Changing Hopes: The Theological Virtue of Hope in Thomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, and Karl Rahner

Abstract

This article examines some of the key variations in content and genre between three major Catholic accounts of the theological virtue of hope. The successive transpositions of Thomas Aquinas’s scholastic and speculative presentation of this pivotal virtue are traced in John of the Cross’s mystical and poetic account and Karl Rahner’s apologetic essay, each of which takes up and adapts the Thomistic formulation under pressure from the needs of a different context. The examination of these adaptations shows theological creativity at work and captures the development of tradition with reference to a central Christian virtue that is much studied in contemporary theology.