# Hope Scriptural hope is not passive wishing—it’s a confident expectation that demands meaningful labor, binding faith, charity, and creation. [Image: Jonah’s warning to Nineveh functions as conditional moral persuasion—when the people changed their conduct, the predicted destruction was averted.] In colloquial English, to say "I hope so" is often tantamount to expressing a polite doubt. It is a fragile sentiment, a wish cast into the dark. Within the scriptural lexicon, however, hope operates on an entirely different register. It is not a feeling about the future, nor is it a passive wish. Hope is a confident expectation, forged under conditions of uncertainty, that obligates meaningful labor in the present. If wishing is passive and demands nothing of us, scriptural hope represents a profound commitment that binds the one who holds it to the work of creation. ## **The Scriptural Grammar of Hope** [Image: Ether 12:4 links hope, anchored through faith, to being “always abounding in good works.”] The assertion that hope requires labor is not an external philosophy grafted onto the gospel; it is the explicit grammar of the canon. Consider the causal sequence outlined by Moroni in his recitation of his father’s teachings, and in his summary of Ether. In Ether 12:4, we learn that hope is born of faith, that it becomes an "anchor to the souls of men," and that the necessary result of this anchoring is that individuals are "always abounding in good works." The verse moves methodically from its epistemic foundation, to a state of psychological stability, and finally to practical output. Moroni 7 further specifies the content of this expectation: it is the hope of being raised unto life eternal through the atonement of Christ and the power of His resurrection. In this discourse, hope is bound inextricably in a triad with faith and charity, establishing that none of the three can stand in isolation. Furthermore, Moroni clarifies the nature of its opposite. Despair is not merely a clinical mood or an understandable reaction to grief; rather, "despair cometh because of iniquity" (Moroni 10:22). It is a moral condition. ## **The Tension of Surety** A careful reader will recognize a tension in the canonical descriptions of hope. Ether speaks of those who "with surety hope for a better world," whereas the Apostle Paul reminds the Romans that "hope that is seen is not hope" (Romans 8:24). If hope requires an unseen, uncertain future, how can it be held with surety? The resolution lies in where we place our certainty. The surety of the disciple attaches to the foundational ground and the anchor—the reality of Christ and His promises—not to a rigidly fixed prediction of exact historical outcomes. The hoper remains steadfast, but the future remains open. This understanding inoculates our theology against two distinct errors: collapsing hope into dogmatic certainty (which requires no faith), and reducing hope to a mere probability estimate (which is simply forecasting). Genuine hope thrives precisely where current evidence underdetermines the outcome, and where our own righteous conduct is part of what settles the final reality. ## **Practical Power and Moral Constraint** How does hope exert practical power? It does so by recognizing that certain vital realities are not merely discovered; they are actively created. The realization of an unprecedented future depends heavily on an initial trust in its possibility, because human beings dedicate their labor only toward that which they believe can actually be achieved. The reachable future of our civilization, therefore, depends upon the willingness of some to pursue what others have assumed to be impossible. True hope actively seeks out mechanisms for realization, whereas superstition passively waits for outcomes. This practical power carries a strict moral constraint. If the meaning of moral life depends upon the continuation of morally capable beings, then trusting in anything that correlates with the extinction of such beings undermines the significance of trust itself. A confident hope aimed at human annihilation is self-defeating. (This concept is foundational to the Faith Assumption of the *New God Argument*: the practical and moral trust that humanity will not go extinct before evolving into a more exalted state of being.) ## **Prophecy and Misdirected Expectation** If hope possesses the power to help fulfill its own object, we must acknowledge that despair—and misdirected hopes—carry the same self-fulfilling risk. Pessimistic assumptions about the future can easily generate the very conditions they fear. More pointedly, religious fervor focused too heavily on apocalyptic destruction may inadvertently contribute to bringing that destruction about. The scriptural narrative of Jonah and Nineveh provides our clearest illustration of this principle. Jonah delivered a prophecy of destruction, which Nineveh successfully averted by altering its conduct. The text reveals prophecy functioning here as conditional moral persuasion (forthtelling) rather than immutable prediction (foretelling). Hope and prophetic warning are, in this sense, the same instrument pointed in different directions. (See *Prophecy* and *Hyperstition*). ## **Counterfeits: Escapism and Nihilism** To understand practical hope, we must distinguish it from its counterfeits. Escapism desires the same redeemed future that hope does, but it outright refuses the required labor. A practical, living hope is characterized by a commitment to utilize every available tool and capability to achieve its righteous ends. Escapism names the destination and then declines the means. Similarly, hope must avoid the twin nihilisms of temporal evasion. A hope that despises the present world as a mere waiting room fails just as completely as a secular presentism that treats the distant future as none of our business. Both evade the embodied work placed directly in front of us. It is vital to add that recognizing the moral mandate of hope does not require a denial of human suffering. Profound grief and enduring hope coexist in the pastoral reality of our lives. A "hope" that cannot sit in mourning with a bereaved person is a profound departure from the charity described in the canon. ## **Technology as an Instrument of Hope** For the Latter-day Saint, the prophetic assurance of a universal resurrection does not imply that resurrection will occur without profound labor. We already apply this participatory logic elsewhere in our theology: the promise that every soul will hear the gospel has never been interpreted to mean that missionary work is superfluous. Temple work, likewise, is hope extended backward in time, performed as strenuous labor on behalf of those who cannot act for themselves. We should apply this same reasoning to the pursuit of healing, extended life, and the augmentation of human capacity. We should not expect God to unilaterally accomplish for us what we can learn to undertake ourselves. As capabilities mature, realities that once served strictly as spiritual consolation present themselves as engineering assignments. Over generations, the profound question shifts from asking if a limitation can be overcome, to asking who is doing the overcoming, for whom, and under what conditions. We must, of course, recognize that technological capability is fundamentally an amplification of power. It enlarges our capacity for both profound virtue and devastating vice, and therefore cannot inherently save or condemn us on its own. ## **Credible Hope and the Distribution Problem** Because hope relies on a social epistemology, it must be credible. It is difficult for an individual to maintain hope in a promise they have never seen honored in their own proximity. When considering the fruits of science and technology, we must distinguish between temporary barriers to access—such as initial cost and scarcity, which historically diminish as tools mature and spread—and durable mechanisms of exclusion, such as legal prohibitions or artificial monopolies designed to concentrate power. If hope truly obligates work, it simultaneously obligates us to dismantle durable exclusions and foster the societal conditions that make hope credible to all. Withholding the means of flourishing is not merely a disparity of goods; it is an inequality of moral horizon. ## **The Triad and the Demand** We return, ultimately, to the canonical triad found in Moroni. Spiritual power is supplied by faith. The driving purpose is supplied by hope. The foundational reason any of this matters is supplied by charity. Our active, participatory labor in the work of Atonement is the crucible in which all three are exercised together. We are left, then, not with an idle comfort, but with a pressing moral demand: What are we building today that would serve as evidence of the hope we profess? *See also*: [Endure](/topical-guide/endure), [Faith](/topical-guide/faith), [Happiness](/topical-guide/happiness), [Joy](/topical-guide/joy), [Patience](/topical-guide/patience), [Peace](/topical-guide/peace)