Abstract
“Always be prepared to give an account of the hope that is in you,” so Peter instructed the first-century Christians (1 Peter 3:15). Amidst the hostility, persecution, misfortunes, diseases, and violence that constantly threatened to harm their lives and overwhelm their world, what was the ground for hope? A 21st-century Christian can add to this list the crisis of child sexual abuse in the church, environmental degradation, religious extremism and terrorism, gun violence, human trafficking, sex slavery, and other evils that mar our world. Is it even rationally defensible to hope? These are some key issues that Elliot deals with in this masterful work on Christian hope. This volume is a welcome contribution to the New Studies in Christian Ethics series, not least by the fact that its subject matter is this long-neglected theological virtue. In line with the stated aims of this series, E. critically engages in the secular debate on morality and happiness, so as to demonstrate that Christian hope does have something important to contribute amidst the overwhelming temptations to despair.
In his most insightful and original section, E. engages in an interdisciplinary dialogue with secular moral philosophers, Aristotle, the neo-Aristotelians Philippa Foot, and Rosalind Hursthouse, and then Kant and the Utilitarians, using the eudaimonia gap as the focus of his discussion. As Aristotle framed the overall project of morality in terms of the agent’s pursuit of eudaimonia (happiness or flourishing) by living a virtuous life, a significant challenge to this view is the fact that the eudaimonia of even the virtuous can be vulnerable to misfortune, simply due to our embodied finitude. E. calls this the eudaimonia gap. He discusses the way each author deals with the eudaimonia gap and demonstrates in each case how the Christian understanding of hope is a more viable alternative because it points to an objective ground for hope. Yet his aim is not to provide an apologetics for Christian hope, which Raymond Geuss would consider immature in the present context of widespread indifference. Instead, E. suggests that his secular reader come to an “accommodated position” by giving it some benefit of the doubt and remaining open to the evidence.
E.’s discourse on the eudaimonia gap is a perfect prelude to Aquinas where we find a comprehensive solution to the problem. Aquinas’ answer lies in the twofold nature of the human telos. Contrary to Augustine, Aquinas maintains that happiness achievable in this life, though imperfect, is genuine happiness. This happiness is our natural end, which can be achieved through the perfection of our natural powers by the virtues. The perfect happiness, which is our supernatural end, can be attained only through God’s grace. In subsequent chapters, E. retrieves from Aquinas a robust account of theological hope, the virtue that empowers the wayfarer to overcome the many challenges on the journey to eternal beatitude. That perfect happiness is the goal of hope, the “future good possible but arduous to attain.” As a virtue, hope lies between two vices: despair and presumption. In the last two chapters, E. examines the civic, social and cultural dimensions of hope. E. is most eloquent in his response to the critics of hope, pointing out that hope can empower and sustain people who labor for social change, and thereby contribute greatly to the flourishing of the earthly city by ordaining the temporal causes to the ultimate end.
To date, this is the most articulate work on Aquinas’ theological hope. E.’s interpretation of Aquinas is succinct and articulate without the baggage of scholastic categories. E.’s style is clear, erudite, and attractive. The future Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan wrote The Road of Hope while in prison to testify to the power of Christian hope, and to chart a path for Vietnamese Catholics in the face of adversity. This highlights the need for hope, not only for those who work for social justice, but also for those Christians who suffer for their faith. E.’s book is a great resource for scholars and teachers of Christian ethics, and for those who work for social justice. Above all, it is a tremendous encouragement for the wayfarers, for those who suffer for their faith, and those who labor for the betterment of the earthly city while keeping their gaze on that final destination.