Hope and Christian Ethics by David Elliot (review)

Religion is the opium of the masses. So says the typical accusation laid against Christianity for promising happiness not in this life but in the next. Marx and other atheists—with their focus upon this world and this world only—claim that religion teaches the people to suffer injustice passively by providing them with the expectation that the miseries they endure now will be rewarded with happiness in the next life. More accurately, Marxism, not Christianity, is the opium of the masses. It has taught the people to endure horrible injustices under communism with the promise of some distant paradise on earth. Nevertheless, the accusation against Christianity is not without its sting.

Saint Paul extols the three great virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The greatest of these, of course, is charity, but faith and hope are still essential to the Christian life. Unfortunately, hope's emphasis upon seeking happiness in the next life—or seeking personal happiness at all—might be viewed as an unseemly wart upon Christianity. There may be a tendency, then, to hide hope in the closet, keeping silent about it.

In Hope and Christian Ethics, David Elliot unashamedly examines hope and proudly proclaims its majesty to all who will listen, revealing that hope is not an embarrassing secret of Christianity but one of its glories. It is the foundation and the mainstay of love. A world without hope is also a world without love. Hope is the tether that keeps us united with God. Hope is the star to which we must look to fend off the despair lurking in our culture.

Elliot proposes to use Thomas Aquinas as his guide. He will traverse many waters uncharted by Aquinas, waters agitated by the Reformation and secular humanism, but he will always turn to Aquinas as his standard.

Elliot's project begins with what he labels the "eudaimonia gap," which is the sheer emptiness of worldly goods. Even true goods, such as human friendship, always leave us unsatisfied. The happiness that can be found in this life, what Aquinas calls imperfect happiness, is very imperfect indeed. Even secular thinkers recognize that, when all is said and done, the best human life will be left unsatisfied. And most human lives fall far short of the best. Christianity remains brutally realistic: there will be no earthly paradise. The utopian dreams of communism must be exposed for what they are. Paradise will not be found in this life, and it will not be achieved by human efforts. Only God can bestow such a gift.

Elliot is careful to eschew an overly negative condemnation of earthly goods. We should not despair of all happiness in this life, nor should we sanctimoniously disdain the goods of this life. The goods of this world are indeed good. We should seek and cherish friendship, families, and the well-being of others. While we pursue these goods, however, we must remain ever alert to their limitations. Whatever happiness we achieve in this life can only be partial, a small drop within the deep longing of the human heart. This realization should steer us clear of a kind of passive Christianity, which merely checks the box of Christian belief and then moves on indifferently to worldly pursuits.

For Aquinas, the eudaimonia gap, which is largely a consequence of sin, has been conquered by Christ, who offers us the transcendent good of life united with God. Elliot contrasts Aquinas's vision to Jürgen Moltmann's theology of revolutionary hope, which was one of the greatest influences upon a twentieth-century theology of hope. While Moltmann proclaims hope in a revolutionary utopia, which becomes available only to the politically empowered, Aquinas reveals a hope that trusts patiently in God, who is always able to save us from our suffering. Hope rests upon faith in the resurrection and upon the gift of grace, which elevates our nature to union and friendship with God.

For Aquinas...