Was There Hope in Christ?
I don’t write as an expert theologian – only as a faithful Catholic, a mother, a student who is discovering an appreciation for the logic of St. Thomas Aquinas. I was a little hesitant to write about faith and hope in Christ, as it could seem ostentatious. I’m writing about this subject during Holy Week because upon reading these explanations from St. Thomas about the perfection of our Lord, true man and true God, my understanding of what hope and faith mean was deepened, and I want to share it.
Further, one of the greatest dangers for heresy is to use words that in any way can lead to a denial of either the humanity or the Divinity of Christ, or to think of those natures as separate. This is critical, I think, to understanding why St. Thomas said there was no faith or hope in Christ. He was perfect man and true God, “one and the same Christ…known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” (Council of Chalcedon, 451) To say there was faith or hope in Christ would imply that the Divine nature was not really Divine, or that the human and Divine natures were not really united.
That wasn’t clear to me at first, but here’s how St. Thomas explains it. He derives the argument from this verse, among others. (ST-III, Q. 7, Art. 3-4)
“Now, faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” Hebrews 11:1
The theological virtue of faith is an assent to what is unseen; it has God Himself for its object. So it is with hope, as a theological virtue, to expect what one has not. The virtue of hope means we expect Divine aid in all things, expect all things to work out for the good and the glory of God.
From the first moment of conception Christ had the “Divine fruition” fully, possessed the Beatific Vision in His soul with two united natures. St. Thomas concludes that Christ did not have the virtue of hope, not because of some defect or lack of virtue, but because He had perfect virtue, perfect love, perfect charity – He possessed the vision of God – and did not need hope. Therefore, it was not in Him.
St. Thomas does make a distinction that Christ’s body did not “as yet possess all that pertained to His perfection, viz. immortality and glory of the body” so it can be said that Christ had an act of hope for those things, but the “bliss of the body” does not pertain to the Beatific Vision. It could also be said that Christ hoped for the building up of the Church by the conversion of the faithful, but that doesn’t pertain to His perfection either. Rather it pertains to a hope that others are led to share of His perfection.
I think of it like this. If a woman hopes for a child, that implies she does not yet have a child, has not yet attained motherhood. The child is the primary object of her hope. Once she conceives and bears a child, she no longer needs to hope for a child, there is no longer hope in her for a child since she can see and hold and know him. She may, however, have certain acts of hope for certain things as the child grows.
“Hope properly regards what is expected by him who hopes.”
I’ve read often that Christians are a people of faith and hope. That statement makes so much more sense now. Christians assent in faith to Divine Revelation, in the hope that we will come to know God’s will, which is good, true an beautiful. It also makes sense why of all intellectual creatures, the hope of the Blessed Virgin Mary was the highest on Mount Calvary when even the apostles, except St. John, did not have the courage to witness the death of Christ. Faith and hope gave the Blessed Mother courage because she knew God’s word would be fulfilled.
Christ Among the Humble by Léon-Augustin Lhermitte (1905)
[learn_more caption="Sources"]
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 148-149.
Council of Chalcedon – 451, “The Definition of Faith” Fordham University, paragraph 264.
Garrigou-Lagrange OP, Reginald. Christ the Savior: A Study of the Third Part of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas.Veritatis Splendor Publications. Chapter IX.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Third Part, Question 7, Articles 3-4.
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Category: Christology, Doctrine, Theology
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Stacy, when I saw your comparison to a woman’s hope for a child, I remembered this part of Pope Benedict’s encyclical on hope, spe salvi.
Notice below how he refers to faith as an embryo that is implanted in us, giving us a not-yet-fully-developed substance of the thing hoped for.
EXERPT FROM SPE SALVI:
Saint Thomas Aquinas[4], using the terminology of the philosophical tradition to which he belonged, explains it as follows: faith is a habitus, that is, a stable disposition of the spirit, through which eternal life takes root in us and reason is led to consent to what it does not see. The concept of “substance” is therefore modified in the sense that through faith, in a tentative way, or as we might say “in embryo”—and thus according to the “substance”—there are already present in us the things that are hoped for: the whole, true life. And precisely because the thing itself is already present, this presence of what is to come also creates certainty: this “thing” which must come is not yet visible in the external world (it does not “appear”), but because of the fact that, as an initial and dynamic reality, we carry it within us, a certain perception of it has even now come into existence.
Wow, that is so striking. Thank you Jeff. Oh, I need to read this encyclical. I glanced through it and saw how Pope Benedict is addressing modern socio-political situations too. This is wonderful, thank you. I didn’t know about it, but there it is to drink up!
I thought once about abortion that every pregnant woman has that little spark of love deep inside her, even if she goes through with it, but if she instead let’s that little spark grow she’ll find all the love she needs to be courageous in ways she didn’t think possible. There’s nothing to fear in having faith and hope and love. Nothing at all. It’s what life is all about.
Stacy,
This post shows well why the wording “Was there faith/hope IN Christ?” is so useful.
If we say, “Did Christ hope?” … there is a confusion … do we mean to refer to acts of hope as in, “Did Christ desire to celebrate the Passover with his disciples?”
But, when we say “Was there hope IN Christ?” … it is clear that we speak of the (theological) VIRTUE of hope (a stable reality in the will), which was surely not present in Christ’s soul since he already possessed therein the glory to which Christian hope is directed.
Again, another excellent little article! +
“To say there was faith or hope in Christ would imply that the Divine nature was not really Divine, or that the human and Divine natures were not really united.”
## As a Catholic, I don’t agree with that at all. It seems in effect to sacrifice the reality of the Humanity of Jesus to His Divinity – and that makes Him too Divine to be credibly human. Real human beings have hope, and faith and charity – so it is not at all clear how a really human Word Incarnate can have lacked them. To safeguard His Deity by denying He was in any important respect truly human in every way, just as we are, though without sin (see Hebrews 4), is too high a price to pay.
For the same reason, I don’t believe He was omniscient, or that He enjoyed the Beatific Vision His whole life long. He asks questions, sorrows, is amazed, truly suffers – none of these are easy to reconcile with those two ideas; attempts to do so produce a painfully artificial Christ: & all because people cannot believe that God can become truly, genuinely human, really & actually “God-with-us”.
The NT Jesus does some very remarkable things: He “becomes sin/a sin-offering”; He becomes accursed by “hang[ing] on a tree” (Deut. 21.23 & 1 Cor. 1); He is “born of a woman, born under the law”. Things are said of Him that utterly contradict the OT, & Jewish piety. So we cannot argue, without further ado, that because God is (say) omniscient, God Incarnate must also have been omniscient – or not had hope, or had the Beatific Vision all His earthly Life, or whatever. The NT gives us a Crucified God, an accursed & rejected Jesus, a Jesus Who upsets and challenges & threatens what is “obviously” true. We cannot say that because X is true of God, X must also be true of Jesus, because the portrait of the humanity of Jesus is qualified by His Mission on earth. A Jesus Who could not suffer, would have been no use – so He was able to suffer. If he could be vulnerable to pain & other wants, what is the basis for saying He was able to do without faith and hope ?
As for the objection that a fully Divine Christ “could not have had” faith or hope, therefore the Divine Person Who is the Incarnate Word did not: it belongs to human nature to need hope & faith, if human nature is to be a created thing, yet capable of elevation by grace. And, as the created human nature of Christ is no less created or human for being united with the Divine Word, it is fitting that the Word Incarnate as the God-man Jesus should have faith & hope, by a sort of concomitance; though not for the perfection of the Divine Word, which was not altered by the Incarnation.
Faith & hope are needed for the real increase in grace of the Word Incarnate – otherwise what St.Luke says at the end of chapter 2 becomes unlike anything known to human beings. Again, Jesus becomes too one-sidedly Divine to be really human. He becomes a holy & merciful alien instead – not a real man. He ceases entirely to be one of us, if He is not a sharer in the graces of which we stand in need. In no way does this prevent His being the Author of all grace.
Clarification:
If He shared in the graces of which we stand in need, in no way does that prevent His being the Author of all grace.
Kerberos,
I’m short on time this morning (here) but I wanted to at least begin to address your concerns.
“As a Catholic, I don’t agree with that at all.”
Think of what we pray in the creed.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial
with the Father;
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate
of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
“It seems in effect to sacrifice the reality of the Humanity of Jesus to His Divinity – and that makes Him too Divine to be credibly human.”
It is impossible for Him to be too Divine. And it is impossible for him to be anything other than fully human. St. Thomas addresses this too. Christ had all the moral virtues perfectly. To have needed to have the theological virtue of faith would have meant that He wasn’t truly God. He did have perfect charity too, as Man.
St. Thomas addresses some of the other things you mention here, in Question 15 of the Third Part.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4015.htm
I like to read Msgr. Paul Glenn’s summary too, particularly read Question 7, 14 and 15.
This is #15, but on the left sidebar you can click on the other questions.
http://www.catholictheology.info/summa-theologica/summa-part3.php?q=58
There are some questions about grace too, and I have a few posts on that.
*Talk* to you later. I hope the links help. Thank you for your comment.
My other posts, taken from the Summa.
http://www.acceptingabundance.com/the-grace-of-union/
http://www.acceptingabundance.com/sanctifying-grace-and-virtue-in-christ/
http://www.acceptingabundance.com/capital-grace/
It’s still best to read Msgr. Glenn and the actual Summa. Also I enjoy (at the recommendation of Fr. Erlenbush):
http://www.thesumma.info/saviour/index.php
You’ll find the questions numbered the same way.
Thank you Father Erlenbush. I appreciate your help and clarification.
@Kerberos,
Just one thought: You wrote that real human beings have faith, hope and love … such that if Jesus didn’t have faith and hope, he wasn’t really human.
Do you realize that infants, before baptism, do not have faith, hope or love — therefore, are they not human?
Further, nonbelievers lack faith, hope and love (as theological virtues) — so are Jews and Muslims and others not human?
And what about atheists?
How about a Catholic in mortal sin? He has faith and hope, but not love.
Further, the Blessed Virgin (and all the saints) has love now, but not faith or hope — shall we say that she lost her humanity when she went to heaven?
If doubt, confusion and so forth is necessary to what it is to be human, then surely, Mary is no longer human.
And you can’t say that doubt and confusion are at least necessary on earth … unless you think that a baby isn’t really human until it is rational and able to doubt and be sorrowful, etc.
What makes us human is that we have a human nature (whether glorified or not) … Christ therefore is human, since he assumed a human nature (with a glorified soul, but a body subject to suffering).
Something to think about. +