Omnia Cooperantur in Bonum: On Faith, Hope, and Trust
In our English language nowadays, some words seem to be very similar. However, due to either idiomatic interchangeability or linguistic laziness, we have lost a sense of the rich meaning contained within many individual terms. Three seemingly identical ideas that I came to reflect on recently, while reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, are faith, hope, and trust. While they may sound synonymous on the surface, I believe that, while all closely related, they each reveal particular, important aspects of our human nature and destiny.
Faith, hope, and trust are all positive concepts that carry a sense of looking forward and outward. We say things like “I have faith that God will work it out,” or “We hope that it goes well,” or “You have to trust the process.” With these phrases, we indicate an awareness that there are many situations beyond our control. However, they propose a positive perspective, rather than a vexed viewpoint, in regards to the unautonomous realities of life. They posit that we are not independent, but that there are future goods to anticipate and that it is by living well and relying on others that we can attain true fulfillment.
Faith carries with it the understanding that we are fallible and dependent. Originating from the Latin fides, meaning “trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence, or belief,” it can also describe “confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof.” We can already see the overlap between “faith” and “trust.” In his book, Lewis notes that it is “the art of holding onto things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.” He comments that there will inevitably be times in our lives when our beliefs, whether religious (e.g. our belief in God or the teachings of the Church) or secular (e.g. our belief that a relationship or an institution is good and reliable) will be tested. It is at these times that faith is important because it reminds us that we must have something beyond our rational foundations in order to carry on. In these moments, we must say: “This situation makes me question what I know to be true. Nonetheless, I have faith that it still is true.” In this way, Lewis reveals how reason and faith go hand in hand. Our minds can draw deep, philosophical, even religious, conclusions. However, faith comes in where human reason ends and when our intellect and will falter in the face of trials and temptations.
Hope is that which can sustain our faith in those times. “To look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence” is the definition of hope. It’s etymology is from the Old English hopian: “to have trust, have confidence; assume confidently or trust (that something is or will be so).” Again the similarity between “hope” and “trust” too is evident. However, Lewis goes further, indicting that it points to the belief that we are meant for something more than this life and that this promise is attainable. He has this great quote that goes:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
These desires not only indicate to us that the earth is not our ultimate end; they also give us reason to believe that if we are meant for something greater, then we have a decent chance at attaining that ultimate goal. Hope is that which can sustain us on the journey. However, it is not always that easy to maintain perfectly. That is where trust also comes in.
Trust it the turning away from relying on oneself to looking to others for help. It can be described as: “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing.” Its Old Norse origin — traust — indicates: “help, confidence, protection, or support.” A related, older Proto-Germanic abstract noun — traustam — signifies “comfort, or consolation.” In daily life, we have to trust many people — family members, friends, coworkers, and even strangers — for our families, social networks, businesses, and society at large to function. Without mutual good will, things quickly start to fall apart. Likewise, in a supernatural sense, trust reveals the importance of our need for dependence on God for us to function properly as human beings. The word’s early etymology also emphasizes that doing so can lead to peace and fulfillment. Again, Lewis is impactful when he says:
“Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, ‘You must do this. I can’t.’”
We may do all that we can to be good members of society and good Christians. However, there comes a point when we have to rely on others and on God for things to work out. As the saying goes: “Do your best and give God the rest.”
Nonetheless, faith, hope, and trust can just as easily be exchanged for their opposites: pride, despair, and doubt. When we are self-reliant, hopeless, and distrusting, we focus more and more inwardly. We are led to believe that we are completely autonomous, that we are not made for more than this life, and that we do not need others’ help to get along. It is true that after repeated difficulties, it becomes easier and easier to fall into these beliefs. It seems that misfortunes come one after another, at times. However, I would suggest that it may instead be that once one domino starts to fall, we develop a frequency bias toward more quickly seeing all the dominos falling in our lives or we come to view even minor inconveniences as large, crushing monoliths (as noted in “Overcoming Your Negativity Bias”). These struggles can lead us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, become despondent that future good will come, and furrow our brown and lower our gaze, as we forge headlong into the billowing gale force winds of our life storms.
Pride is that which leads us to turn completely inward toward ourselves in these situations. It can be defined as, “a high or inordinate opinion of oneself.” Coming from the Old English pryto, it also signifies, “unreasonable self-esteem.” Lewis describes it as a “spiritual cancer: . . . [eating] up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense” and notes that “as long as you are proud you cannot know God.” Some describe pride as the root of all sins. Surely, it was the first sin, the non serviam of Satan and the original sin of Adam and Eve. In both instances the subjects struggled with submitting themselves to the will of God. This difficulty is still omnipresent in our day and age.
When we do our best on our own, yet things still go awry, or when bad things happen for no apparent reason, we can easily fall into despair. The dictionary is not very helpful as it describes despair simply as the “loss of hope.” The Latin roots de + sperare also signify “without hope.” This lack of belief in a reasonable redemption is arguably what led Judas to end his own life, after he betrayed Jesus. There are so many in our society today too struggling with a loss of meaningful direction, which unfortunately leads to addictions, twisted relationships, and even self-injury.
This pride and despair both lead to and arise from a sense of doubt. We distrust our need for healthy dependency on others and we disparage that any good will come in the future. Doubt can describe both a lack of trust and a feeling of uncertainty. It can be traced to the Old French dote, meaning “fear or dread.” At the heart of doubt is also an apprehension about things not working out if one were to have faith, hope, and trust.
But, how can we get along in this world without these three virtues? It would be great if there were empiric answers to all of the questions that life poses to us. However, I believe that Lewis would reply to this existential qualm with another question: “To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?” He would say that it is precisely faith, hope, and trust, which extend beyond our own reason, that allow us to take the next steps toward where we are meant to go and who we are meant to be.
Thankfully, there are some helpful tools to help us practice these virtues. In his book The Gospel of Happiness, Christopher Kaczor goes into how habits of gratitude, forgiveness, prayer, service, and living out the other virtues can help us to change our mindset and to build positive beliefs (as I detail in “Crossing the Liminal Space”). Lewis agrees that both our mindset and our norms are important, when he states:
“The first step is to recognise the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day.”
Reminding ourselves of our beliefs is important to help us hold onto them when our emotions and imagination try to overcome our faith, hope, and trust. These, and many other, practices can help us to regain a more surer footing in our upward life journey.
In the end, all of our ups and downs in life, our unanswered questions and unsolicited crosses, and our wandering paths which overlap with one another ought to be summed up in one phrase: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). It can be extremely difficult to believe this in the midst of life’s repeated trials and temptations. But, it is these times that show the genuineness of and strengthen our virtues. Ultimately, with faith, hope, and trust, in God and one another, we can come to realize that truly omnia cooperantur in bonum.
