is it a case of where the security provided by faith cannot be successfully pursued as the goal of faith, but neither can the convictions or contents of faith be the object as well. This is why, in my second diagram, the “conviction” or “ultimate meaning” (upper left-hand corner of the triangle) really points (using a double arrow) beyond the triangle toward God. Our convictions or beliefs that form the intellectual contents of our faith, our “creeds” as we term them, are, in the end, “symbols”— they are attempts, in human language, to describe a reality that far exceeds our limited grasp. The closer we come to God in love the more inadequate these words become. The easily recited but often puzzling formulas of faith veil an ever deeper mystery. We
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must never imagine that we have “defined” (which is “to set limits to”) God.
So too, the same warning must be said about hope; it simply can’t be produced by joining some ecclesiastical equivalent of the “Optimists’ Club.” The theological virtue of hope is, in some aspects, simply that part of faith that we call “confidence” and, as such, is that part of faith which least of all can be produced by us upon command. It can only come to us through that faith which is born from love. Any attempt to manufacture this hope through purely human means is bound to fail. Frankl (following St. Paul) may have spoken of the “triad” of “faith, hope and love” in that order-with love alone remaining when all is said and done-but the fact is that in terms of our ability or empowerment to have faith and hope, we must begin with love.
So, in a way, it all begins and ends in love. But it is here that the major problem with faith (and hope and love) begins — in our love of whom or what?
Self-love may be the psychological pre-condition (if not the theological limit) of our love for others; at the very least we must “love our neighbor as ourselves.” For how can we love unless we first feel loved? Yet no such stipulation is set for our love of God. Instead, we are told that we must love God “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and that is “the first and the greatest of the commandments” (see Mt 22:37, also Dt 6:5 and Lev 19:18). So, theologically speaking, all love (even love for neighbor) ultimately must be included in and transformed by the love of God. As St. Augustine, who certainly knew his share of human loves, once said: “Our hearts were made for you, Lord, and they will not rest until they rest in you.” This is certainly true of any self-love, however necessary that self love be.
Thus Frankl’s warning against the attempt to command faith, hope and love is warning against what is an expression of a “manipulative approach” in which the activities would
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become an end in themselves, and, in so doing, lose sight of their main objective. Faith, hope, and love are “ `intentional’ acts or activities” — that is to say that they in-tend or “tend to” their own proper objective, which is God (see Frankl, The Unconscious God, p. 14).
Yet why would a person attempt to manipulate or conjure up faith or hope or love in such a manner? Obviously because he or she hopes to get something out of it. So what we see is a subtle-or sometimes not so subtle-enthronement of our own personal needs as the real motivation for our believing, our hoping or our loving. Instead of being “theological virtues” in the full sense of being theo-centric or “God-centered,” what we would have would be really an ego-centric striving posing as the quest for God. The so-called “theological virtues” are such not merely because they are a grace or gift of God, or because their only proper object or goal is God, but also because when truly possessed by a human being, the principal motivation is “for” or “for the sake of” God.
Thus faith cannot be simply a “belief in faith” as something good for us; rather it has to be a belief in God as the ultimate good that transcends us. In the same way hope cannot be authentic unless it is something more than just a hope “for hope’s sake”— that is to say, for our own security’s sake. Only love can be for love’s sake, and this is only because ultimately (according to the apostle John) “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8 and 16).
Is such love or such faith possible? Perhaps not all at once. Here we might turn back to our comparison with married love. Both our commitment to God as well as our commitment to another person must be a growing relationship. One reason for this is that our perception of the “other,” to some extent, will inevitably change. And along with this changing perception, the relationship itself will change.
Very often, in our youth, the other person is perceived as a reflection of ourselves or, more exactly, as the ideal
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counterpart of what we aspire to be. This is natural, and not without profound implications. But we must be careful, for that “other” is also a person in his or her own right. To try to force that person to conform to our own expectations is a violation of that person’s integrity or “otherness.” The maturity of the relationship must not only involve a growing unity, but a growing individualization as well. It has been said that “true unity differentiates.” Although a certain similarity is a foundation for unity, its perfection is to be found in complementarity, not in uniformity or sameness.
The same goes for our relationship with God. Just as with married love, which usually begins in the attraction of “eros” and blossoms into the love of friendship — unless the erotic element is unrestrained — so too love of God will often begin on a strong note of “what’s in it for me?” But just as a marriage that involves a true mutuality will regularly demand real self-sacrifice, so too the attraction to God that has ripened into a true friendship will also demand that “he must grow greater, I must grow less” (Jn 3:30).
For such love the New Testament has a special word; it is agape, the unconditional, self-sacrificing love that is celebrated in the famous thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Such love, it is true, transcends merely human capabilities. It is, above all, a gift-which is why agape is often translated as “charity” (from the Greek charis for “gift” or “grace”), But this uniqueness must not stand as an excuse or reason for evasion of our call to respond to it. Instead it is a demand that we move beyond the limits of our own self-concern and self-love. Instead of expecting God to cater to our own wants, faith demands that we set aside all idols and that we “let God be God.”
The life of faith, like the love from which it issues and in which it ends, must be gradually deepened and transformed. Confident trust will more and more be tested by a renewed demand for a loving commitment to the works of faith. As in a marriage, mere words or signs of affection , as nice and as
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reassuring as they may be, are not enough. As Margaret Farley, in her excellent book Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping, Changing, makes clear, commitments are neither mere predictions of the future nor simple resolutions made in behalf of one ‘s self. On the contrary, commitment involves a “giving of one’s word” or a promise that lays a claim on us over our future. Mere good intentions and enthusiasm are not enough. “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father in heaven shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 7:21).
Nor is self-determination enough either. Just as faith and hope require love for their beginning, and that even this love is something that depends on God who has first loved us (1 Jn 4:10), it should be obvious that in the end, when the life of faith has reached its zenith, the measure of our faith will be the purity and sincerity of our love (see 1 Cor 13:1-13). What I have to say in the chapters that follow will attempt to show what this means for us at each stage of life.
Questions
