Spirituality

How does one begin to address the meaning of hope? On the one hand, there is no theme that goes more to the heart of life than that of hope. On the other hand, precisely because hope stands at the core of the human condition, there is no aspect of life that is unrelated to it. Our very birth is an affirmation of hope even when our parent(s) or guardian(s) despair of any. The fact that we rise each day is an affirmation of hope even if only with the smallest glimmer. The major life transitions of childhood to puberty, the relationship with a significant other, the pursuit of education and a career, the birth of our own children, and retirement are all expressions of hope. Despite the injustices, tragedies, and suffering of life, we can find even in the darkest hours a glimmer of hope. Death is no negation of hope. With the death of a loved one, we gather to celebrate life and to affirm the hope that makes any such celebration possible.

What is hope? Is it a grand illusion that we embrace willingly as a coping mechanism in the face of the overwhelming negativity in life and in face of the triumph of death over life? In what follows, I want to explore the "groundless ground" for hope in experience that stands behind, under, before, and ahead of any religious doctrine regarding hope. Perhaps then we can be sure that we are engaging "real" hope and are not being blinded by wishful thinking.

The strategy for exploring the "groundless ground" of hope will be to examine the human condition in the world for any indication that humanity is sustained by a limitless dimension that requires of us to affirm real possibilities in even the darkest hours of life. Hence, whereas this project does not deny the possibility of revelation, it is concerned with natural theology and not with revealed theology. The question whether or not revealed theology necessarily presupposes the natural theology of hope investigated here must remain open.

Die Religion ist nicht ein Sichhinausphantasiren aus dieser Welt in eine jenseitige Welt und aus dieser Zeit in ein nachheriges Leben, sondern sie ist die tatsächliche geistige Wechselbeziehung mit dem ewigen Himmel Gottes in jedem Moment und an jedem Ort unseres kreatürlichen Daseins. Ist Dieß nicht ihr realer Kern, so ist sie ein kernloses Träumen.

Alles wirklich religiöse Interesse konzentrirt sich darauf, wie der Mensch während seines zeitlichen Lebens zur wirklichen Aneignung des Ewigen zum persönlichen Lebensbesitz gelange und was er daran für sein zeitliches Leben habe ..., daß wir damit gar nichts Anderes beschreiben wollen, als ... den Prozeß der Erhebung des Menschen aus dem natürlich fleischlichen zum wahrhaft geistigen Leben ...

Resurrection is the entry into a new moral order that is constituted as a terrestrial reality by the creative act of God, and therefore it is something that happens to individual human beings.

The two Old Testament quotations of Mark 1:2-3 serve as the governing principle of Mark's Gospel. Although they stand in contradiction to each other, the resolution that follows constructs a paradoxical relationship between Jesus as "the Son of the Human Being—Son of God" and Jesus as a type of Elijah, like John the Baptizer, who constructs the way for his disciples into death and resurrection. The youth in the tomb, who appears in the Gospel's ending that is not the ending, continues this paradoxical principle of participating in the reordering of power and yet constructing the way into a reordering of power for the addressees of Mark's Gospel.

At the beginning of his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the Gospel—for two reasons. On the one hand, it is "the power of God" that is directed towards salvation, and, on the other hand, it discloses the reality of God's justice.

Paul continues to be identified with "justification by faith," but in actuality "justification by faith" as Romans 4 indicates, is a relationship with God that goes all the way back to Abraham and Sarah and simply serves as the point of departure for Paul's presentation of the Gospel in Romans 5. Far more significant is his interpretation of Jesus' death and resurrection which discloses a new road into the fulfillment of the justice that God wills for humankind. The movement from Abraham's faith into the salvation of Jesus Christ that generates justice is expressed in the double prepositional phrase of Romans 1:17, "Out of the trust [of Abraham] into the trust [of Jesus Christ]."