Dist. 31, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/31/q/bon-sent-III-d31-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether hope is voided by the coming of glory.*

Secondly it is asked about the voiding of hope, and it is asked whether hope is voided by the coming of glory. And that it is seems true.

1. To the Romans 8: *Hope that is seen is not hope*; the Gloss: "A thing hoped for, that is seen, is not hope, that is, it is not subject to the virtue of hope, which is only of things not apparent": if therefore by the coming of glory that which was hidden becomes manifest: it is necessary that the habit of hope be voided at the presence of the reward.

2. Likewise, "hope is the expectation of future beatitude," according to what is said in the Gloss on Romans 5; but when out of the future something becomes present, the future ceases to be future: since therefore in glory beatitude is always had as present, it seems that in no way does it happen that hope be there.

3. Likewise, to the Corinthians, first, 13: *Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three* etc.; the Gloss: "Charity, when faith and hope have departed, will remain increased, and to it faith and hope here cannot be lacking": if therefore they will be lacking to it in the fatherland, it seems that they are voided through glory.

4. Likewise, as faith stands with respect to the unseen, so hope stands with respect to the unpossessed; but faith is necessarily voided, when clear vision supervenes: therefore hope also, when comprehension or most certain holding supervenes.

**On the contrary:** 1. Wisdom 3: *Their hope is full of immortality*; the Gloss: "that is, indefectible": therefore if the hope of the Blessed does not fail, it seems that hope is not voided in the Blessed. If you say that hope is there taken for the very thing hoped for; then there is the objection from the very act of hoping, which was in Christ, according as the Gloss says on that text of the Psalm: *In thee, O Lord, have I hoped*: if therefore Christ was at the same time comprehensor and wayfarer, it seems that the act and habit of hope can stand at the same time with the completion of the reward.

2. Likewise, wherever there can be desire, there can be hope; but in eternal beatitude there is

the highest desire, according as it is written in the first of Peter, 1: *On whom the Angels desire to look*: therefore it seems that in supernal beatitude itself it happens that hope is found as to habit and motion: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the blessed souls in the fatherland await the second robe itself, and consequently their glory to be increased and perfected; but the certain expectation of glory proceeding from the instinct of grace belongs to the virtue of hope itself: therefore the virtue of hope is in the blessed souls.

4. Likewise, as despair stands to the damned, so hope stands to the Blessed by a converse proportion, because, just as the state of the damned is repugnant to the state of the Blessed, so hope is repugnant to despair: therefore just as it is necessary to posit despair in the damned, so it seems necessary that hope be posited in the Blessed.

5. Likewise, the act of hope itself is to trust in the Lord; but the Blessed most of all have that act, because they most of all trust in the Lord and lean upon him: therefore it seems that in them especially the habit and use of hope is to be found.

6. Likewise, to hope belong certitude and expectation; but it is established that certitude in glory is not taken away, but rather perfected: therefore it seems that the habit of hope as to something of itself is preserved in glory, namely as to certitude; likewise it seems that as to expectation, because, as Anselm holds, to posit a participation of beatitude is to posit a duration: therefore those who now participate beatitude in A, do not yet participate it in B, and with certitude await it. If therefore hope as to expectation remains and as to certitude is consummated, it seems that in no way is it voided in glory.

### Conclusion.

> The habit of hope is in the fatherland simply voided.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that, just as there is a twofold manner of speaking about the voiding of faith, so also about the voiding of hope. For in the very habit of hope too there is to be found something of imperfection and something of perfection and completion. For to imperfection belongs that of hope which is a certain expectation and a stretching-out toward those things which are not really possessed; but to its completion belongs the confidence and certitude by which it makes one trust and lean upon the supreme bounty itself. And as to the first, hope itself is removed and voided; but as to the second it is perfected and saved. — But since, as was said in the preceding, hope would not be said to be voided if only that which is of imperfection were removed from it, that being saved which is in it of perfection and completion — as is plain, because free choice in the fatherland is not said to be voided in glory, although mutability is taken away from it: and this because mutability belongs rather to the defect of free choice than to its completion — if then it were to be found thus in the matter at hand, it ought never to be said to be voided on account of the coming of glory.

And therefore the common manner of speaking is, and the Gloss itself intimates this, that the habit of hope itself is simply voided in glory, and a new habit succeeds it. And the reason of this is: because the habit of hope fits one for trusting in and leaning upon God with a certain stretching-out and uplifting and expectation; and since to the state of glory the expectation of the substantial reward is repugnant, since it is there had, and the stretching-out and that uplifting and longing, since there the affect is wholly at rest: hence it is that the habit of hope itself is simply

said to be voided, according as hope names the habit of the theological virtue which fits the soul itself for awaiting the substantial reward. — And the reasons which show this are to be granted.

1. But to that which is objected first to the contrary, that the hope of the Blessed is full of immortality; it must be said that hope is there taken for the thing hoped for. And if it be objected that Christ hoped in act according to that text of the Psalm: *In thee, O Lord, have I hoped*; it must be said that this is understood of Christ by reason of his members; or the name of hope is there extended to the expectation of any spiritual benefit whatever.

2. To that which is objected, that there is hope where there is desire; it must be said that there is a desire of acquiring, and there is a desire of continuing. But where there is a desire of acquiring, there hope can well be; but where there is a desire of continuing a good already possessed, there is no hope, because there is not there an expectation of the unpossessed. And so in the fatherland desire is to be posited, not through any panting after obtaining what is not possessed, but on account of the tirelessness and unfailingness of the delight, which in no way there gives rise to weariness.

3. To that which is objected, that the blessed souls await the second robe; it must be said that in that argument there is a twofold defect. The first defect is: because not just any expectation posits the virtue of hope, but the expectation of the highest beatitude or of the highest good and of what is to be attained with the highest difficulty. Furthermore, they do not await with the certitude of hope, but with the certitude of comprehension, which does not posit a stretching-out nor a longing for attaining that which is awaited; otherwise by its delay it would afflict the one awaiting, according to that which is said in Proverbs: *Hope that is deferred afflicts the soul*; but this is in no way to be posited concerning the blessed soul.

4. To that which is objected, that hope stands to the Blessed as despair to the damned; it must be said that the case is not alike: because despair makes for the heaping-up of evil; but hope, of its very nature, has an opposition with the supreme completion of the good, since it bespeaks the absence of the good awaited. And therefore the habit of hope is not so compatible with supreme beatitude as despair with extreme calamity.

5. To that which is objected, that the act of hope is to trust in the Lord and to lean upon him; it must be said that not just any confidence is the act of hope, but that which is with a certain stretching-out and longing and uplifting, all of which are incompatible with the state of glory; and therefore, although in glory there be a certain confidence, nevertheless it does not follow that there be the virtue of hope, because it is of another and more excellent habit, namely of the endowment succeeding the virtue of hope itself.

6. To that which is objected, that there expectation is saved and certitude is consummated; it must be said that there is not there expectation properly, because nothing new is increased to the Blessed, with respect to which there should be expectation in them. Furthermore, that certitude is not completed, but there is there another genus of certitude: for the former is from promise, but the latter is from the exhibition of the thing and a most perfect holding. Therefore it does not follow that the habit of hope be saved in glory, but rather hope is from this the more shown to be voided.

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