Whether Hope Is a Theological Virtue Really Distinct from Faith and Charity

2017 ◽  
pp. 123-161
Keyword(s):  
Theological Virtue

Hope, or On Theology

2020 ◽  
pp. 170-197
Author(s):  
Ryan Patrick Hanley
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Universal Order ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theological Virtue

Chapter 6 turns to Fénelon’s theology, focusing on his treatment of hope and its significance for his political philosophy. It argues that he regarded hope not just as a key theological virtue, but also as a key virtue of political rulers and political reformers. Its discussion of the political implications of Fénelon’s theology proceeds in three parts. It first examines the role of hope in Telemachus. It then turns to the treatment of hope in Fénelon’s theology, focusing on three particular discussions: the place of hope in love, the relationship of hope to self-interest, and the place of hope in prayer. The final section turns to two aspects of Fénelon’s theology beyond hope which also have significant implications for his political philosophy: his understanding of the relationship of human being to divine being, and his arguments for the existence of God and their implications for universal order.

Practicing Hope

2021 ◽  
pp. 166-190
Author(s):  
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
Keyword(s):  
Character Analysis ◽  
Structural Relation ◽  
Theological Virtue

In this chapter, DeYoung considers how the theological virtue of hope might be practiced. She first explains Thomas Aquinas’s account of this virtue, including its structural relation to the passion of hope, its opposing vices, and its relationship to the friendship of charity. Then, using narrative and character analysis from the film The Shawshank Redemption, she examines a range of hopeful and proto-hopeful practices concerning both the goods one hopes for and the power one relies on to attain those goods. In particular, she shows how the film’s picture of the role friends and friendship play in catalyzing hope is a compelling metaphor for Christian hope’s reliance on God.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 254-262
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The One ◽  
Theological Virtue

The Epilogue picks up on a problem running throughout the earlier chapters, that of the fundamental compatibility of Christianity and tragedy, and the claims of some critics (especially George Steiner) that they are utterly incompatible because of the Christian gospel’s ebullient hope of transcending tragic suffering. Various early Christian theologians, however, being fully aware of pagan philosophy’s largely negative assessment of the moral utility of hope, touted hope as an altogether virtuous emotion if refined by sobriety and realism about the compromised state of human existence. Hope thus qualified not only as a “theological virtue” alongside faith and love but as a tragical emotion in its own right, serving to guard against spiritual or eschatological triumphalism on the one hand, and deep despair over existential tragedy on the other.

The Medieval Idea of Heresy: What Are We to Make of It?

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 111-139
Author(s):  
Arthur Stephen McGrade
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Theological Virtue

For Thomas Aquinas, writing in a society where there was widespread persecution of heretics, heresy was a species of unbelief (infidelitas) worthy of death. In Aquinas unbelief is the genus of vices opposed to the fundamental theological virtue of faith (fides). Today, in the liberal West, heresy itself is a more or less serious candidate for theological virtue.2 What are we to make of this?

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