On the necessity of hope

[Necessity is either of means or of precept; it concerns hope whether habitual or actual.

I say 1° : Habitual hope is necessary for all men, both children and adults, by necessity of means for justification and salvation.

Proof. 1° Sacred Scripture. The Apostle says, Rom., VII, 24 : By hope we are saved. Therefore without hope, just as without faith and charity, there is no salvation; consequently neither justification, since only the just man is to be saved. The same, 1 Cor., XIII, 13 : Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greater of these is charity. Hope is here placed among the three virtues which now, that is, in the present life, are necessary for the life of the soul, or for justification. To those who had come to the Church from paganism the same Apostle says, Ephes., II, 12 : You were at that time without Christ,... strangers to the covenants, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world. Whence those who have no hope are estranged from Christ and God, and therefore not just. Similar things are read Tit., III, 7 ; Hebr., X, 23.

Proof. 2° from Trident., sess. VI, cap. 7 : « Faith, unless hope and charity come to it, neither unites one perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of his body. » What is dealt with here is not acts, but the habits of these three virtues.

Proof. 3° by reason. Man is not just unless his will is ordered to his last end, that is, to eternal beatitude. Yet he cannot be thus ordered unless he hopes that he will obtain this end. Therefore.

I say 2° : Actual hope is necessary for all adults possessed of reason, by necessity both of means and of precept.

Proof. first part. 1° The just, without hope, cannot ask of God graces and helps of every kind for persevering in justice and for attaining the last end. This is intimated by the text of Paul cited above : By hope we are saved. — 2° Sinners certainly need hope in order to dispose themselves for justification, as Trident. teaches, loc. cit. Moreover, in both cases the habit alone does not suffice, but an act is required, that man may be moved toward God.

Confirmation. The habit of hope is necessary by necessity of means for justification. Yet this habit is ordered to act. Therefore.

Proof. second part. 1° The Apostle, Hebr., X, 23 : Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering ; for he is faithful who hath promised. The confession of hope is nothing else than an act, and the precept is expressed by this word, let us hold fast. 1 Tim., V, 5 : But she that is a widow indeed, let her hope in God, and continue in supplications. Let her hope contains alike the act and the precept. Ibid., VI, 17 : Charge them... not to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God. The same, I Petr., I, 13 : Being sober,... hope perfectly for the grace that is offered you in the revelation of Jesus Christ. — 2° Acts of faith, hope, and charity, which are of necessity of means, are likewise necessary by necessity of precept, because God certainly and necessarily wills these means to be employed. Yet the act of hope is necessary by necessity of means. Therefore. — 3° This necessity is brought out by the condemnation of the following proposition, n. 1, by Alexander VII : « Man is never bound, at any time of his life, to elicit an act of faith, hope, and charity in virtue of the divine precepts pertaining to those virtues. »

The necessity of the act of hope was denied by the Quietists. Indeed, Michael de Molinos went so far as to teach that the interior life consists in this, that man annihilate his powers and hold himself merely passive, because « to will to act actively is to offend God, who wills to be himself the only agent. » Applying this principle, which is destructive of every act of every virtue, to hope, Molinos said : « The soul ought not to think either of reward or of punishment; nor of paradise, nor of hell; nor of death, nor of eternity. » This proposition is the 7th among the 68 condemned by Innocent XII. The doctrine of absolute quietism had already been reprobated by this definition of Trident., sess. VI, can. 31 : « If anyone shall say that the justified man sins when he performs good works with a view to eternal reward; let him be anathema. » The Semi-Quietists, among whom the most illustrious Fénelon held first place for some time, did not indeed reprobate the act of hope as evil, but they held it to be less perfect, teaching that the soul can be raised to a state of charity so pure as to become wholly indifferent to the things that concern itself, and « to will nothing for itself, all things for God. » This system is sufficiently known from these three propositions, which are the 1st, 2nd, and 4th among the 23 condemned by Innocent XII : « There is given a habitual state of the love of God which is pure charity, and in which there is no admixture whatsoever of interested motive. Neither the fear of punishments nor the desire of rewards have any longer a part in it. God is loved no longer on account of merit, nor on account of perfection, nor on account of the happiness to be found in loving. » — « In the state of the contemplative or unitive life, every motive of interested fear and hope is lost. » — « In the state of holy indifference, the soul no longer has voluntary and deliberate desires on account of its own interest, except on those occasions in which it fails faithfully to cooperate with all its grace. »

All know how humbly and even cheerfully Fénelon embraced the pontifical decree, of whom it is reported that Innocent said that « the Archbishop of Cambrai sinned only through excess of the love of God. »

You will ask when the precept of hope binds.

I answer. 1° It binds, like the precept of faith, per se : 1° at the beginning of the use of reason, namely when eternal beatitude has been sufficiently proposed as the last end to which everyone must tend; 2° in danger of death, that man may be strengthened against the temptations that then commonly arise, and be borne toward God as the end soon to be attained; 3° frequently in life, at least once each year; for without an act of hope we can neither persist in the state of justice nor act meritoriously. Besides, virtual hope suffices, which the faithful exercise everywhere, e. g., when they pray or receive the sacraments.

2° It binds per accidens : 1° when an act of another virtue must be elicited by precept, e. g., of prayer or of penance, which cannot be exercised without at least an implicit act of hope; 2° when one finds himself in danger of despair; 3° in every temptation, when there is danger of consenting to it unless hope raises up the mind.^{117 117} S. Lig., lib. II, n. 20; Homo apost., IV, 13.