Faith, hope, and charity (edited from Feb. 8 and 9, 2018)

In discussing the three virtues the Christians added to the classic four, we are less interested in what Christians may have understood by them historically than in their relevance for today and tomorrow. For, after all, nothing permanent ever changes, but everything seems to change – reveals other facets – as the point of view of the observers changes. Yes, “all is one” ultimately, but in discussing anything short of the ultimate, we end by discussing parts as if they were independent or partly independent units. So how might you usefully incorporate these virtues in the lives you lead from now?

Faith. Faith implies faith in something, if only in the integrity of the universe, or in justice, or goodness. It need not be a credo in the sense that organized religions use it. It may, if that helps you, if it matches your disposition and meets your needs; but it need not. Non-Muslims are neither aided nor harmed by the fact that Muslims believe certain things to be true that they themselves do not, or do not in the same manner. Similarly, non-Christians are no more affected by their own non-belief in the Apostle’s Creed, say, than Protestants and Catholics are affected by their own inability to believe their opposite numbers’ specific creeds. In short, faith has nothing to do with being right. It has nothing to do with anything that can be proved. Faith is not opinion.

This, despite the fact that opinion, and supposed fact, and the assumption that one is correct will shelter behind the word. Faith is what you know it to be, from experience. It is a steadfast unreasoning and perhaps unreasonable belief that something is true, that motivates your action (or perhaps your in-action, sometimes) against all contrary evidence.

As I was writing that, I thought of Shackleton’s men, stranded in the Antarctic, waiting for months for rescue, forming up every day because “this may be the day the captain returns.” Amazing story, showing the remarkable character that inspired such faith, and the remarkable character of his men who refused to consider that he might be unable to fulfill his word.

Plenty of examples throughout history, if you care to set them out.

I don’t know why that particular example came to mind, unless it was because their faith was so unreasoning, even though they knew the perils that might easily have destroyed their leader in his attempt to bring them their salvation.

Even if he had failed, and the men had all died, and the world never heard of it, the second-tier experience resulting from their faith would have remained.

In a sense, faith follows guidance, an unseen presence that is trustworthy, benevolent, and personal. It manifests in convictions that you do not doubt, that lead you safely through fog and darkness past unsuspected dangers. It doesn’t preserve you from life – it isn’t a magic carpet or a cloak of invisibility or an assurance of invulnerability – but it preserves you throughout life, if you allow it to.

Can you make clear the difference between faith and what I call Psychic’s Disease, the certainty that something is true because I strongly feel it is true?

It’s easy. Psychic’s Disease usually boils down to opinion. Faith is more about qualities. That which you believe in faith, is an overwhelming presence in your psyche. You may choose to disbelieve; you may, one might say, choose to go with doubt over faith, but it is there if you are willing to know it is. Faith is not a matter of opinion, though it may look like it superficially. Shackleton’s men were not of the opinion that he would return for them; they knew he would, even though reason would have thrown up so many reasons why he might have been prevented from doing so. Hundreds of miles of open sea would have provided reason enough for doubt. Psychic’s Disease is closer to your seizing on to some idea or conviction that comes floating within range and deciding that, because you grasped it, it is truth. And this is slightly more complicated than may appear.

It is a fine line, sometimes, between faith and cocksureness. The way to distinguish between them – for yourself – is to distinguish how far desire has mingled with perception. Shackleton’s men certainly desired that he would return bringing rescue, but it was not desire, in their case, that brought certainty. It was their shared faith in him and his leadership and ability and his luck, though perhaps neither he nor they would have used the word.

But supposing – to make a slightly absurd example – that among themselves they had been conducting a pool as to which day of the week he would arrive. In such case, any certainty would have been untrustworthy, because no matter how certain one might be, no matter how accurate one’s non-sensory knowledge might be – in actual fact, one might wind up following some other timeline, thus falsifying the knowing.

You see? Very difficult to tell true intuition leading to foreknowledge from true intuition leading to what we might call mistaken foreknowledge. If one judges results by where one lands, that kind of thing happens all the time. It is why prophets are not inerrant. So, faith must be in things other than timeline-delineated things.

I feel we haven’t really said some one thing that would make it clear.

Let’s leave it at this. You can live in faith in all humility, but you can’t live in Psychic’s Disease that way. Remember always that you, yourself, are not uniquely guided in the world, and it will be easier to remember that guidance is not certainty, but always requires and repays doubt.

“Doubt”? Did I get the wrong word? That seems contradictory. Shackleton’s men never seem to have doubted that he would successfully return.

There is a fine shade of difference, concealed by language. They did not doubt his ability, his loyalty, his courage and resourcefulness. This is the basis for their faith. They knew him. But that did not blind them to the possibility that the forces of nature might overwhelm him as they had overwhelmed the expedition’s ship and its intent. They knew he might fail, but there was no percentage in pulling that future toward them (or pulling themselves toward it, however you wish to see it). Instead, they clung to their faith in their leader’s character and ability as they knew it from long experiences, and, we might say, used that faith to pull themselves to a future in which they were rescued.

You see the fine line? They didn’t suppress their knowledge of possibilities, they merely rested on what they knew, and lived as if it would work out, as it did.

Well, as you say, it’s a fine line. Then, how about hope and charity?.

John Anthony West is in your mind, and his manifest contempt for what passes for civilization among you in his day and yours.

Yes. Not much hope for our “civilization” unless it changes greatly for the better, and it is clearly beyond human possibility to design and execute those changes at any 3D-driven level.

Yet in his final statement, he was living in hope, was he not? Would you call that nebulous?

Well, it’s difficult to sort out – which I realize is your forte, sorting out. He was or seemed to be feeling that a great change was nearly upon us, after a lifetime’s struggle against entrenched stupidity and willful blindness. Yet his criticisms of our present day were no less trenchant and biting.

So, you see how quickly and easily we pass to the essence of what hope is. It is the expectation of something that cannot necessarily be defined or even more than vaguely sensed; nonetheless the expectation (as opposed to the formulation of what it is that is expected) is a real, certain, tangible presence.

Start with the difference between faith and hope, remembering that we are concerning ourselves with how these words and qualities may be understood henceforth. Thus, call faith belief that certain things are true. Call hope belief that certain goals may be attained. Do you see how easily the distinction is made?

Abraham Lincoln believed in the people. He believed in human equality. He believed in free government as an idea that had been passed to his generation from its revolutionary forebears. Those were acts of faith.

He hoped, on the other hand, for many developments, some of which transpired and some of which did not. He hoped to keep England and France from interfering; he hoped the South would accept compensated emancipation; he hoped to find a solution to the race problem by the “repatriation” of ex-slaves to Africa. He hoped that whatever latest general he was forced to rely on would measure up. You see the distinction, surely, between faith in principle and hope in outcome. You have faith in human ability to contact non-physical sources of guidance. You hope that we will be able to shed light on a given subject.

Even if a given hope is disappointed, that doesn’t necessarily justify abandoning faith that in general the hope is justified.

We wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but yes, good enough.

Now remember, we are delineating the sins and virtues for a reason, a very practical stocking of your toolbox with cautions and reminders, so that you may have life, and have it more abundantly, as Jesus put it. We aren’t endorsing previously held religious views. We are reminding you that you need all the tools and guidance you can get your head around, if you are to make sense of new inputs, new conditions, new exigencies.

Thus, faith is helpful. Hope is helpful. They are power tools, multipliers of force, enablers of psychic judo, so to speak. Without them, you are half-disarmed. With them, you are half-ready.

And charity?

Charity is different in intent and in effect. Faith and hope are attitudes you may take up with regard to what (seems to) happen to you. Charity is an attitude you may take up to shape how you happen to the world. It is your lodestone, orienting your actions. It prevents you from many a wrong orientation, hence from many a wrong action or thoughts.

Again Abraham Lincoln.

He is an outstanding example of a man shaped by living the three Christian virtues, though he did not regard himself as a Christian and joined no church even in his mind, let alone in his external allegiance.

Faith sustained him in his most difficult times, times when he was young and feared he would be driven to kill himself and when, as an older man, he feared he was inadequate to his great responsibilities.

Hope sustained him, similarly, in the times when logic and common sense made hope seem illusory. Like Churchill 80 years later, he clutched at each reason for hope as it appeared, but did not allow each subsequent disappointment to render him hopeless. If faith was belief in certain principles, hope was disbelief in certain ultimate outcomes.

Charity sustained him, in that he knew he meant well. In this he was like Robert E. Lee, who prayed for his enemies as well as for his friends.

Awareness of their good intent fortified them in hope that they were on God’s side?

That’s a little too definite. They both recognized that “God” could not be on both sides at once, as Lincoln pointed out. But let’s say, knowing that they were operating out of charity rather than hatred cleared not only their minds but their consciences. It could not guarantee success externally. It did enable success individually.

Lincoln and Lee lived the same double-edged life we all lead. The living of their lives concerned them; it also concerned the world around them, influenced by them. Nobody can have things all his own way externally; everybody succeeds and fails to some degree, considered as one person in the world. But that same person’s (seemingly) internal task, the inner life, does not depend upon external success and is not hampered by external failure.

Well, it may be. But the distinction remains. Even though your life is your own affair (on the one hand) and is part of the world (on the other), it is one life, not two, so the effects continually intertwine. Lincoln’s personal qualities affected his relations with those around him. His rise to political influence among the Whigs and then the Republicans affected his own day-to-day sense of himself. It is always a fluctuating balance, that’s how it’s designed.

So, to return to the focus, which is how you, reading this, may benefit from the discussion.

Life seems to happen to you. external events shape your life, day upon day. What is the most effective way to live that life?

You happen to life, too. Internal motivations guide you, moment by moment, and shape how you react and how you pro-act. What is the most effective way to live that life?

Remembering the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude will help keep your ship balanced and seaworthy. Remembering faith, hope, and charity will provide a common-sense set of guidelines as you go along moment by moment.