Question One: On Hope as It Is a Virtue

S. Th. II-II, q. 17, aa. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8; de Virt., q. 4, aa. 1 and 3.

810. Theological hope is a morally good and honorable habit, because it has a good object: God, our supreme good, to be attained by divine help. Indeed it is a virtue because it is a habit rendering man perfect: for it makes him adhere to divine help and thus attain God, the supreme rule of human acts; but the perfection of man consists in this, that he adhere to God and attain his proper rule. Hence in the Scriptures the praise of hope is derived from this, that through it man is joined to God (Ps. XVII, 3; LXI, 8; XC, 1; Jer. XVII, 5, 7).

Nor say: hope includes imperfection, because it concerns a future and absent good. - The response is: although this in itself is imperfect, nevertheless for man in the state of the way it is not imperfection but perfection to expect, on account of divine help, those things which we cannot acquire by human power (q. 17, a. 1, ad 3; de Virt., q. 4, a. 1, ad 4).

811. Opposed errors. - Lutherans, Calvinists, Baius, Jansenists, and several modern philosophers, especially Kantians and evolutionists, said that hope is disordered; the Quietists and Semiquietists said that it is imperfect: because it includes the love of concupiscence by which we will God as a good to us and expect a reward; which love is disordered because it refers God to the creature, or at least is an imperfect, interested, and mercenary love. - The response is:

a) In two ways we refer something to ourselves: as a means to an end, and as perfect to perfectible, that is, as the end which we desire for ourselves. Now by the love of concupiscence we refer God to ourselves as the fount of supreme perfection by which we must be perfected; this certainly is not disordered: for thus God himself willed his Son to be incarnate for us. But hope does not refer God to us as a means to an end; rather, on the contrary, it refers us to God as to the end, because it desires God as our supreme good or supreme end. And indeed, our end is not on account of us, but we are on account of the end. Hence to desire the end is not to order it as a means to us, but to order us as a means to it. - In other words, we are only the end for whom we desire, in no way the end which.

That this is lawful the Scriptures teach, constantly exhorting the faithful that they act on account of heavenly beatitude (Mt. VI, 33; XIX, 29; I Cor. IX, 25; Eph. I, 16; Col. III, 23-24; Heb. XI, 25-26; Apoc. II, 10; Ps. CXVIII, 112; Prov. XI, 18; Eccli. XII, 2; I Jn. III, 3); likewise the Church by the voice of Councils, for example, Trent, sess. 6, cc. 11 and 16, can. 31, and of Pontiffs, for example, Alexander VIII (props. 10 and 13 condemned).

b) Then that love, although it is less perfect than the love of dilection and charity, nevertheless is not disordered and positively imperfect, because it does not positively exclude the motive and love of charity, but only abstracts from them: for because we love God as our supreme good, we do not thereby deny that he is in himself supremely good and supremely lovable.

812. They object that a work done with a view to reward, in the case of eternal life, is mercenary. But it is disordered and vile to act on account of reward. - The response is:

a) A mercenary is properly one who orders the more noble as a means to the vile, for example, to money; or who acts only on account of reward, or even only on account of a temporal good. Hence by St. Thomas, q. 19, a. 4, ad 3, mercenary love is rather said to be that by which one loves God on account of temporal goods. But of hope it cannot be said: 1. that it acts on account of temporal reward; or 2. that it acts only on account of reward, because it does not exclude another honorable motive, although the hope of a merely spiritual and future reward powerfully incites to good. Hence reward is not the exclusive motive of acting, but an adjunct as a help. - Nor 3. does hope order God to beatitude, but it demands beatitude and further orders it to God, as was said in the preceding number, a, and n. 805.

b) But those who boast that they act on account of duty, as they say, and not on account of reward, deceive themselves or others: for experience shows that men begin to act with a view to reward, and only gradually are allured to a good of a higher order and to pure love, elicited without a view to reward. Indeed a necessary condition that we will and love something is that it also be our good; otherwise we could not desire it. But for that reason our good will not always and necessarily be the motive of acting, namely, in every act, nor a fortiori the principal or exclusive motive.

813. Hope is a theological virtue, because it attains the very supreme rule of human acts, God; for 1. it has God as its formal object: for it attains the omnipotence of God as efficient cause, insofar as it relies upon his help; 2. it also has God as its primary material object: it attains God as final cause, insofar as it expects beatitude in his possession.

Moreover it is a virtue distinct from the other theological virtues: for we can adhere to God either on account of himself, and this we do through charity; or as to the principle from which something comes to us. But from God there comes to us both the knowledge of truth, and faith is concerned with this, and the possession of divine goodness, concerning which hope is concerned.

Faith precedes hope, because it proposes the object of hope as possible; but hope precedes charity and introduces to it: insofar as someone hoping to be rewarded by God is enkindled to loving God on account of himself; as was said in the treatise De Virtutibus, n. 625.

814. Hope without charity is called imperfect or unformed, because the ultimate perfection is lacking to it, namely, the perfect tendency to the ultimate end; and because it hopes for beatitude only from future merits which someone thinks he will acquire, but not from present merits already had.

815. Hope is a supernatural virtue, both objectively, because as its object it has the very omnipotence of God supernaturally helping us to supernatural things; and subjectively, because it is produced by a supernatural principle: for since the act of hope is a means to a supernatural end, it too must be supernatural; moreover it will not be supernatural unless it is produced by a supernatural principle, the grace of God. Hence:

1. hope is a virtue infused per se;

2. the act of hope is produced by the habit of hope as by a principle, among those who possess it; in others it will exist only from actual grace;

3. the act of hope is supernatural not only as to mode but according to itself and as to substance; for it is divine because as material and formal object it has God to be possessed in himself, whom we expect with divine omnipotence aiding. Hence, just as God in his works relies upon his own power alone, so through hope in our acts toward divine things, even toward the possession of God similar to that which he himself has in heaven, we tend by relying on divine power alone;

4. whence hope elevates us to the supernatural and divine order.