Christian Hope in the Postmodern World. On the Essence and Decline of Hope, and on the Prospects for Its Restoration, as seen from the Perspective of the Philosophy of Culture

Abstract

The focus of the article is Christian hope, its decline in postmodern culture, and the prospects for its restoration. The analysis in question is conducted with reference to Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi. The object of Christian hope is the deposit of faith, including the ‘four last things.’ Therefore hope in this sense involves a recognition of the objective nature of both the temporal and the eschatological realities. The subject of hope is the human being conceived as a homo viator pursuing the Transcendence, while the remaining elements of the structure of hope include the focus of the subject’s will and the subject’s participation in the community. Deconstruction of hope may either affect its single element or destroy all of them. The article discusses various manifestations of the phenomenon of the deconstruction of hope in postmodern culture. The concluding part of the paper focuses on the issue of the possible restoration of hope, which can be accomplished if advise from St. Augustine be followed: in order to believe in God, one needs to believe God, which is tantamount to working for the sake of the common good and respecting the dignity of a human being as person as well the value of human life.