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7. Let us begin, for example, with the Symbol(11) and
the Lord's Prayer. What is shorter to hear or to
read? What is more easily memorized? Since through
sin the human race stood grievously burdened by great
misery and in deep need of mercy, a prophet,
preaching of the time of God's grace, said, "And it
shall be that all who invoke the Lord's name will be
saved."(12) Thus, we have the Lord's Prayer.
Later, the apostle, when he wished to commend this
same grace, remembered this prophetic testimony and
promptly added, "But how shall they invoke him in
whom they have not believed?"(13) Thus, we have the
Symbol. In these two we have the three theological
virtues working together: faith believes; hope and
love pray. Yet without faith nothing else is
possible; thus faith prays too. This, then, is the
meaning of the saying, "How shall they invoke him in
whom they have not believed?"
8. Now, is it possible to hope for what we do not
believe in? We can, of course, believe in something
that we do not hope for. Who among the faithful does
not believe in the punishment of the impious? Yet he
does not hope for it, and whoever believes that such
a punishment is threatening him and draws back in
horror from it is more rightly said to fear than to
hope. A poet, distinguishing between these two
feelings, said,
"Let those who dread be allowed to hope,"(14)
but another poet, and a better one, did not put it
rightly:
"Here, if I could have hoped for [i.e., foreseen]
such a grievous blow..." (15)
Indeed, some grammarians use this as an example of
inaccurate language and comment, "He said 'to hope'
when he should have said 'to fear.'"
Therefore faith may refer to evil things as well
as to good, since we believe in both the good and
evil. Yet faith is good, not evil. Moreover, faith
refers to things past and present and future. For we
believe that Christ died; this is a past event. We
believe that he sitteth at the Father's right hand;
this is present. We believe that he will come as our
judge; this is future. Again, faith has to do with
our own affairs and with those of others. For
everyone believes, both about himself and other
persons--and about things as well--that at some time
he began to exist and that he has not existed
forever. Thus, not only about men, but even about
angels, we believe many things that have a bearing on
religion.
But hope deals only with good things, and only
with those which lie in the future, and which pertain
to the man who cherishes the hope. Since this is so,
faith must be distinguished from hope: they are
different terms and likewise different concepts. Yet
faith and hope have this in common: they refer to
what is not seen, whether this unseen is believed in
or hoped for. Thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
which is used by the enlightened defenders of the
catholic rule of faith, faith is said to be "the
conviction of things not seen."(16) However, when a
man maintains that neither words nor witnesses nor
even arguments, but only the evidence of present
experience, determine his faith, he still ought not
to be called absurd or told, "You have seen;
therefore you have not believed." For it does not
follow that unless a thing is not seen it cannot be
believed. Still it is better for us to use the term
"faith," as we are taught in "the sacred
eloquence,"(17) to refer to things not seen. And as
for hope, the apostle says: "Hope that is seen is not
hope. For if a man sees a thing, why does he hope for
it? If, however, we hope for what we do not see, we
then wait for it in patience."(18) When, therefore,
our good is believed to be future, this is the same
thing as hoping for it.
What, then, shall I say of love, without which
faith can do nothing? There can be no true hope
without love. Indeed, as the apostle James says,
"Even the demons believe and tremble."(19)
Yet they neither hope nor love. Instead, believing
as we do that what we hope for and love is coming to
pass, they tremble. Therefore, the apostle Paul
approves and commends the faith that works by love
and that cannot exist without hope. Thus it is that
love is not without hope, hope is not without love,
and neither hope nor love are without faith.
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