1. Introduction
Hope is widely regarded as a key factor in generating motivation and achieving success. Those who hope seem to have a better chance of succeeding in their endeavours than those who do not. The same can be said of people who have more hope than those who have less. In this sense, certain hope would provide enormous support for the success of our endeavours. However, in modern debates, hope is usually seen as characterised by uncertainty,Footnote 1 or even dismissed as vain optimism.Footnote 2 By contrast, the Christian tradition – as exemplified by Thomas Aquinas – emphasises that believers should have firm hope. Aquinas argues that hope is a virtue characterised by certainty, a view that could make a significant contribution to contemporary debates.
However, there seem to be problems with this view. To the objection that certainty concerns the cognitive faculties and therefore does not apply to hope, which is a motion of the will, Thomas replies that while it is true that certainty essentially concerns the cognitive faculties, it must be said that it can also concern other faculties by participation, insofar as the cognitive faculties influence them. He adds that it is by participating in the certainty proper to faith that hope can be said to be certain.
This is problematic. Aquinas’ reference to the certainty of faith, and especially the fact that Thomas speaks of ‘cognitive faculties’, seems at first glance to imply that faith is endowed with conclusive evidence. Indeed, it is only on the basis of conclusive evidence that the cognitive faculties attain certainty. But Thomas, as is known, always denies in his writings that faith is endowed with conclusive evidence.
In this article, I intend to proceed as follows. First, I will offer a sufficiently detailed discussion of how the difficulty I have just mentioned arises. Second, I will show that although faith, as Thomas argues, is an intellectual act and thus a work of the cognitive faculties, its certainty is nevertheless due to charity and not to evidence, unlike the certainty of reason. Third, I will show that, by analogy with the certainty of faith, the certainty of hope is formed or perfected by charity. This explains why Aquinas says that the certainty of hope participates in the certainty of faith. This will also allow me to present my arguments for the interpretation of two other relationships that, from the point of view of certainty, seem to emerge between faith and hope.
2. Why the way in which Thomas says that the certainty of hope participates in the certainty of faith is problematic
According to Aquinas, the theological virtue of hope is characterized by certainty. For him, as for the auctoritates he quotes – Saint Paul and Saint Peter Lombard – ‘hope is the certain expectation of future happiness’.Footnote 3 Thomas refers to what he calls ‘living’ or ‘formed’ hope, that is, hope perfected by charity. It is the hope with which one expects eternal happiness from God ‘as from a friend’. Thomas explains this in the following passage:
Hope and every movement of the appetite proceed from some kind of love, whereby the expected good is loved. But not every kind of hope proceeds from charity, but only the movement of living hope, viz. that whereby man hopes to obtain good from God, as from a friend.Footnote 4
This passage makes it clear that the theological virtue of hope concerns not just any good, but the ultimate good that only God can give, namely, eternal happiness. God bestows this supreme good in the manner of a ‘friend’, that is, in the context of a relationship that Thomas elsewhere calls ‘the love of friendship’,Footnote 5 a relationship characterized by love for others, in which one desires the good of the other. Such love is charity, that is, love of God and love of neighbour, which God himself freely bestows.Footnote 6 Charity perfects hope, through which one can be certain of eternal beatitude.
However, an objection is raised against the certainty of hope. The objection is that hope cannot be certain because it is a motion of the appetite and does not involve the cognitive faculties, whereas certainty does.
Thomas answers by arguing that certainty concerns our faculties in two ways: essentially and by participation. It essentially concerns the cognitive faculties, but by participation it concerns other faculties insofar as the cognitive faculties move them:
Certainty is found in a thing in two ways, essentially and by participation. It is found essentially in the cognitive power; by participation in whatever is moved infallibly to its end by the cognitive power. On this way we say that nature works with certainty, since it is moved by the Divine intellect which moves everything with certainty to its end. On this way too, the moral virtues are said to work with greater certainty than art, in as much as, like a second nature, they are moved to their acts by the reason: and thus too, hope tends to its end with certainty, as though sharing in the certainty of faith which is in the cognitive faculty.Footnote 7
Aquinas’ answer is well articulated and seemingly convincing. But a closer reading reveals a problem. In fact, it is not clear how faith’s certainty can reside in the cognitive faculty. It is true that for Thomas faith is first and foremost an assent of the intellect to revealed truth. In this sense, it is a matter of cognitive ability. However, it is also true that certainty requires conclusive evidence, which Aquinas states in his works does not exist in faith.
3. Certainty of faith and certainty of reason
In this section, I will demonstrate how the certainty that Thomas attributes to faith, as it being an intellectual act, is ultimately rooted in the will and, above all, in the love that God bestows upon believers. Having clarified this, it will also be possible to understand how hope, which is an act of the will, can enjoy certainty.
Let us begin with the definition of faith offered by Aquinas. According to him, faith is ‘an act of the intellect assenting to the Divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God, so that it is subject to the free-will in relation to God’.Footnote 8
Although faith is primarily an act of the intellect, this act is only possible because of an intervention of the will. In other words, believers assent to divine revelation because they want to, rather than because the available evidence compels them to do so, as in the case of a mere cognitive process.Footnote 9 The most important point here is that, in the case of paradigmatic faith, at least – that is, the faith of those who firmly assent to revelation and live their lives accordingly – it is essential for faith to be characterised by certainty. However, as Aquinas points out, revealed truths do not provide the conclusive evidence needed to produce a firm assent to them. Therefore, firmly believing is only possible through a motion of the will. The latter, in turn, is moved by God himself, otherwise faith would be reduced to mere wishful thinking.
But how exactly does God move the will? What Thomas thinks about this can be seen in two passages, one well-known, the other usually neglected by his interpreters. The first passage is the one in which he argues that it is love that perfects faith: ‘Charity is called the form of faith in so far as the act of faith is perfected and formed by charity’.Footnote 10 Therefore, it is through charity that one believes firmly. But how exactly does charity make faith firm? We find this explained in the second passage I quoted in part above. In it, Aquinas responds to the objection that the possession of evidence in support of faith seems to eliminate or diminish the believer’s merit. (This passage does not aim to explore the relationship between charity and faith. However, as I will demonstrate, it helps us to understand how charity can reinforce faith.) According to Thomas, merit does not disappear or diminish, even if the evidence in question is conclusive. He refers to the case of the preambles of faith, truths of faith that full evidence supports.Footnote 11 In his opinion, even in this case, the charity that forms faith does not disappear:
Though demonstrative reasons in support of the preambles of faith, but not of the articles of faith, diminish the measure of faith (rationem fidei), since they make the thing believed to be seen, yet they do not diminish the measure of charity (rationem caritatis), which makes the will ready to believe them, even if they were unseen; and so the measure of merit is not diminished.Footnote 12
Full evidence diminishes or even annihilates the measure or idea of faith, for which faith concerns the intellectual content that is not evident. However, it does not diminish the measure or idea of charity, for which faith is grounded in the love of God, and believers trust in him and are ready to assent to whatever he has revealed. Needless to say, if the idea of charity is not diminished in the case of preambles to faith that can be supported by full evidence, this is all the more true of articles of faith that cannot be supported by such evidence.
On the basis of these assertions, we can argue that, since full evidence does not support those articles, the certainty required of faith – at least paradigmatic faith – is due to the readiness to believe, which in turn is due to charity. The believer who loves God, understanding him as the supreme good, trusts him completely and is ‘ready to believe’ whatever God has revealed.Footnote 13
From what I have said so far, it is clear that, although faith is an intellectual act and thus the work of the cognitive faculty, its certainty is not due to this faculty but to an extra-epistemic factor, such as charity, which leads one to want to believe what God has revealed.
The fact that we are in the presence of an extra-epistemic factor is clearly underlined by a passage in which Thomas distinguishes the certainty of faith from the certainty of reason. The certainty proper to faith is due to divine love, whereas intellectual certainty is due to conclusive evidence:
Certainty can mean two things. The first is firmness of adherence, and with reference to this, faith is more certain than any understanding and scientific knowledge … The second is the [full] evidence of that to which assent is given. Here, faith does not have certainty, but scientific knowledge and understanding do.Footnote 14
The passage may lack clarity. On the one hand, Aquinas argues that the certainty of faith is ‘firmness of adherence’, whereas the certainty of reason is ‘(full) evidence’. On the other hand, he argues that there is more firmness of adherence on the part of faith than on the part of reason, and this clearly implies that the certainty of reason is also a firmness of adherence. It seems to me more convincing to maintain that in both cases – certainty of faith and certainty of reason – there is firmness of adherence. What changes is the cause of this firmness. In the case of reason, the cause is full evidence. In the case of faith, the cause is ‘the first truth’, God himself. And since the first truth is ‘a more powerful cause than the light of reason’, the firmness of adherence is greater in the case of the certainty of faith.
In any case, the passage in question shows that the certainty of faith is different from that of reason. The certainty of faith is not based on epistemic factors such as evidence or justification. In other words, it is not the cognitive faculty that produces this certainty. On the contrary, it is charity that leads the believer to want to adhere firmly to divine revelation.
Having demonstrated how, for Thomas, the certainty of faith does not stem from the cognitive faculty, I will argue in the next section that the same applies to hope. This should help us to understand what Aquinas means when he says that, like faith, hope ‘tends to its end with certainty’. Note that faith remains an intellectual act. Therefore, if its certainty derives from extra-epistemic factors, this is all the more reason to understand this of hope, since hope is an act of the will, not the intellect.
4. From charity and hope to faith
How exactly does hope derive its perfection and certainty from charity? How exactly does love of God lead the believer to hope firmly for eternal beatitude, even though this is a future good that the believer may not even attain? Moreover, given the order of succession from charity to faith via hope – on which I will focus primarily in this section – another question emerges. How can we explain Aquinas’ view that hope strengthens faith’s certainty? In this section I intend to answer these questions.
Thomas notes that, like faith, hope adheres to God as its object in two ways:
First, for its own sake; secondly, because something else is attained thereby. Accordingly, … hope and faith make man adhere to God as to a principle wherefrom certain things accrue to us … faith makes us adhere to God, as the source whence we derive the knowledge of truth, … hope makes us adhere to God, as the source whence we derive perfect goodness, i.e., in so far as, by hope, we trust to the Divine assistance for obtaining happiness.Footnote 15
With hope, then, believers look to God as the one from whom they can receive eternal beatitude. As D. Elliot observes, the practice of hope ‘might be summarized as a combination of longing and leaning. By hope we long for God as the source of our beatitude … By hope we also lean upon grace to sustain us through the joys and challenges of our earthly pilgrimage’.Footnote 16
I should add that, precisely because eternal beatitude is nothing other than union with God, the supreme good, one must not fall into the error of looking at God instrumentally, that is, not loving him for his own sake, but only for the benefit one can derive from him.Footnote 17 Nevertheless, hope centres on God as the source of our happiness. This is pointed out by Elliot, according to whom ‘whereas faith knows God as first truth and charity loves God as the universal good, hope seeks God as our personal good – namely, as the source of perfect and lasting happiness in eternal life’.Footnote 18
These considerations lead us to focus on the two types of love that Aquinas presents. They are opposed to each other. One is imperfect and the other is perfect. There is imperfect love, when I love someone only because of the good that comes to me, and there is perfect love, when, in loving someone, I want him to have the good, even if no benefit comes to me. The latter is what Thomas calls ‘the love of friendship’, typical of charity, in which one loves God for God’s sake. The other kind of love, the imperfect kind, applies to God in the form of a love of God not for himself but for what one can receive from him. It is a love ‘induced by the goods that come from God and that one wants for oneself’.Footnote 19
It is important to focus on this distinction because, at first glance, one might think that imperfect love is a necessary characteristic of hope, given that hope involves union with God, which is considered a good thing for us. However, this is contrary to what I intend to demonstrate, since, in this case, hope would not be perfected by charity.
Before arguing that charity does make hope perfect and certain, I would like to remind the reader that love that is motivated primarily by the goods one hopes to obtain is imperfect, not only because of the selfishness that can be attributed to it but also because it is primarily concerned with goods that one has not yet attained. Conversely, perfect love, that of one who desires primarily the good of another, is perfect because it already involves a union with God, the supreme good, a union that one achieves through the possession of charity.Footnote 20
Let me now concentrate on the distinction between perfect and imperfect love, which are related to the two objects of hope mentioned above. Aquinas distinguishes between the material and the formal object of hope, noting that the virtue of hope is the disposition ‘of what is imperfect’ and ‘of what is perfect’:
Insofar as it refers to the material object, hope is the disposition of the imperfect, since what is hoped for is not yet possessed. But insofar as it refers to the formal object, that is, to divine help, it is the disposition of that which is perfect, for man’s perfection consists in his adherence to God.Footnote 21
Within the same virtue of hope, then, imperfection comes from the good being expected and not possessed, while perfection comes from union with God. This is obviously the perfection that comes to hope from charity, which, according to Thomas, not surprisingly forms and perfects hope, just as it forms and perfects every other virtue.
Charity forms and perfects hope on the basis of a certain order of succession. But this order is not the only one. On several occasions Thomas discusses the order of succession among the theological virtues or, more precisely, among the acts of these virtues.Footnote 22 Referring to the distinction between the order of generation and the order of perfection, Thomas argues that according to the former, the succession is from faith to charity via hope, while according to the order of perfection, there is the same succession, but in reverse order.
In order to answer the questions posed at the beginning of this section about how charity perfects hope and how hope strengthens the certainty of faith, I must consider both orders. First, let us consider how Thomas distinguishes between them. The distinction he offers is systematic and persuasively articulated, and is again based on reference to the concepts of matter and form, intrinsic principles of everything:
In one way, one being is prior to another in the mode of perfection, as the act is prior to potency, and the perfect is prior to the imperfect; and this priority corresponds to the formal principle. In another way, however, one being is first in the mode of generation and time: and so, in the same subject, the potency is before the act, and the imperfect before the perfect. But absolutely and generally, even according to time, the perfect is first, because the imperfect is not moved except by a pre-existing perfect; and this corresponds to the material principle.Footnote 23
In the same subject, potency precedes act, and the imperfect precedes the perfect. Hope precedes charity, and faith precedes hope. In reverse order, perfection precedes imperfection, even in terms of time. In this sense, charity precedes hope, and hope precedes faith. As I argued earlier, charity implies that one loves God for God’s own sake, with the love of friendship, and not instrumentally – that is, not only for the goods that God can give.
With the hope that follows, then, one looks forward to eternal beatitude, understood as union with God. This is expected with certainty, since those who love God, understood as the supreme good, do not doubt that he will grant the beatitude in question. Those who are bound to God by the love of friendship love God for his own sake or as a good in himself. And from such a good they cannot doubt that they will receive eternal beatitude. First, because a perfectly good God must desire our highest good. Second, because ‘we should hope from Him for nothing less than Himself’.Footnote 24 Needless to say, those who do not doubt that they will receive eternal bliss from God are certain to attain this supreme good.Footnote 25 Hope, once formed by charity, is certain.Footnote 26 To put it another way, only one’s own desired alienation from God could prevent the attainment of this beatitude. This becomes apparent in Aquinas’ response to the objection that hope cannot be certain because it relates to a goal that may not be achieved:Footnote 27
There can be no certainty about that which may fail. Now many a hopeful wayfarer fails to obtain happiness. Therefore wayfarer’s hope has no certainty.Footnote 28
Thomas’ response shifts the focus from the uncertainty in question to the issue of God’s love and human sin:
That some who have hope fail to obtain happiness, is due to a fault of the free will in placing the obstacle of sin, but not to any deficiency in God’s power or mercy, in which hope places its trust. Hence this does not prejudice the certainty of hope.Footnote 29
In other words, the possibility of not attaining eternal happiness depends on us. If we estrange ourselves from God through sin, then eternal bliss will also become estranged from us. But this will not happen if, on the other hand, we are firmly attached to him with the love that he himself freely gives. As I have already said, charity makes hope formed and therefore certain. If one loves God as good in himself, and therefore trusts him completely, one does not doubt that our highest good can come from him.Footnote 30 One does not attain this good only if one voluntarily turns away from God through sin.
Referring to the order of succession from perfect to imperfect has enabled me to explain how charity makes hope certain. Given the aforementioned order of perfection, charity perfects both hope and faith. Because of charity, one has a firm expectation of eternal beatitude and a firm belief in divine revelation, respectively.
With this in mind, we can now consider how hope precedes faith and makes it more certain. According to Aquinas, in fact, the certainty of hope formed by charity leads to perseverance in faith, or to holding fast to faith;Footnote 31 hope is even called ‘the entrance to faith’, because through it ‘man begins to be established and perfected in faith’.Footnote 32
However, it does not seem sufficiently clear what ‘begins to be established and perfected in faith’ means. Perfect faith is indeed faith formed, that is, faith made certain by charity. As stated above, those who love God trust in him and believe what he has revealed. It is, therefore, not immediately obvious how hope, more precisely formed hope, can give stability and perfection to faith.
Taking into account the relationship between charity and faith that I considered in the previous section, I can then make an interpretative proposal.
I have shown so far that out of love for God, the supreme good, one trusts him and is ready to believe what he has revealed. It is out of the same love that one trusts God and firmly hopes that God will not deny one full communion with him, that is, eternal beatitude. It is now possible to argue that the hope of receiving communion with him increases charity, love of God. This seems to be what Thomas means when he reflects on the way in which hope precedes charity. According to him, ‘hope leads to charity, in as much as a man through hoping to be rewarded by God, is encouraged to love God and obey His commandments’.Footnote 33 But if charity increases, then faith should also derive greater stability from it. It is no longer only the love of friendship, where one wants the good of the other (of God and of one’s neighbour). It is also love for one’s own good, which one expects to receive. This new element, compared to charity alone, is the good of the self as a sign of God’s love, or more precisely, of his mercy. It is quite plausible that it makes faith more stable and firm. That is, faith will no longer be moved only by the desire for the good of God and neighbour, but also by the desire for its own good.
One may raise an objection. When Aquinas states that ‘hope leads to charity, in as much as a man through hoping to be rewarded by God, is encouraged to love God and obey His commandments’, he is considering hope and charity in terms of their order of generation rather than their order of perfection. This suggests that Aquinas is referring to imperfect or lifeless hope rather than perfect hope, the latter of which is necessary to make faith more perfect.
However, this objection is based on the assumption that only imperfect hope can precede charity. I see no reason to deny that once hope has been perfected by charity and believers fully hope that God will not prevent them from attaining eternal beatitude, they can love God more intensely because their hope includes the possibility of God granting them such a precious gift.
The value of such a good in the eyes of believers seems to be emphasized by Aquinas’ comments on the Lord’s Prayer and, more specifically, the petitions contained within it. According to Thomas, the first two of the seven petitions that make up the prayer in question concern precisely God, the end of all things, and our union with him:
The first thing to be the object of our desire is the end … Now our end is God towards Whom our affections tend in two ways: first, by our willing the glory of God, secondly, by willing to enjoy His glory. The first belongs to the love whereby we love God in Himself, while the second belongs to the love whereby we love ourselves in God. Wherefore the first petition is expressed thus: ‘Hallowed be Thy name’, and the second thus: ‘Thy kingdom come’.Footnote 34
The importance for us not only of the glory of God but also of the good for ourselves in union with him, can have important consequences in the daily experience of faith. When faced with the difficulties of existence, particularly suffering, which can cause one to doubt God’s love, the hope of attaining eternal happiness one day can give meaning to the challenges of the present moment,Footnote 35 and this is expected to strengthen one’s faith.
5. From faith and hope to charity
So far, I have investigated two types of relationship between faith and hope from the perspective of their certainty or perfection. First, both are made certain by charity. Second, the former is made more certain by the latter. It is now time to examine another relationship. This time, the relationship between them emerges from a viewpoint of lack of certainty rather than certainty. According to Aquinas, both faith and hope can actually be unformed or lifeless. To explore this further, I will delve deeper into the order of generation, which I have already mentioned briefly.
The order in question goes from the less perfect to the more perfect:
It is by faith that the intellect apprehends the object of hope and love. Hence in the order of generation, faith precedes hope and charity. In like manner a man loves a thing because he apprehends it as his good. Now from the very fact that a man hopes to be able to obtain some good through someone, he looks on the man in whom he hopes as a good of his own. Hence for the very reason that a man hopes in someone, he proceeds to love him: so that in the order of generation, hope precedes charity as regards their respective acts.Footnote 36
In the treatise On Hope, which, like the passage just quoted, is included in the Summa theologiae, Thomas points out that the object of hope is not only the good that a person can attain but also God’s help, and concludes by arguing that ‘both of these are proposed to us by faith, whereby we come to know that we are able to obtain eternal life, and that for this purpose the Divine assistance is ready for us’.Footnote 37
In both passages, then, Thomas explains that in order to hope and love something, one must first learn its intellectual content. Since learning the intellectual content of revelation is done through faith, it follows that faith precedes both hope and charity.
But what type of faith can precede the other theological virtues? It cannot be perfect faith, since the order of succession we are considering is from the imperfect to the perfect, and since it is only in the reverse order, that is, from charity to hope to faith, that the latter can become perfect. Therefore, one can say that we are talking about formless faith. But what exactly is formless faith? To this I shall return shortly, for it is better now, for the sake of exposition, to dwell on formless hope.
To what he has already said in the article quoted above, Thomas adds in the article immediately following that those who hope, and hope to be rewarded by God, are led to love God.Footnote 38 In this case too, as in the case of faith, we are talking about an imperfect and therefore formless hope, since charity has not yet intervened to perfect it. This type of hope lacks charity, that is, love directed towards God. Rather, it is love of self, that is, of the good expected from God, that moves this kind of hope. It is not a firm hope perfected by charity, because if one does not love God as the supreme good for God’s sake alone, one does not fully trust God and, therefore, is not sure that God is ready to grant beatitude. But such is the love for oneself and for the beatitude one wishes to attain that one ‘is encouraged to love God’, that is, one is appropriately disposed towards him as the giver of beatitude, and thus one can say that one learns to love God more and more. In this sense, Aquinas is arguing that in the genetic order, and thus in imperfection, hope leads to charity. Note that this is a formless hope, but one that has the potency to receive the form. Once one has attained charity, one will also have formed hope. So there is no sharp break between formless hope and formed hope. The same is true of formless faith, to which I will now return, as anticipated above.
Formless faith is faith without charity. But this does not mean that faith is reduced to a purely intellectual act, devoid of any motion of the will towards the good. I have already dealt with this subject elsewhere.Footnote 39 Suffice it to say here that faith, understood as a purely intellectual act, is what Aquinas finds in demons, who are capable of such intellectual acuity that they cannot help but believe. Their intellect ‘is convinced that it ought to believe what is said, though that conviction is not based on objective evidence’.Footnote 40 Thomas clearly attributes faith and not knowledge to demons because they lack conclusive evidence of things, that is, full evidence of the object of faith, while they have such evidence of the signs of it. Because of their keen intelligence, they are able to see miracles and understand such arguments that they cannot disbelieve. And yet they have no merit in this, because they are sorry to believe: ‘The very fact that the signs of faith are so evident, that the demons are compelled to believe, is displeasing to them’.Footnote 41 But this is not the case with men and women who have formless faith. They do not mind believing: ‘Faith, which is a gift of grace, inclines man to believe, by giving him a certain affection for the good, even when that faith is lifeless’.Footnote 42 For human beings, then, faith remains a gift from God, even in its formless state. It is driven by a desire for goodness and has the potential to develop into a formed faith.Footnote 43 At the same time, however, the formlessness of such faith implies a lack of certainty. It is a faith that emerges from the contemplation of its signs, to which I have already referred. For Thomas, these signs are fully evident. However, they do not make evident the content of faith. Consequently, faith based on signs is a faith that is only probable, that is to say, lacking in certainty. And this is why I have argued elsewhere that it is what Aquinas calls ‘faith commonly so called’.Footnote 44
This excursus on formless faith proves helpful in capturing significant similarities with formless hope.
First, formless hope leads in some way to charity. As I noted above, for Thomas, one who hopes to be rewarded by God ‘is encouraged to love God’. That is, one can be more and more inclined to love God by seeing him as the supreme good capable of granting eternal happiness. Similarly, in the case of faith, the signs that support it should be seen as indications of the truth of revelation. In this way, one can be confirmed in the conviction that one should believe such truths,Footnote 45 and thus that God is the supreme good to be loved.
Second, both formless faith and formless hope are characterized by the pursuit of goodness. Of formless faith I have already emphasized that it ‘inclines man to believe, by giving him a certain affection for the good’. Of hope, too, Thomas emphasizes that it is goodness, though not charity, that inspires it: ‘Love in general is before hope, since the object of love is good in general’.Footnote 46
The similarities in question are useful in supporting the thesis that, even in the genetic order leading from the imperfect to the perfect, the crucial role played by the motion of the will towards the good must be considered. For this is immediately apparent if one remembers that, according to such an order, the movement from matter to form is nevertheless a path to perfection.
6. Conclusion
In this article, I have attempted to show that for Aquinas, hope is formed and made certain by charity in much the same way as faith is formed and made certain. Those who, desiring eternal beatitude, regard God only as a means of obtaining it, do not hope firmly. They do not love God for himself, as the almighty and perfectly good God. They do not fully trust in him, and therefore do not fully and firmly hope that they can attain eternal happiness. On the other hand, those who firmly hope love God for himself, fully trust in him, and therefore believe that the attainment of bliss can be denied to them only because of sin, that is, only if they themselves will it.
I then noticed that, from a certainty-based viewpoint, Aquinas identifies two further ways in which faith and hope are related. The first of these emerges when he states that hope reinforces the certainty of faith, which led me to wonder how exactly this occurs. My argument is that hope increases charity, which in turn strengthens faith. This has led me to consider the order of generation, whereby faith precedes hope, which in turn precedes charity. Another relationship can be found in this order: both faith and hope are formless and result from a fundamental tendency towards goodness. This tendency leads one to consider and value the various signs of the truth of revelation, giving rise to formless faith. It also inspires the desire for eternal beatitude, however imperfectly, giving rise to formless hope.Footnote 47
Conflict of interest
The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
