Reviews for On Hope

The average rating for On Hope based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-08-29 00:00:00 Joe Sherburne I wanted to give this book 5 stars, but Pieper includes some anti-Reformation sentiments and seems to suggest that assurance of salvation is presumptuous. 7: "Although he should slay me, I will trust in him" (Job 13:15). Reflections on the concept: status viatoris 11: too much "pilgrim" talk without knowing what it really means; "viator" = "one on the way"; status viatoris = "condition or state of being on the way"; antonym is status comprehensoris ("condition or state of having arrived"; see Phil. 3:13) 12: a viator makes "progress toward eternal happiness" 13: status viatoris is inherently "not yet" (we're finite beings); this "not yet" has negative and positive elements; negative: humans' proximity to nothingness (we're created ex nihilo); sin is turning to nothingness 14: positive: creatures have a "natural orientation toward fulfillment" and the "ability to establish, by [their] own effort, a kind of justifiable 'claim' to the happy outcome of his pilgrimage" [cf. Przywara's potentia oboedientialis in Analogia Entis, pp. 105, 228] 14-15: sin (negative) is abolished by union, and the orientation toward fulfillment (positive) is abolished by the reality of the fulfillment 15: status viatoris ends "when uncertainty comes to border on certainty"; eternal damnation = inner "not yet" '> inner "not" 16: status viatoris ends at death when man "steps out of time" 18: "the concept of the status viatoris designates . . . the inner structure of man's creatureliness" (we're different from God; "analogy of being"); God is absolute being, and man is "in the process of becoming"; Przywara's "becoming-ness"'between being and nothingness 18-19: "To be a creature . . . means being grounded in absolute being and having an existential orientation toward being, toward one's own being and, at the same time, toward the divine being" 19: nihilists: orientation/movement toward nothing; Christians: orientation/movement toward a good (existence) 20: homo viator (a man on the way) doesn't oscillate between being and nothingness, but rather toward being and away from nothingness (realization, not annihilation) (sounds like Przywara) 20-21: the appropriate response to the status viatoris is neither despair nor presumption, but hope; "The virtue of hope is preeminently the virtue of the status viatoris; it is the proper virtue of the 'not yet'."; "In the virtue of hope more than in any other, man understands and affirms that he is a creature, that he has been created by God." Hope as a virtue 25: "hope is either a theological virtue or not a virtue at all"; "Virtue is . . . the most a man can be. It is the realization of man's potentiality for being."; "grace-filled participation in the divine nature" 26: justice is not a virtue if it doesn't tend toward the good, but "natural" hope can tend toward the bad and still be real hope (but not a virtue, because virtues must be oriented toward the good) 27: "In hope, man reaches 'with restless heart', with confidence and patient expectation"; hope is ordered by two other virtues, magnanimity and humility 28: natural hope tends toward magnanimity, and humility is a "protective barrier and restraining wall"; magnanimity takes courage; Thomas and Aristotle call magnanimity "the jewel of all the virtues" (see Nicomachean Ethics); humility "is only apparently the opposite of magnanimity" 29: humility as a "negative measure"; "Magnanimity directs . . . hope to its true possibilities; humility, with its gaze fixed on the infinite distance between man and God, reveals the limitations of these possibilities and preserves them from sham realizations and for true realizations" 30-31: interrelation of faith, hope, and love 31-32: the perfect love of friendship (for the friend's sake) vs. the imperfect love of concupiscence (for love's own sake) 32: love as "the mother and root of all Christian virtues" 33: Council of Trent's anathematization and Bonaventure's focus on a personal search for beatitude: "There are many who look for beatitude, but worry little about themselves and much about God" [Catholic elevation of human effort]; hope is "wholly supernatural," but Pieper still wants to talk about "man's innate capability" 34: infused vs. acquired virtues; "Christ is the actual foundation of hope" 36: "Prayer and hope are naturally ordered to each other. Prayer is the expression and proclamation of hope; it is interpretiva spei; hope itself speaks through it."; "hope, as the lasting elevation of man's being, cannot exist except from, through and in Christ" 37: hope is grounded in divine mercy and omnipotence 37-38: humans (via free will) can destroy God's grace in their lives [Pieper sounds like he's resisting the Protestant doctrine of perseverance of the saints, or assurance] 39: James as an apostle of hope; reference to Paradiso 25.1-9 40: connection between youth and hope; natural hope vs. supernatural hope; supernatural hope has a long future that waits patiently for the "not yet" 41: Augustine's "God is younger than all else" 42: Job 13:15 (see p. 7) 43: Isaiah 40 (comfort and hope) Anticipation of nonfulfillment (despair) 47: two kinds of hopelessness: despair (anticipation of nonfulfillment; "not") and presumption (anticipation of fulfillment; "already"); both destroy the status viatoris 48: presumption is false hope; despair isn't a mood, it's a decision of the will 49-50: redemption heightens hope and deepens despair; "the same flash of light that reveals to the creature the supernatural reality of grace lights up also the abyss of his guilt and his distance from God" 50: despair destroys both the pilgrim character of existence and the "way" to fulfillment (Christ); hope (spes) linked to foot (per): "Despair has no foot on which to walk the way that is Christ"; "For the Christian, despair is a decision against Christ" 51: "Despair is the state of being which is proper to the damned"; "Like hope, despair presumes the existence of a desire" 52: despair as a sin against the Holy Spirit? 53: "the beginning and the root of despair is acedia, sloth 54: acedia is not simply synonymous with laziness and idleness (opposites of diligence and industry)'theologically speaking, it is slothful sadness, a refusal to exhibit the greatness (magnanimity) that God has given us (see pp. 55-57); read a quote here 55: workaholism, rest, leisure (see p. 59 ["world of total work"]; cf. Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture); Catholic way of counting the decalogue; lack of courage 57-59: brotherhood of acedia: despair, evagatio mentis ("uneasy restlessness of mind," including loquaciousness, excessive curiosity, importunity, interior restlessness, and instability of place or purpose), torpor (sluggish indifference), pusillanimity, rancor (irritable rebellion), and malitia (malice par excellence) 60: avoid acedia and despair by "vigilant resistance" and "steady watchfulness"; "The root and origin of despair is the slothful sadness of acedia. But its 'perfection' is accompanied by pride" Anticipation of fulfillment (presumption) 65: in both forms of hopelessness (despair and presumption), youthfulness is reduced to senility (by despair) and infantility (by presumption); "presumption is less opposed to hope than is despair"; "despair is the true anti-type of hope, whereas presumption is but its false similitudo, its fraudulent imitation" 66: presumption doesn't understand futurity and "arduousness" 66-67: presumption is overconfidence, overreaching, and negatively related to reality 67: "In the sin of presumption, man's desire for security is so exaggerated that it exceeds the bounds of reality" 67-68: two forms of presumption: Plagianism ("man is able by his own human nature to win eternal life and the forgiveness of sins"; associated with "liberal, bourgeois moralism") and Reformed theology ("the sole efficacy of God's redemptive and engraving action" = heresy) 69: Reformed theology denies both the negativity of the "not yet" and the positivity of "man's proper existence as a positive progression toward fulfillment"; Reformed folks have an "inordinate trust in God's mercy"; presumptuous self-esteem denies "one's actual creatureliness" 69-70: hope presupposes both magnanimity and humility 70: true prayer is blocked by despair (assumption that request won't be granted) and presumption (expects its fulfillment) 70-71: connection between justice and mercy 71: presumption is not as bad as despair (despair is more contrary to human nature) 71-72: Pieper characterizes the status viatoris as full of uncertainty'pilgrims can never achieve absolute certainty (cf. p. 37) 72: we are finite creatures and do not have being from ourselves [sounds like Przywara] 72-73: segue to fear (as a good thing) The gift of fear 77: contemporary view that men shouldn't be afraid (this idea comes from enlightened liberalism and un-Christian stoicism) 78: both disordered fear and unnatural fearlessness are opposed to fortitude 79: fearlessness is actually unnatural; "fear of the Lord" language starts here 80: fear of the Lord is not just respect, reverence, or awe 81: the ultimate threat is our own ability to sin because it separates us from God [Pieper seems to equate the fear of the Lord with the fact that we can never have confidence that we are saved by God's grace; see pp. 37 and 85]; God is the Ultimate Ground of all being [sounds like Przywara'see pp. 72 and 85]; "heroism" (see p. 67) 82: some fear the sin itself, and others fear the punishment of sin; filial, chaste, and servile fear; servile fear fears eternal damnation 83: fear of the Lord paves the way for loving the Lord and wisdom; angels and fallen angels should be frightening [cf. C.S. Lewis] 86: we are naturally disposed to ethical good [Catholicism] 87-88: connection between hope, fear, and love Author's remarks 91: indebted to Aquinas; footnotes are usually references to the Summa Translator's note 95: bibliographical information, including customary abbreviations

Review # 2 was written on 2015-10-08 00:00:00 Kurt Zahn Josef Pieper's treatise "On Hope" has a magnificent consideration of natural hope, philosophically understood, which makes it a very worthwhile read for anyone regardless of what they may believe about eternal life. "The proper impulse of natural hope," Pieper explains by presenting the thought of Thomas Aquinas, "is toward the virtue of magnanimity. ... A person is magnanimous if he has the courage to seek what is great and become worthy of it." Aristotle call magnanimity "'the jewel of all the virtues,' since it always ... decides in favor of what is, at any given moment, the greater possibility." Pieper's exploration of the nature of hope is extremely practical and useful for the modern reader. I say this because in describing hope's opposite, despair, he explains how the "beginning and root of despair is acedia" (an even more profound problem than is suggested by our modern English "sloth"), and Pieper goes on to describe at some length the remedy for sloth and despair, namely that they are destroyed "not by work but only by that clear-sighted magnanimity that courageously expects and has confidence in the greatness of its own nature." (If you're reading this review because it came up on your newsfeed, which you scroll through for hours at a time with the sinking feeling that you ought to be doing something more with your life, this is the book for you.) Pieper gives a similar treatment of that other vice opposed to hope, presumption, and explains how the virtue (not the mere external attitude!) of humility serves as a "restraining wall" against excesses from the soul's impulse for greatness. Moving from the natural and philosophical to the supernatural and theological, our author explains that our hope in things eternal is not rooted in our natural hopes: we can experience great suffering and loss in this life without needing to lose our supernatural hope. "Although He should slay me, I will trust in Him." (Job 13:15) Many people, even good and faithful people, assume that "the fulfillment of supernatural hope must occur through the fulfillment of our natural hope," but this is false. In this context he explores the phenomenon of doubt, which can co-exist in our live with hope. "All manner of doubt can exist ... closer to the surface above a hope that has its roots in the most interior depths of a soul. But these doubts do not touch the hope that is so deeply rooted." In connecting this thought with hope in eternal life, Pieper concludes that "the heathen cannot be tempted to the same depths of despair as the Christian." One can definitely see here an example of how Pieper influenced the thought of Joseph Ratzinger (and fun fact: it was through Piper that Ratzinger met Karol Wojtyła). This book is highly recommended to all readers, and especially to anyone who suffers from sloth or despair. If the book seems too philosophical at first I dare say you could skip the first chapter and still get a lot out of this. "On Hope" is most easily obtainable in the collection "Faith, Hope, Love" published by Ignatius Press in 1997, reprint 2012.