The Virtue of Hope: An Antidote to Despair

As emotions that exist in the process of achieving our goals, despair and hope are inseparable parts of our life. Despair is understood as a severe lack of effective connection to power and meaning that it causes a foundational depersonalization and loss of vitality in life. Hope is the antidote to despair and it is the presupposition behind the human will to live. Although psychology defines hope as the perceived ability to produce pathways to achieve desired goals and to motivate self to use those pathways, Christianity considers hope as a theological virtue bestowed by God as a gift through which one trusts God will grant eternal life and the means of obtaining it. This paper, therefore, discusses the relation between hope and despair from the Christian theological perspective, against the background of current philosophical and psychological understanding. The implications of such an understanding are obviously limited to Christian believers.