Sunday 3 August 2014

Presumption, Despair, and Hope

Both presumption and despair are denials of hope or trust.
"Presumption is a premature, self-willed anticipation of fulfilment of what we hope for from God. Despair is the premature, arbitrary anticipation of the non-fulfilment of what we hope for from God. Both forms of hopelessness...cancel the wayfaring character of hope. They rebel against the patience in which hope trusts in the God of the promise."
Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology (London: SCM, 1967), 23. Cited from Anthony C. Thiselton, Life after Death: A New Approach to the Last Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 21-22.