The PATH: Faith, Hope, and Love
sent by J.W. Bertolotti | December 20, 2021
Welcome to The PATH — a weekly reflection with three timeless insights for daily life. This week’s three insights are faith, hope, and love — known as the theological virtues.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. — 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)
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1. Faith
What does it mean to have faith? Is faith required for all paths (philosophical and spiritual) of life?
To begin, what is the opposite of faith? When we think of faith, we assume doubt is the opposite. Although in a previous interview Simon Critchley (author of Bald: 35 Philosophical Shortcuts) explained, “doubt is not the enemy of faith, on the contrary — it’s certainty.” An experience of faith is not certainty but is gained by going into the proverbial desert.
According to Critchley, it is also what Jesus demands of us elsewhere in his teaching, in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says,
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you or persecute you.
How do we know anything for sure? Take the virtuous life; how do we know virtue is the only good — as the Stoics suggested? It seems any path in life requires a certain level of faith (or belief, trust, etc.) that your chosen course will lead to a good life.
The theologian Thomas Merton proposed,
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
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2. Hope
Hope is a virtue with a wide array of thoughts and opinions. Nietzsche put it this way: “Hope is the evil of evils because it prolongs man’s torment. By clinging to hope, we often make the suffering worse.”
Similarly, Schopenhauer wrote,
What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction.
In a more positive tone, the English writer and philosopher G.K. Chesterton called hope the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate. The disagreement over the value of hope is often rooted in a focus on the future.
According to Oliver Burkeman (another podcast guest), the ego thrives on focusing on the future. It is significantly easier for the mind to compulsively think about the future over the present. The optimism-focused or goal-fixated approach plays to what the ego loves. Thinking positively (or negatively) about the future identifies with your thoughts rather than creating separation or disidentifying from them.
Thinking without hope might sound rather bleak, but it needn’t be. Critchley writes, “I see it as embracing an affirmative, even cheerful realism. Nietzsche admired Epictetus, the former slave turned philosophy teacher, for living without hope. ‘Yes,’ Nietzsche said, ‘he can smile.’ We can too.”
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3. Love
When the theologian and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello was asked about love — he responded,
What is love? Take a look at a rose. Is it possible for the rose to say, “I shall? offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people?”
Or can you imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? It could only do that by ceasing to be a lamp.
And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to every one, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature — even to the one who seeks to cut it down. So this is the first quality of love: its indiscriminate character.
Similarly, in the classic The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis explained: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to keep it intact, you must give it to no one… Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
To love is to be vulnerable. And numerous scripture passages advise against hardening the heart but maybe we should focus on softening the heart?
In The Way to Love, de Mello wrote, “If it is love that you truly desire then set out at once on the task of seeing…As you do, this hard, protective shell around your heart will soften and melt.”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful. If so, please consider sharing it with others.
Each week, we send a short reflection with three insights to help you live your highest good. If you are not a subscriber to The PATH you can sign up here to receive it right to your inbox.
Image credit: Rod Long on Unsplash
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