hope can also embrace intermediate goals and can look to a good both for oneself and others”.[5] Therefore, it both relies on God and is directed to God as a source of fulfillment for oneself, preparing the way for love that is directed to God altruistically.[6] Aquinas also discusses the practice of hope by linking it to the beatitudes and to the gifts of the Spirit.[7] The practice of the Christian virtue of hope, and a pastoral strategy to support it, requires means of cultivating creative imagination based, not on secular entertainment, but on the larger vision of a transcendent future that is gift and invitation of God.
The essence of Christian hope
Christian hope, focused on the reign of God, recognizes that human beings are essentially interdependent, and therefore called to love and care for one another, achieving personal happiness by looking beyond themselves. The challenge for Christian spirituality and pastoral strategy in our times is to rediscover in depth the personal and communitarian dimensions of the theological virtue of hope, and especially to keep discerning in changing circumstances the interdependence of the personal and social dimensions of hope for the true quest and welcoming of the reign of God coming among us.[8] Worthy of note is that the consequence of the re-finding of the centrality of eschatology in the Bible is a form of theological concentration on Christian hope. The Holy Father in his Spe Salvi, made a profound exposé of hope taking bearing from Pauline letter Spe salvi facti sumus – in hope we were saved Rom 8: 24. He discussed the eschatological character of hope as an exordium towards eternal life from numbers 10-12 of his Encyclical.
If we do not have clearly in mind what Christian hope means we may not be able to give events in our real life like when in pain, sorrow, misfortune, etc. Without this virtue one may fall into depression or even to the point of getting annoyed with God for things that do not go well in his life. Christ took on human nature with all its consequences, if we do not have this constantly in our thoughts, we may end up having aspects of our life which are unlinked with Christ’s life. All the aspects of life are present in God’s plan, thus no part of human life is absurd, if life is willed by God and has been loved by him, and there is always meaning to every life. The love that Christ did was to enable people to have a better future, seen as an earthly good to be enjoyed here as a preparation for eternal salvation. His love is for all since he wants us to have future life. Some words of Christ enable us to see that the kingdom of God in contemporary times. Through God’s grace our lives become converted into the live of sons of God and thus all the things that we do should be seen from point of view of the action of sons of God. The grace of God does not transform the earth in itself but only who those who act as children of God are able to give this world its rightful meaning. Ipso facto, “the true Christian, who acts according to his faith, always has his sights set on God. His outlook is supernatural. He works in this world of our, which he loves passionately; he is involved in all its challenges, but all the while his eyes are fixed on heaven. Saint Paul brings this out very clearly: quae sursum sunt quaerite (seek the things that are above), where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Savour the things of heaven, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead, to worldliness, through Baptism, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”.[9]
This goes into buttressing the fact that for Christian faith, Jesus is the eschatological Son of Man, the definitive apocalypse of hope. In his words, deeds and destiny the Kingdom of God is revealed as God’s irrevocable commitment to humanity. In his crucifixion hope is defined as total self-surrender in trust to the God whose self-surrender to us is our salvation. In his resurrection the fulfillment of hope is anticipated for all humanity. Jesus is the prolepsis (“anticipation”) in the history of the destiny of history. Through his bestowal of the eschatological Spirit we are saved now as we await in hope the redemption of the bodies Rom 8:23.
The fruit of Christian hope
In the new language of hope in God, otherwise called apocalypticism, the apocalyptic symbolism radicalized and universalized hope by interpreting all of history in terms of a temporal dualism between ‘this age’ and ‘the age to come’. Beyond and transcending history, hope anticipated eschatological salvation in symbols of the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead.[10] Therefore in what to hope for, “our aim is the very Love of God, to enjoy that Love fully, with a joy that never ends. We have seen in so many ways that things here below have to come to an end for all of us, when this world ends; and even sooner, for each individual, when he dies, for we cannot take wealth and prestige with us to the grave. That is why, buoyed up by hope, we raise our hearts to God himself and have learned to pray, in te Domine speravi, confundar in aeternum (“I have placed my hope in you, O Lord: may your hand guide me now and at every moment, forever and ever)”.[11]
Be it as it may for the kingdom of God, it is an interior reality although one has to exteriorize some things here on earth. It is both present on earth but will be perfected in the future. We enter into this kingdom through the grace of God which we receive in baptism. Many a time people remember the kingdom of God when there is a need for something to hope for especially in moment of crisis, not just economic. People who claim to have the solution to all the problems of the world, something similar to the situation of Israel just before the arrival of Christ. People want to change the state of things in a society, the state or in the Church and bring future; however they have a very narrow concept of the future. In the Church concept of life after death has a strong presence in the liturgy. In order to give hope of life after death to the people, salvation exists even though we may be living in the “valley of tears now”. Human life has no value without Christian hope. It is not easy to live the life of Christian in difficult moment, example in hunger, sickness, problems, insecurity, etc. It may be difficult to think of God to pray. Having many earthly goods does not impede one from God, the kingdom of God can be won bearing poor or rich, what is inside a person’s heart is what matters.
The symbiosis in theological virtue
In traditional Catholic theology, hope is identified as one of the virtues, together with faith and charity, by which the human person is oriented towards personal union with God in the Beatific Vision. Therefore, according to Catholic moral theologians, an attitude of hopefulness in God, or at least in some form of goodness that transcends the individual is an integral component of a good human life.[12] Hope resides in the will, because its proper object is the good, which is the object of the will, but charity and faith are more perfect than hope. The goods of this world fall under the secondary object of hope, but only to the extent that they can be useful to us for salvation. For this reason, St. Thomas says that, “apart from the salvation of our soul, we ought not to ask God for any good unless it is some way related to our salvation”.[13] The act of hope, even of unformed hope, is of itself good and virtuous. This is expressly stated in Sacred Scripture (cfr. Ps 119: 112; Mt 6: 33; Heb 11: 26) and be demonstrated theologically because eternal life is the supernatural ultimate end of man. Therefore, to work with one’s gaze fixed on this end is not only good and virtuous but also necessary. By the same token, in this life there is no state of perfection that habitually excludes the motives of hope. Hence, the principal characteristics of the virtue of hope in perfect souls are seen in the universal confidence in God, indestructible peace and serenity, the desire to die in order to reach heaven and heaven beginning on earth.[14]
Hope in Patristic Literature
In Patristic Literature, authentic Christian hope often expressed itself in a radically countercultural way of life. Ignatius of Antioch stressed Eucharist and community harmony as the principal ways of showing forth hope of Christian, but they also stressed endurance in persecution. Justin the Martyr sees the hope of Christians in his First Apology, in fidelity to community worship and in law-abiding, civically responsible lives, lived calmly and without resentment in spite of calumnies and persecution. Origen in First Principles and elsewhere gives more weight to contemplation and renunciation as the proper expressions of Christian hope, which he sees as referring mainly to an afterlife. Lactantius in Divine Institutes Bk 7 lays stress on properly understanding the plan of God as the basic component of the practice of hope. These authors were concerned about the Christian way of life as expressing practically the hope offered by God’s promise. In the early centuries, the First Letter Clement of Rome and the Didache hold out the expectation of the parousia, or triumphant return of Christ, a resurrection of the dead, and general judgment, but they are not explicit about what would follow that judgment. In the Medieval era, regarding the devotion to the Dead, the other strand of thought competing with a careful Scholastic analysis of hope was the continued preponderance of fear as the attitude toward the future. It is exemplified in art and literature, in liturgical texts such as the Dies Irae in the Mass for the Dead, in Marian piety, and especially in the growing practice of indulgences, and it appears in the next few centuries. Writings such as those of Catherine of Genoa on purgatory were an attempt to revive trust in a merciful God and to inspire hope as the dominant attitude toward the future beyond death.[15]
Reflecting on the words of Apostles, It is by hope that we are saved…but hope that can be seen is not hope Rom 8:24-25, St. Augustine brought out these headlines:
1) The promise of the world is deceptive; but God’s promises never deceive,
2) By being meek and mild keep to the straight ways which the Lord teaches you,
3) We are the body of the head in which what we are hoping for has already been fully achieved,
4) We have been saved by hope,
5) We make use of the world as though we are using it,
6) Wait patiently for what do not yet possess.[16]
Ipso facto, the Augustinian doctrine reminds us that patience is an essential feature of hope. But there is a tension between patience as faithful expectation and dynamic anticipatory consciousness inspired by the remembrance of the Christ event. For Christian hope to wait is to anticipate, to make progress towards the still outstanding goal. This Augustinian understanding of the spiritual life as the process of sanctification was further clarified by the Thomistic identification of grace and glory, the life of grace now is inchoate future glory. Given this understanding of grace as ‘realized eschatology’, there can in principle in be no fuller gift of the Holy Spirit short of its ultimate consummation.[17] Hope during history is hope for eternity, a higher plane of perfection above and beyond history. Such hope begets patience on earth as it focuses on heaven as its ultimate satisfaction. But the patience of hope is a gift of the Holy Spirit who renews the face of the earth Ps. 104: 30.[18]
Anthropological character of hope
Worthy of note is that in the nature of hope we have two things: a passion and a sentiment. “Hope is one of the eleven passions. It is, therefore, an impulse of the sensitive appetite that tends towards some absent good apprehended by the senses, and which is attainable, but not without some difficulty. Hope is one of the worthiest sentiments of the human heart, which tends towards some absent moral good, despite the obstacles that stand in the way of its acquisition. This sentiment plays an important part in human life; it sustains men in their arduous undertakings: the labourer when he sows, the seafarer when he sails, traders and pliers of fortune when they embark on some enterprise”.[19] The situation of man in the world today needed to be relieved of worries and taught to be aware of God’s infinite goodness irrespective of the condition; hence the Council Fathers in Gaudium et Spes 4, discussed positively the necessity of being conscious of the fact that life without hope is very boring. The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1817-1820, gave the summary of the natural and supernatural characteristic therein in the virtue of hope from anthropological to theological background.
Hope is a very difficult topic since in the human sphere; there are so many objects that can be the target for hope. In the supernatural aspect there is only one God. However the future which Liberation Theology offers is in the ultimate consequence a future without God an intra-worldly paradise. At times it is difficult to know how to reconcile eternal life with daily happenings. Some have accused the Church and also of the Gaudium et Spes of speaking and writing a lot about the family, the society, etc, but without doing much, that it presents a beautiful picture of the future which has nothing to do with the earthly reality. A Marxist had declared many years ago that he gives the future to himself. The forgetfulness of the reality of eschatology makes one to be too attached to the immediate future. History is not just an amorphous structure that acts without rules. Individual history is what makes up the collective history.
Trying to construct a worldly paradise on earth can lead people to carry out atrocious acts thinking that they are doing well, example was the petition of pardon by John Paul II for the wrong things that Catholics have done over the centuries. In the Vat II, it was noted that there were movements against human life; they were going to ‘explode’ later on in the so-called “culture of death”. Dialogue is interesting but doesn’t serve much if it is not translated into concrete actions. In Spe Salvi, the boredom in young people which leads them to fix their attention on the present only without thinking of the future, can even lead to depression. The Pope also outlines the link between faith and hope without a good. In pastoral care, sometimes people do strange things in order to attract younger people. One may be led to forget that which makes Christian life more in the Holy Spirit. When one is holy and takes God with him wherever he goes, giving hope to many people, one should never lose sight of the fact that one has to present God to others in whatever he does.
Sins opposed to hope
Sin is a threat to Christian life. It destroys our faith and hope, therefore we ought to be careful and guard against the excesses opposed to hope: presumption and despair.
i) Presumption
“Presumption consists in expecting from God heaven and the graces necessary to reach it, without willing to take the means he has ordained. One may presume on the Divine Goodness, by neglecting God’s commandments, persuading oneself that God is too good to sentence one to damnation. This is to forget that if God is good, he is like just and holy, and that he hates iniquity. Again, one may through pride presume on one’s own strength, rushing into the midst of dangers and occasions of sin, and forgetting that he that loves dangers and occasions of sin, and forgetting that he loves danger will perish in it. Our Lord promises us the victory, but on condition that we watch and pray: Stay awake and pray not to be put the test. The spirit is willing enough, but the human nature is weak” Mk 14: 38.[20] Furthermore, “presumption is an act by which one expects to obtain eternal happiness and the divine helps in an undue manner, relying on one’s own strength and works or against the ordinary ways of divine Providence. For example, one hopes to obtain eternal happiness without observing God’s precepts”.[21] Humility and meditation on the inscrutable judgments of God are some of the remedies against the sin of presumption.
b) Despair
“Despair is the deliberate act of the will by which one shuns eternal happiness on account of the estimated impossibility of attaining it. It is the loss of confidence in the goodness and mercy of God and his divine assistance”.[22] By these assertions we can easily agree that, “Since in despair man relinquishes the hope of obtaining perfection and salvation, he will by consequence no longer care for his duty to strive after them. Either he will turn totally to the goods of this world and seek some satisfaction in forms of hedonism or pseudo-heroic nihilism, or he may lose the will to work and live. In the attitude of despair man cuts off the bond which binds him to God and his will”.[23] Firm faith in the mercy of God and strong self spiritual esteem can go along way in helping us fight against despair.
Pastoral necessity and awareness of Christian hope
The Eucharist has a central role in the Christian life which also gives us the security that God never abandons us, a great motive for hope. Faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist implies that it is the highest point of hope of the Church. In the Eucharist is the personal communion of Christ with Christians. Whatever activity that promotes the contact between people and the Eucharist has a great influence in one’s faith and hope. Those who don’t have a bright future on thus earth can find in the Eucharist the conferring presence of Christ. It is a firm anchor that enables us believes in the future. It is the faith that each Catholic should have. What is the Christian life without hope? The object of supernatural hope is not interchangeable with any other thing here on earth. No human instrument can destroy this source of great hope, except of course we ourselves through sin. Human hope does not have the same assurance as supernatural hope. If a priest does not give good example to others Christians, their hope in eternal life can suffer. For Holy Father, in the Spe Salvi, Christian hope in a certain sense gives a push to human hope. However our human action does not only have an earthly dimension, we can convert them into instruments of co-redemption with Christ. In the activities of human person who is the Son of God is wherever human and supernatural hope comes together. One has to see beyond this earthly life in order to understand the nature of supernatural hope. Therefore, “Put all your hope in Jesus. You yourself have nothing, are worth nothing, can do nothing. He will act, if only you abandon yourself in him”.[24]
The current historicization of hope however must never reduce Christianity to another form of secular humanism. Ockham’s razor is pertinent here. What must be done is to show the intrinsic connection between hope for eternity and hope for history. This connection is grasped by theological reflection on what is called historical consciousness. There is no infinite qualitative distance between time and eternity. The incarnation has removed that distance as the focal revelation of God’s action in and for this world through Jesus and through those empowered by the Spirit. Eternity is the future of time. Eternity is the fruit the issue of history. Eternity is the ultimate value of all the penultimate values realized in the history of the world. Hope is our hospitality for the God of the promise who has come and will come. To live in hope is to reject pretentious utopianism that would identify the kingdom of God with any intrahistorical realm of freedom. To hope for oneself is to hope for all, and the resurrection of the dead entails a new heaven and a new earth Apoc 21:1. Hope opens us to the future of God. Sustained by the Spirit of God, hope remembers Jesus Christ as the prolepsis of God’s future.[25] In view of these, human progress is something good because it is the will of God. Whatever is good in body and soul is good. But the problem in modern world was after the Second World War; the human progress was greatly theorized. Human progress is good for the human happiness. Once human progress is against human happiness, it is no better.
BENEDICT XVI: SPE SALVI
According to the Christian faith, redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present. Faith is Hope. Hope is a key word in Biblical faith so much so that faith and hope seem interchangeable. We see how decisively the self-understanding of the early Christians was shaped by their having received the gift of a trustworthy hope, when we compare the Christian life prior to faith, or with the situation of the followers of other religions, no hope emerged from contradictory myths. Facing a dark future we are involved thus in nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus. Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been the gift of a new life. To know the true God means to receive hope. We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God have grown accustomed to it and have ceased to notice that we posses the hope that ensues from a real encounter with God. The hope is not just simple and moderate but of great nature. It is this hope that made Bakhita refused to be separated from her Paron, hence was able to receive Baptism and Confirmation and first Holy Communion. The hope born in her which had redeemed her made her not to keep it to herself alone but to everybody.
Conclusion
[1] Cfr. Scanlon M J, “Hope” in Komonchak et al, The New Dictionary of Theology, The Liturgical Press, Minneota, 1987, 492ff.
[2] Cfr. McBrien R P [ed], “Hope” in Encyclopedia of Catholism, Harper Collins, SanFrancisco, 1995, 639.
[3] Cfr. S.T I-II, qq.1-5.
[4] S.T I-II, q. aa. 1-2.
[5] S.T I-II q. 17, aa. 3-4.
[6] Ibid. q. 17, aa.5-8.
[7] Cfr. Hellwig M K, “Hope” in Downey M [ed], The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 1993, 509-510.
[8] Cfr. Ibidem 513-514.
[9] JoséMaria Escrivia, Friends of God, Scepter Publisher Inc, New Jersey, 2002, n.206.
[10] Cfr. “Hope” in The New Dictionary of Theology, 492.
[11] JoséMaria Escrivà, Friends of God, n.209.
[12] Cfr. “Hope” in Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 639.
[13] S.T, II-II, q.137 a 4.
[14] Cfr. Aumann J, Spiritual Theology, 257-262.
[15] Cfr. “Hope” in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, 507-510.
[16] Cfr.St. Augustine, Sermon 157 n 1-6.
[17] Cfr. S.T Ia IIae, 106, 4.
[18] Cfr. “Hope” in The New Dictionary of Theology, 494-495.
[19] Tanquerey A, The Spiritual Life, n. 1190 A.
[20] Ibid, n. 1201a.
[21] Pazhayampallil T, Pastoral Guide Vol I, Kristu Jyoti Publications, Bangolare-India, 1997, 630.
[22] Ibid, 628.
[23] Peschke K H, Christian Ethics Vol II, Theologial Publication, Bangalore, 1996, 79.
[24] JoséMaria Escrivà, The Way, n. 731.
[25] (cfr. “Hope” in The New Dictionary of Theology, 497-498).
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