hope – LDS Thought

In an earlier post (Faith and Charity) I worked out a model for attaining faith which is: belief, hope, faith. First we believe, or desire to believe, or have a particle of faith. We then act on our belief. Then, after investing ourselves in that belief we hope our efforts and beliefs will be rewarded. When the Holy Ghost affirms our hopes and beliefs we attain faith.

Faith is the assurance that comes from a witness of the Holy Ghost. Once we have attained faith, its assurance strengthens our hope and reinforces our belief. Thus, we cannot attain unto faith without hope, but without faith our beliefs and hope will not endure and grow.

I realized I didn’t go into much detail about hope. So this post brings a little more precision to the ideas I sketched out in my Faith and Charity post. Continue reading “Hope: “An anchor of the soul.””

What are the relationships between faith, hope, and charity? If the scriptures say “without faith there cannot be any hope” (Moroni 7:42) and also say “how is it that you can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?” (Moroni 7:40). There seems to be a problem. No faith without hope. No hope without faith. So how does this work?

What is faith?

We have definitions of faith such as, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1) and, “Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen” (Ether 12:6), and “Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). The Bible Dictionary says, “To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone” (“Faith,” Bible Dictionary). We know that it was by faith that “Noah…prepared an ark” (Heb. 11:7), “Abraham…obeyed; and he went out…[and] sojourned in the land of promise” (Heb. 11:8-9). By faith “Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau” (Heb. 11:20), and “Moses…refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter…[and] forsook Egypt (Heb. 11:24-27). Their faith was a motivating force. Because of their firm conviction that God would honor his promises Noah prepared, Abraham obeyed, Isaac blessed, and Moses forsook. Continue reading “Faith hope and charity”