Hope or Faith - Chicken or Egg Type Dilemma

[pogi]

Here is the scripture in Moroni 7:

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40 And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.

 

Any thoughts on how to resolve this apparent dilemma and seeming contradiction?

Edited January 14, 2019 by pogi

[Bernard Gui]

I had the same thoughts as you when I read this recently.

Moroni even elaborates in chapter 10. 

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20 Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.
21 And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope.
22 And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity.
23 And Christ truly said unto our fathers: If ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me.

 I wonder if this has something to do with the idea expressed by Stephen Robinson when he said there is a difference between believing in Christ and believing Christ. Perhaps the former is faith and the latter is hope. In order to be efficacious, both must come together.

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Brothers and sisters, to have faith in Jesus Christ is not merely to believe that he is who he says he is, to believe in Christ. Sometimes, to have faith in Christ is also to believe Christ. Both as a bishop and as a teacher in the Church, I have learned there are many that believe Jesus is the Son of God and that he is the Savior of the World, but that he cannot save them. They believe in his identity, but not in his power to cleanse and to purify and to save. To have faith in his identity is only half the process. To have faith in his ability, in his power to cleanse and to save, that is the other half. We must not only believe in Christ, we must believe Christ when he says, “I can cleanse you and make you celestial.” https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/stephen-e-robinson_believing-christ-practical-approach-atonement/

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[CV75]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

Here is the scripture in Moroni 7:

Any thoughts on how to resolve this apparent dilemma and seeming contradiction?

I take faith, hope and charity to be different forms of the same thing, just like faith and knowledge are (Alma 32), each contributing to the attainment and advancement of the other (I think Moroni treats them similarly as he expounds upon them in connection with other principles in chapters 7-10).

[Tacenda]

I think if you hope, you then have faith.

[Robert F. Smith]

[Hamba Tuhan]

Tacenda is right. As a religious concept, hope is the expectation of a future event based on prior experience. Faith is trust and loyalty. They feed into each other. 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Hamba Tuhan

[pogi]

20 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Tacenda is right. As a religious concept, hooe is the expectation of a future event based on prior experience. Faith is trust and loyalty. They feed into each other. 

All good points, thanks for all the comments from everybody.

I agree that they feed into each other - like the ouroboros symbol (thanks Robert).  But rather than being a cyclic feeding, I see it as a more progressive building upon each other unto higher levels of hope and faith.  The symbol that I would use to describe it is a double helix where each strand is dependent upon the other and is progressive upward instead of cyclic. 

I just thought of this scripture in Alma 32:

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therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true

In other words, having hope in true things is faith, which faith instills more hope...

For example, a hope in the atonement of Christ is the birth of faith, this faith in the atonement instills a hope in the resurrection, which hope strengthens our faith, which brings more hope.   The key to moving up the double helix is action upon that faith and hope - otherwise it is just wishful thinking. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 minute ago, pogi said:

The key to moving up the double helix is action upon that faith and hope - otherwise it is just wishful thinking. 

I actually hate how the word hope has picked up this connotation of 'wishful thinking' in English. It's an informed expectation. In some languages it's even cognate with 'to await'. Because of prior experiences with God, we can hope for certain things without being certain that such will be His will. In English, we are inclined to call this faith, but faith, more properly, is our trust in and loyalty to Christ.

[Robert F. Smith]

The national anthem of Israel is HaTikvah "The Hope," which has been translated into English as

O while within a Jewish heart,
Yearns true a Jewish soul,
And Jewish glances turning East,
To Zion fondly dart;

O then our Hope—it is not dead,
Our ancient Hope and true,
To be a nation free forevermore
Zion and Jerusalem at our core.

Here is Barbra Streisand singing it in Hebrew -- 

 

[Tacenda]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The national anthem of Israel is HaTikvah "The Hope," which has been translated into English as

O while within a Jewish heart,
Yearns true a Jewish soul,
And Jewish glances turning East,
To Zion fondly dart;

O then our Hope—it is not dead,
Our ancient Hope and true,
To be a nation free forevermore
Zion and Jerusalem at our core.

Here is Barbra Streisand singing it in Hebrew -- 

 

Love Barbra, ever since a little girl and watched her in "Funny Girl". 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Love Barbra, ever since a little girl and watched her in "Funny Girl". 

Yep.  I consider that her greatest role.