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INTERLUDE ... from A METAPHYSIC OF HOPE

Patriots who Resist the Treason of Despair ...
Personal Exchange as Mark of All Spiritual Life

[H]ope appears to be bound up with the use of a method of surmounting, by which thought rises above the imaginings and formulations upon which it had at first been tempted to depend. But, in [the case of the invalid], it depends no doubt on more than a question of dates. The very idea of recovery is capable, at any rate in a certain spiritual register, of being purified and transformed. "Everything is lost for me if I do not get well", the invalid is at first tempted to exclaim, naively identifying recovery with salvation. From the moment when he will have not only recognised in an abstract manner, but understood in the depths of his being, that is to say seen, that everything is not necessarily lost if there is no cure, it is more than likely that his inner attitude towards recovery or non-recovery will be radically changed; he will have regained the liberty, the faculty of relaxing to which we referred at length further back.

It really seems to be from this point of view that the distinction between believer and unbeliever stands out in its true meaning.

The believer is he who will meet with no insurmountable obstacle on his way towards transcendence. Let us say again, to fix the meaning of the word obstacle more precisely, that in so far as I make my hope conditional I myself put up limits to the process by which I could triumph over all successive disappointments.

Still more, I give a part of myself over to anguish; indeed I own implicitly that if my expectations are not fulfilled in some particular point, I shall have no possibility of escaping from the despair into which I must inevitably sink.

We can, on the other hand, conceive, at least theoretically, of the inner disposition of one who, setting no condition or limit and abandoning himself in absolute confidence, would thus transcend all possible disappointment and would experience a security of his being, or in his being, which is contrary to the radical insecurity of Having.

This is what determines the ontological position of hope—absolute hope, inseparable from a faith which is likewise absolute, transcending all laying down of conditions, and for this very reason every kind of representation whatever it might be.

The only possible source from which this absolute hope springs must once more be stressed. It appears as a response of the creature to the infinite Being to whom it is conscious of owing everything that it has and upon whom it cannot impose any condition whatsoever without scandal.

From the moment that I abase myself in some sense before the absolute Thou who in his infinite condescension has brought me forth out of nothingness, it seems as though I forbid myself ever again to despair, or, more exactly, that I implicitly accept the possibility of despair as an indication of treason, so that I could not give way to it without pronouncing my own condemnation.

Indeed, seen in this perspective, what is the meaning of despair if not a declaration that God has withdrawn himself from me?

In addition to the fact that such an accusation is incompatible with the nature of the absolute Thou, it is to be observed that in advancing it I am unwarrantably attributing to myself a distinct reality which I do not possess.

It would however be vain to try to hide the difficulties, from the human point of view, of this position of which no one would dream of contesting the metaphysical and religious purity. Does not this invincible hope arise from the ruins of all human and limited hopes? Must not the true believer be ready to accept the death and ruin of his dear ones, the temporal destruction of his country, as possibilities against which it is forbidden to rebel?

To go further: if these things come about, must he not be ready to adore the divine will in them? We cannot be enough on our guard against the softening processes to which some people have recourse in order to reassure those whose faith might fail in the presence of such terrible happenings.

I have in mind particularly the allegations of those who claim to calm us by observing that God, being infinitely good, cannot tempt us beyond our strength by driving us to despair which he has actually forbidden us. I am afraid that these are no more than verbal tricks; we know neither the real extent of our powers nor the ultimate designs of God; and, if the arguments were really possible to accept, it would in the long run amount to an implicit and as it were hypocritical way of laying down conditions which would bring hope once more within the limits of the relative.

But then must it not be agreed that the absolute hope to which we are invited tends to become identified with despair itself-with a despair however which it is no longer even pemitted for us to inulge in, and which is perhaps no more than an infinite apathy?

On the other hand, it is to be wondered whether, in claiming to establish himself beyond the reach of any possible disappointment in a zone of utter metaphysical security, man does not become guilty of what might well be called treason from above. Does he not tend to violate in this way the fundamental conditions under which he is introduced into the world?

To tell the truth, in falling back upon the idea of what I have called absolute hope, it seems that I elude my problems far more than I solve them and that I am juggling with the given facts. But are we not then losing our way again in the inextricable?

Here I take the example once more of the patriot who refuses to despair of the liberation of his native land which is provisionally conquered. In what, or in whom, does he place his hope? Does he not conditionalise his hope in the way which just now we decided was unwarrantable?

Even if he recognises that there is no chance that he will himself witness the hoped-for liberation, he carries beyond his own existence the fulfilment of his desires, he refuses with all his being to admit that the darkness which, has fallen upon his country can be enduring, he affirms that it is only an eclipse. Still more: it is not enough to say that he cannot believe in the death of his country, the truth is much more that he does not even consider he has the right to believe in it, and that it would seem to him that he was committing a real act of treason in admitting this possibility; and this is true whether he is a believer or not.

In every case he has made a judgment, which lies outside all his power of reflection, that to despair would be disloyal, it would be to go over to the enemy. This judgment. rests on a postulate which is actually very likely to remain implicit but which we must examine. It consists in the affirmation that in hoping for liberation I really help to prepare the way for it, and that, inversely, in raising a doubt about its possibility I reduce the chance of it to some degree.

It is not that strictly speaking I impute a causal efficacy to the fact of hoping or not hoping. The truth is much rather that I am conscious that when I hope I strengthen, and when I despair, or simply doubt, I weaken or let go of, a certain bond which unites me to the matter in question. This bond shows every evidence of being religious in essence.

Here we come up, however, against a difficulty. Where the matter in question is strictly speaking my own fate, can we speak of a bond or indeed of religion?

It is probably necessary here to introduce a distinction which we have previously had occasion to bring out. When I tremble for my own existence, it may be that I am giving way to the simple instinct of self-preservation: it is very doubtful if one can legitimately designate by the word "hope" the kind of organic attachment to myself which makes me imagine final liberation in the midst of danger, even where the future seems most threatening.

It is different when piety towards oneself intervenes.

By this I mean a reference to a certain spiritual interconnection at the heart of which my existence can preserve its meaning and its value. We are not dealing here ,with an abstraction, an impersonal order: if I inspire another being with love which I value and to which I respond, that will be enough to create this spiritual interconnection. The fact of the reciprocal love, the communion, will be enough to bring about a deep transformation in the nature of the bond which unites me to myself.

Where the matter concerns me alone, or more exactly when I consider myself as though I were the only one concerned, the question of knowing what is going to happen to me may strike me as practically without interest or importance. This, however, will not prevent the instinct of self-preservation from remaining active in me with all that it entails.

It is obviously not the same if I know that he whom I love is in some way dependent on me, and that what happens to me will affect him vitally.

We might say in the manner of Hegel that my relationship to myself is mediated by the presence of the other person, by what he is for me and what I am for him. But it is of capital importance for our subject that we see at the same time that this spiritual interconnection of which I have only examined the simplest example here, invariably appears as veiled in mystery to him who is conscious of having a part in it.

Here again, let us be as concrete as possible.

To love anybody is to expect something from him, something which can neither be defined nor foreseen; it is at the same time in some way to make it possible for him to fulfil this expectation. Yes, paradoxical as it may seem, to expect is in some way to give: but the opposite is none the less true; no longer to expect is to strike with sterility the being from whom no more is expected, it is then in some way to deprvie him or take from him in advance what is surely a certain possibility of inventing or creating.

Everything looks as though we can only speak of hope where the interaction exists between him who gives and him who receives, where there is that exchange which is the mark of all spiritual life.