Christian Hope
This Holy Week I set aside Telegram, The American Sun, and all other sources of political discourse and news. Going to liturgy, the Bridegroom Service, Holy Unction, and the coming preparation for Pascha (I am writing this on Thursday, so you will see this post a few days after these words were penned), I have been struck with the marked difference between Christian hope and political despair. How often do we hear the declinist narrative? “Things have been bad, are bad, and will only get worse!” A person of this disposition—a disposition often habituated by “influencers”, journalists, and chat rooms—will notice that the present age has gone wayward, and then project the current state both backwards in history and forwards to the future. Notice how both the political right and the political left in America, being dismayed with the present age, conclude that America has been corrupt since her birth. Liberalism or white supremacy, depending on who you ask, was in the English womb that bore America. Making the observed phenomenon systemic, it is then acknowledged that any solution would have to be systemic also. From this point despair sets in, for systemic change seems unlikely if not impossible.
I am not going to comment on whether or not the current problems America faces have always been with us, will always be with us, or even what these problems are. For the argument, let us grant that America has been infected with liberalism/white supremacy since her beginning, and let us also grant that it is unlikely that change for the better will come. Yet, having granted these things, the Christian still hopes.
Why? This hope can appear to some as mere wish fulfillment, and, perhaps more damningly, is not “optimism a form a cowardice”, as some are wont to say? If hope is a virtue, as Saint Paul tells us (1 Corinthians 13:13), then it cannot, by definition, be wish fulfillment or a form of cowardice. However, the hope that is a virtue is different from me hoping that you will share this article around. The latter is not really hope, but the thought “wouldn’t it be nice if…”, or even, “I really want…” In contrast to this thought, which is only called hope, Gabriel Marcel, the great contemporary rival to Jean-Paul Sartre, describes Christian hope as follows:
“Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and all calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me, which cannot but will that which I will, if what I will deserves to be willed and is, in fact, willed by the whole of my being.
We have now come to the center of what I have called the ontological mystery, and the simplest illustrations will be the best. To hope against all hope that a person whom I love will recover from a disease which is said to be incurable is to say: It is impossible that I should be alone in willing this cure; it is impossible that reality in its inward depths should be hostile or so much as indifferent to what I assert is in itself a good. It is quite useless to tell me of discouraging cases or examples: beyond all experience, all possibility, all statistics, I assert that a given order shall be re-established, that reality is on my side in willing it to be so. I do not wish: I assert; such is the prophetic tone of true hope.”1
Hope, Christian hope, is not wishing. If I possess true hope, I am making an existential claim. On the one hand I am asserting something as undeniably good, and on the other I cannot but help to believe that reality wills what I will. Put differently, we might say that Christian hope is to will the Will of God. To hope that world is healed from her ills is, to repeat, assert that the healing of world is an undeniable good and to truly believe that reality wills this as well. Reality here includes God, but I also imagine it includes all of creation, even the trees and birds, as hinted at by Paul in Romans 8:18-25,
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. 24For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.2
Trusting reality would be hard, if not impossible, if it was simply the collection of all facts. If reality was impersonal, then trusting it to will as I will makes as much as sense as me trusting my cup of coffee to will as I will. The Christian insight makes this trust rational, as it proclaims reality as a Person. Reality, the Logos, became incarnate for our salvation, taking on human nature, allowing Himself to be delivered up, crucified, and then rising from the dead, conquering death by death. Only because Reality is a Person, and a Person who condescended for our sakes, does it make sense to trust reality. If Reality is not a loving Person, then hope becomes impossible; for how can reality be on my side and will what I will, if what I will deserves to be willed, if reality is an impersonal collection of facts? Even if reality is something like the One of Plotinus or the Logos of Heraclitus, hope is not possible. Why? Because an impersonal substance, even if it be divine, cannot will that my loved one be cured of her incurable disease. When I hope, and not simply wish, I assert that my will is aligned with the Divine Will of the Logos and that the Logos, Who is Reality, is on my side not in some abstract way, but in the same way that He lay on the breast of the apostle John, or healed the woman with the flow of blood, or called to the tax collector to come down from the cedar tree and dine with Him, or even gave Himself over as the perfect Paschal lamb. I hope because I have faith, and I have faith because there is a Person in whom I can have faith.
At the risk of sounding preachy, and I have already touched the Faith more than I like to do publicly, although many will declare themselves Christian or pious because they have such and such a political opinion or have read this and that Church Father, if they teach despondency, which is cultivated in the soul by the declinist narrative, shut your ears and remember the hope that is within you. To do so is not to ignore the problems of the world and pretend everything is okay, it is to look on the problems of the world, to suffer these problems, and still, despite what might even be intense suffering, affirm that Reality cannot but will what you will. It is he who looks at the current situation, throws up his hands and says, “this will only get worse and there is nothing we can do about it!”, who, although thinking himself a realist, is living in fantasy. This man denies the basic fact of Reality, that He loves us and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. We can trust these words, for He has showed Himself to be master of the universe in His glorious ressurection, which we celebrate today.
Christ is Risen!
Christos Anesti!
Marcel, Gabriel. Translated by Manya Harari. The Philosophy of Existence. Cluny Media. Providence, Rhode Island. 2018. 26
From the New King James Version