This is a follow up to last months article. After penning that article, I received some feedback that I would like to respond to. In particular there was some questions around the paragraph on dead vs living hope, and what we should hope for. I stated that:

We speak of having hope for many things. We hope for good weather. We hope to get a new job. We hope our kids will be happy and make good choices. Some of these are whimsical expressions of desire, some are self-serving aspirations, and others come from a deep love for those around us.

I stated that those were “dead” hopes. However, I don’t think that these examples are actually good or accurate. And so I would like to revise it. But in order to do so, I think it requires that we take a detour to talk about dead and living faith.

What does dead faith mean?

Now when I (and I believe others) speak of “dead” faith, I don’t mean dead as in the sense of mortality. It’s not that faith or hope are living entities that then pass away and die. I mean separation or deprivation. In this sense death is when an object is deprived of something integral to it. This is analogous to physical mortality. A body dies when it is separated from some core functionality, such as respiration.

Now what does that mean in the case of faith? Faith is the earnest belief in that which is unproven, but true. Faith is not truth, but it is inherently related to it. If we separate our faith from truth, we could say it is dead.

As an example (and I will try to not botch it this time), I could earnestly believe that that the square root of 16 is 2. However no matter how strong my belief, I will always be wrong. The definition of the square root function forbids 2 from being the output of the input 16. No matter how much I wan’t it to, it will not change the truth.

So how does this relate to Hope?

I think that hope can be perceived on a similar “dead/living” dichotomy. I think that hope is integrally related to that which is good. We hope for good things to come in the future. When we separate hope from that which is good, it dies.

So, looking back at the examples I gave, I confess that they are not good examples. All the things mentioned are arguably, or undeniably good things. So to revise, let’s consider this: Is the hope of a bank robber to not get caught dead or living? I’d argue that the answer is that the hope is dead. Because it is hoping for something that is not good. Not being brought to justice is not a good thing.

Isn’t that just good for society

Now this may be a common objection. I posited that wanting to evade justice is not good. But the bank robber may argue that to him it is good. If we believe that good is merely subjective, then we would have to agree. And in that case there would be no dead hope. However I don’t believe good is merely subjective. The objectivity of morality and “the good” is, however, a long subject for another post (Or a video). It suffices me to say that the idea of Hope should prod one to consider “what is good?”.

Our power to bring about good

There was something else I wrote last month that didn’t sit well with others. I had made the comment that those hopes were dead were the things that we didn’t have control over. Now to be brief, I don’t believe that. If that were so, then it would mean that our hope was merely a passionless, and inactive desire. I did not mean that at all, and want to make that clear. Our hope should be a driver for us to act. Because in essence, I believe, hope is a virtue that looks forward to the good of the future, and helps bring it into the present.

Final notes

As a final note I would like to say that I hope you all have a wonderful Easter. It is a beautiful season to remember our savior, the Triumph over death and hell, and the Hope that we can have in that. Happy Easter!

• Hope
• Virtues
• Faith
• Easter