The theological virtue of hope is often distinguished from optimism. This is an important distinction. Hope encompasses more than wishful thinking. It must be solidly rooted in reality. Hope remains steadfast even when things are not going well. Hope drives us to action, even in the darkest times. Hope does not dwell in the moment, but clings to God’s promise of a better future. Hope is rooted in a blessed future promised by God, secured by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection, and sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Hope allows us to remember that no good deed is done in vain – our efforts will bear eternal fruit. Theologian Jurgen Moltmann has said it well, “Genuine hope is not blind optimism. It is hope with open eyes, which sees the suffering and yet believes in the future.”[1]

Having distinguished biblical hope from mere optimism, it is vital that we never completely sever the two. Authentic Spirit-given hope does produce an optimistic outlook. This is important to remember in a day when the Christian right delights in the devastating apocalyptic outlook reflected in the popular Left Behind series and the secular left spouts its own liberal version of planetary destruction by global warming. Optimism is certainly in short supply when both the right and the left agree that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket!

Helen Keller on Hope

For this reason, Helen Keller’s essay on optimism in her second book, The World I Live In, originally published in 1908, is particularly relevant in our time. One would assume that a woman who lacked the faculties of sight and sound would be prone to cynicism. Certainly, no one can accuse her of failing to have a realistic perspective on life. Her daily struggles forbid us from writing off her reflections as naïve and idealistic. Instead, what she offers has the ring of authenticity, coming from a person who knows the reality of suffering, alienation, and evil.

And yet, one finds her reflections to be full of hope – the kind of hope that overflows with optimism. Her optimism is rooted in her remembrance of the dark days before Anne Sullivan reconnected her to the world through language:

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy… My life was without past or future… But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living… Can any one who has escaped such captivity, who has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist? (128)

Helen clearly understands the distinction between blind optimism and authentic hope-laden optimism. She writes, “It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference” (129). In words that ring with contemporary significance, she adds, “I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, ‘Hurrah, we’re all right! This is the greatest nation on earth,’ when there are grievances that call loudly for redress. This is false optimism. Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand” (129-130).

Helen knows the reality of evil and what is involved in fighting against it. This gives her optimism a strength that transcends wishful thinking: “My optimism… does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail” (130). Because her optimism is rooted in the ultimate triumph of good over evil – a knowledge known only by her possession of God’s promise – she refuses to lose hope even in the presence of evil and the absence of good: “I am never discouraged by absence of good. I never can be argued into hopelessness. Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend” (131).

Saved by Hope

The Scriptures clearly teach that we are saved by faith and hope: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24-25). Faith and hope are manifested in deeds of love – deeds accomplished on the basis of God’s promised future and not solely due to their impact (or lack thereof) in the present. Helen communicates the spirit of this when she writes, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievements; nothing can be done without hope” (156).

In the end, because of God’s promise of the complete restoration and renewal of all things in Christ, no works of love performed by faith and in hope will prove vain (see 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 and Hebrews 6:10). When we remember this – when we remember the future – then we are equipped to act in the present with full confidence that all things will work together for good. In the words of Julian of Norwich, “All will be well. Yes, all will be well!”

Our deeds are good and contribute to God’s inbreaking kingdom in and through hope. For this reason, Helen ends her essay, “Optimism is the harmony between man’s spirit and the spirit of God pronouncing His works good” (160).

Certainly, we must resist naïve optimism. But we must not do this by embracing pessimism, cynicism, or apathy. We resist it by clinging to a hope that unites with faith and love to optimistically impact our world in the present. Of all people, Christians have every reason to be optimists, even when facing the deepest darkness and most challenging struggles. Our labor is not in vain in the Lord. It will contribute to (and lead to) a bright tomorrow.

Quotes excerpted from The World I Live In by Helen Keller published in 1908
Review © Richard J. Vincent, 2006