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A Most Excellent Way

An essay on faith, hope, and love, an english translation of une voie infiniment supérieure: essai sur la foi, l’espérance et l’amour by christophe chalamet, christophe chalamet, also available.

What’s So Important about Faith, Hope, and Love?

The Three Divine Sisters

Faith, hope, and love have been referred to as the three divine sisters. We can think of them as three beautiful sisters joined together hand in hand, swirling around as in a dance.

Eventually, faith and hope vanish from the scene and love is left dancing alone forever. This picture may appear odd until we realize that faith and hope were there to help love on her way, until she was mature enough to be alone. For she exists as the greatest of the sisters and deserves the preeminence—just as Christ remains the greatest of the sons of men and deserves the same.

Faith, hope, and love are also referred to as the theological virtues. The Christian life—in terms of our living in response to God and his new work in us—springs from faith, hope, and love. Everything we do as Christians relates to these three virtues and they all have a longing, an expectation, a desire that will one day be fully realized when Christ returns in glory.

To possess only one of these graces would be misery.

But to possess all of these graces is delight .

Mark Jones (PhD, Leiden Universiteit) serves as the pastor of Faith Vancouver Presbyterian Church (PCA) in British Columbia, Canada. He has authored many books, including Living for God and God Is , and speaks all over the world on Christology and the Christian life. Mark and his wife, Barbara, have four children.

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Why "Faith, Hope, and Love" Are So Important and Will Last Forever

• Kyle Blevins
• Updated Mar 03, 2021

In 1 Corinthians, Paul describes various spiritual gifts and ways we can demonstrate Godly living in the world. He touches on the gift of tongues, prophecy with understanding, and faith that could move mountains. Yet somehow, he passes all of these things for just one thing: Love. In 1 Corinthians 13:13 he says,  “Three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is love.” I have found myself skipping over this verse with a thought of “Yep, got that one down.” I have heard it and read it so often that I forget the application and power of it. What is this for? Why are these the things - faith, hope, love - that last forever? The greatest power of our lives is contained in this verse. We just have the task of unfolding the purpose behind it in order to connect to it.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Prince Akachi

The Purpose of Faith

Faith is one of the first things we learn about as Christians. It often starts with the quote from Jesus in Luke 17:6 where He says, “ If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed , you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,’ and it would obey you !” Hebrews 11:1 gives this clear definition of faith: “ Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see .”

I remember about a year after getting tattooed experiencing deep regret, almost mourning a part of myself being lost. I was barely 18 years old and working through some missed opportunities of my own personal development. In the shower I would see these tattoos and “wipe” them away along with a faithful prayer . I genuinely believed these Scriptures to be that I had the power and authority to believe something “as hard as I could” and it would be done, even if it meant defying the physical realm. I did this patiently for months before I started to lose hope and I began weeping to God. “Why! I truly believe you could take this from me! Why won’t you do it!?” I was hurt. Ten years later, the tattoos are still there, but I gained the most valuable lesson from this experience.

The purpose of faith is not to influence my own comfort. The purpose of faith is to lead us to know the heart of God and then trust His ways to guide us. It is practical exercise reminding us of our place on the vine. We are the branches, and we can do nothing apart from the vine ( John 15:5 ). Hebrews 11:1 is a great definition of faith, but I believe Hebrews 11:6 gives us the life application of it. It states, “ For we come to God in faith knowing that He is real and that He rewards the faith of those who passionately seek Him .” (TPT)

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Marta Mena Gonzalez

The Purpose of Hope

Hope is defined by Google as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” It can also be defined as “a feeling of trust.” So faith is the belief that there is something better to seek, while hope is the expectation, or the certainty, that it is there. Hope is the fuel that keeps faith alive in our quest to find love.

The way that faith, which is the seeking of the Lord, connects with hope, which is the expectation of finding Him, is through wisdom. Proverbs 24:14 says, “ In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut short .” Jesus is our model of constantly seeking wisdom. Often in our spiritual development, we hit a place of complacency where we are good with what we have. It is a great thing to be grateful, but there is more for your life when you continually seek wisdom. At each level we should be graduating, moving, and growing, constantly adding to what we understand. This is what keeps hope alive. As we seek more, we learn more, and we store up confidence in who we are on the vine. In Luke 2:52 we get a subtle, yet powerful, picture of Jesus’ character that reveals the foundation of his influence and confidence. It says, “ Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men .” Jesus is our leader and we should follow his lead by constantly seeking wisdom and relationship with others.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Jessica To Oto O

The Purpose of Love

Paul makes it very clear in 1 Corinthians 13:13 that the greatest of all spiritual gifts is love. Based on this, we know that love is the result that we see of our faith and our hope. Love is the goal. How wonderful is it to understand the goal! When you start a new game, the biggest hurdle is often obtaining an understanding more than physical limitations. If you understand the goal, you can use what you have to get there.

The purpose of love is evident in 1 John 4:7-8 that it is the clearest picture of God that we have. It states, “ Dear friends, let us love one another , for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ” It goes on to say in verse 19 that “ we love because God first loved us .” So the purpose of love is twofold. First, it is revelation of identity. It tells us who God is and who we are in God.

Second, it is the very power that allows us to do the work of Jesus and even greater works as Jesus described in John 14:12 . He says, “ Whoever believes in me will also do the works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father .” Love has the power to help us believe again and restore hope in others. It is the engine that drives our spiritual lives.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Tan Giang

Faith, Hope, and Love: The Perpetual Cycle of Life

If faith , hope, and love are the things that last forever, it becomes clear that these are the things we should pursue with our lives. Some may feel concerned at the thought of knowing what the end goal is, that perhaps there is no point to life if there is nothing left to discover. But there is life in these things that will never run out!

In the beginning, we are born with no other understanding besides faith. As babies, we naturally seek care and to be nurtured. We confidently look for someone to give us the care that we need. As we earn the badges of life, we become scarred by experiences that strip our faith and our hope away, and in turn, we forget our natural instinct to love as we become consumed with finding a new starting point.

Finding faith, hope, and love for ourselves does not mark the end of anything. It can mark the beginning for someone else. If you have ever been in a broken place, you know the power of someone else showing you kindness or believing in you. When you are shown love, you ignite a new belief of what you could be. Then you become hopeful that there is still good in this world. Then you love yourself. Then you share love with others and spark this cycle over and over again. This is our beginning, our new beginnings, and our forever, both for us and our fellow man.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Kyle Loftus

A Prayer for Faith, Hope, and Love

We can start with this prayer from 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 : “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for starting my cycle of life and giving me the wisdom needed to walk with you. I pray that I will continually be interested in wisdom so that my hope cannot be cut off. I pray that as I stay full, I will look for ways to carry out your work to help someone else in need. Amen.

Kyle Blevins  is the sole contributor to the blog,  REDIRECTED, which focuses on rediscovering purpose through love. His life took a turning point after being surrounded by positive people who believed he was capable of a better life than he was leading. His passion is connecting with people who are looking for a more productive new beginning. You can follow his blog at iamredirected.com . 

Photo Credit: Sparrowstock

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A Most Excellent Way: An Essay on Faith, Hope, and Love, an English translation of Une voie infiniment supérieure

Faith, hope, and love are the three core realities of Christian existence. Far from being self-grounded, they are rooted in God’s action and being in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Reflecting on the meaning these three realities have for us today, Christophe Chalamet argues that we gain a deeper understanding of them as we consider them in their interrelation, rather than separately. The first disciples sometimes described their burgeoning tradition as “the Way.” The apostle Paul, who reflected on faith, hope, and love in his epistles, praised love as “a most excellent way.” This book in constructive theology, drawing from a wealth of thinkers from the Christian tradition broadly conceived, presents faith, hope, and love as the abiding response to God’s faithfulness, God’s justice, and God’s love, for the sake of this world.

1. “A Most Excellent Way” 2. Faith 3. Hope: Its Ground and Horizon 4. “The Greatest of These”

Praise for A Most Excellent Way

The aim of this book is not historical doctrinal retrieval for its own sake, but rather theological recovery to meet the needs of the present age. Chalamet's argument is notable for its economy, its clarity and its insight: the book traverses considerable ground in a short span of pages. A book on faith, hope and love is much needed indeed.

Any Christian, of whatever branch, can learn from and find meaning in this tome. . . This monograph is a miniature ‘Dogmatics of the Christian Faith’. It is as excellent as Emil Brunner’s ‘Our Faith’, and, like that little volume, says a lot in a little space. Indeed, Chalamet is able to say in brief what most theologians cannot say in 14 volumes. . . Christophe Chalamet is the most important Christian theologian working today. His works, including this one, are at the top of the pile in terms of readability and helpfulness. No one explains the elements of Christianty as well as he is able to. If you aren’t familiar with his efforts, allow the present work to be the one which introduces you to him. You will be hooked.

Virtues have lived to see a major a comeback in theological and ethical reflection over the past decades. Christophe Chalamet seeks out the way in which the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love are grounded in the Trinitarian relations of God‘s faithfulness, justice, and love. Drawing ecumenically on a multiplicity of voices – from Paul‘s letters and the Song of Songs, from Origen and Irenaeus, Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Schleiermacher and Barth, Hauerwas and Coakley, Chalamet invites us to consider our own reality from the reality of the divine relations and to embrace faith, hope and love as triadic—differentiated yet intertwined—human response to divine virtue. He leads us on a journey that travels in proximity and contrast to secular virtues, but is provoked and sustained by the gospel and the sacraments. An excellent meditation that is both spiritually edifying and intellectually nourishing.

Christophe Chalamet’s book shows his talent as he both carefully and fruitfully uses the tradition for a theology for our time. In searching for the meaning of faith, hope, and love as human responses to God, it presents a “realistic” reading of biblical texts and a creative conversation with different branches of Christian thinking. Chalamet does this with a great sensibility for the current crisis of the Christian tradition, convinced as he is that this tradition, rightly understood, can still be meaningful for us today.

In this delightful meditation, Christophe Chalamet guides us to think through the traditional theological virtues in a way that is meaningful in and responsible to the present day. Rooted in the Scriptures, shaped by the tradition, and attentive to the world, his measured reflections offer the attentive reader a careful balance of insight, comfort, and challenge as resource for the Christian life.

Product Details

• Title : A Most Excellent Way: An Essay on Faith, Hope, and Love, an English translation of Une voie infiniment supérieure
• Author : Christophe Chalamet
• Publisher : Fortress Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2019
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Language : English
• Resources: 1
• Format : Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs : 9781978707818 , 9781978707801 , 1978707800 , 1978707819
• Resource ID: LLS:9781978707818
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-12-01T07:50:36Z

About Christophe Chalamet

Christophe Chalamet  is professor of systematic theology at the University of Geneva. He was previously professor of historical theology at Fordham University and is the author of  Dialectical Theologians: Wilhelm Herrmann, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann ,  Revivalism and Social Christianity: The Prophetic Faith of Henri Nick and André Trocmé , as well as numerous published articles and essays.

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Faith, Hope, and Love: 1 Corinthians 13:13

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As virtues, faith, hope, and love have long been celebrated. Some Christian denominations consider these to be three theological virtues — each representing values that define humankind's relationship with God himself.

The Role of Faith, Hope, and Love

Faith, hope, and love are discussed individually at several points in the Scriptures. In the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul  mentions the three virtues together and then goes on to identify love as the most important of the three:

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love . (1 Corinthians 13:13, NKJV)

This key verse is part of a longer discourse sent by Paul to the Corinthians. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians aimed to instruct and correct young believers in Corinth who were struggling with matters of disunity, immorality, and immaturity.

Since this verse extols the supremacy of love over all other virtues, it is very often selected, along with other passages from the surrounding verses, to be included in modern Christian wedding services . Here is the context of 1 Corinthians 13:13 within the surrounding verses: 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:4-13, NIV)

Faith Is a Prerequisite

As believers in Jesus Christ, it is essential for Christians to understand the meaning of this verse. There's no doubt that each of these virtues — faith, hope, and love — has great value. In fact, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 11:6 that, "...without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God, must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." (NKJV)

The value of faith cannot be disputed. Without it, there would be no Christianity. Without faith, we couldn't come to Christ or walk in obedience to him . Faith is what motivates us to move forward even when the odds are against us. And faith is closely related to hope .

The Value of Hope

Hope keeps us moving forward. No individual can imagine life without hope. Hope fuels us to face impossible challenges. Hope is the expectation that we will obtain what we desire. Hope is a special gift given by God through his grace to combat the day-to-day monotony and the most difficult circumstances.

Hope is there for the single mom who doesn't know how she is going to feed her children and keep a roof over their heads. She might give up, if not for the hope that a breakthrough is right around the corner. Hope is the invisible hand that holds up the head of a desperate prisoner of war so that he can see the light of day. Hope hangs on to the promise of a Savior who is coming to set him free.

Hope encourages us to keep running the race until we reach the finish line.

The Greatness of These Is Love

The Bible states that love is greater than both faith and hope. We couldn't live our lives without faith or hope: without faith, we cannot know the God of love; without hope, we would not endure in our faith until we meet him face to face. But in spite of the importance of faith and hope, love is even more crucial.

Why is love the greatest?

Because without love, the Bible teaches there can be no redemption . In Scripture we learn that God is love ( 1 John 4:8 ) and that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ , to die for us — a supreme act of sacrificial love. Love is what motivated God the Father to send His only Son to die for us. Thus, love is the virtue upon which all Christian faith and hope now stand.

For the believer, love is the foundation for every good thing in our lives. Without love, nothing else matters.

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Faith, Hope, and Love

The Theological Virtues and Their Opposites

• © 2022
• Troy DuJardin 0 ,
• M. David Eckel 1

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Department of Religion, Boston University, Boston, USA

• Unique as a broad collection of scholarly perspectives on a traditionally theological topic
• Brings together theologians, philosophers, and scholars of religion
• Enhances our understanding of virtue and vice in general, and of these three virtures in particular
• Chapter [9] is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life (BSPR, volume 10)

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Table of contents (16 chapters)

Front matter, introduction: virtue and vice.

Troy DuJardin

Faith and Doubt

Faith (and doubt) among the virtues.

• Jennifer A. Herdt

Restoring Faith, Curing Doubt: Kṛṣṇa’s Instruction in the Bhagavad Gītā

• Francis X. Clooney

Faith, Doubt, and the Buddhist Path of Enlightenment

• Dale S. Wright

Kierkegaard on Faith, Doubt, and Uncertainty

• C. Stephen Evans

Wilfred Cantwell Smith: Scholar, Mentor, and Humanist

• Charles A. Kimball

Hope and Despair

Dante’s commedia : from despair to hope to glory.

• Peter S. Hawkins

Radical Hope, Despair and Time: Responses to Nietzsche

Hopeful pessimism: the kantian mind at the end of all things.

• Andrew Chignell

Love and Hate

How to “love thy neighbor”: lessons from g.w.f. hegel on conflict and reconciliation.

• Molly Farneth

Making Lovers: Emmanuel Levinas and Iris Murdoch on Moral Formation

• Stephen S. Bush

Empathy and Its Critics

What muslim scholars talk about when they talk about love.

• Marion Katz

Bhakti and Accidental Grace: Hate as Love in the Hindu Tradition

• Wendy Doniger

Obedience and Love in Christian Ethics

• Robert Merrihew Adams

The Happiness of Promise: Ferdinand Hodler and Alexander Nehamas on Love and Care

• Fannie Bialek
• theological virtues
• theology, philosophy, religious studies
• faith and doubt
• virtue ethics
• comparative religions
• philosophy of religion
• virtues and vices in philosophy of religion
• love and hate in philosophy of religion
• hope and despair in philosophy of religion
• personal virtues
• faith, hope, love and justice
• thomas aquinas and theological virtues

About this book

Editors and affiliations.

M. David Eckel

About the editors

Bibliographic information.

Book Title : Faith, Hope, and Love

Book Subtitle : The Theological Virtues and Their Opposites

Editors : Troy DuJardin, M. David Eckel

Series Title : Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95062-0

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Religion and Philosophy , Philosophy and Religion (R0)

Copyright Information : The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-95061-3 Published: 24 July 2022

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-95064-4 Published: 24 July 2023

eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-95062-0 Published: 22 July 2022

Series ISSN : 2352-8206

Series E-ISSN : 2352-8214

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : VII, 252

Number of Illustrations : 2 b/w illustrations

Topics : Philosophy of Religion , Christian Theology

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What is Faith, Hope And Love

“So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love”. Foremost, there are three big questions that come to mind that should and will be answered. Number One, what exactly is Faith, Hope, and Love? Faith is an allegiance; belief and trust in God; confidence; system of religious beliefs while Hope is the desire with expectation of fulfillment, and lastly, Love, Love is complicated in many ways and is hard to define but the simple most definition of Love is strong affection; warm attachment; beloved person; feel affection for; enjoy greatly.

That sums up question Number One. Number Two, what connections are there between the quote and the book, especially Miro’s thoughts/actions about Kate? Both Miro and the quote show/have Faith, Hope, and Love. Miro possesses Faith & Hope by hoping to show complete allegiance and confidence towards Artkin which is no problem but Miro’s Love especially his love towards Kate is wrong, inappropriate, and unsafe.

He talks about her body, what he wants to do to her; also talks about her nakedness and how it turns him on, and lastly, he talks about her boobs and how he wants to fondle and pet them. Lastly, Number Three, are Miro’s actions justified by the quote? No. It is disrespectful and highly inappropriate because that type of behavior would be Amatory!!! Amatory is induction or persuasion by sexual love or desire. Miro is being persuaded/manipulated by Kate the manipulator by his sexual love and desire for her which is not all entirely his fault because he is inexperienced with girls in general and Kate is trying to manipulate him but he really shouldn’t be that vulgar with what he wants to do to Kate and he really shouldn’t be looking at naked girls in general which would make him a pervert because it’s against the law.

Proficient in: Faith

“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”

Yes, there may be some states that it’s legal but in Massachusetts, it is illegal to sexually harass people and to promote sexual activity. It’s just plain wrong. Further in the context, what is After the First Death really about?

The thriller, After the First Death, by Robert Cormier is about terrorists from the assumed area, Palestine, hijacking a bus full of kids and a bus driver to “free” their homeland from the U.S. In the book, the main characters are as followed, Kate, the bus driver; Miro, one of the terrorists; and Ben, the son of Brigadier General Marcus L. Marchand. After the First Death is mainly written from 1st person perspective of Kate, Miro, and Ben switching periodically, and other small sections are written from the points of view of other characters. To conclude, Miro conflicts with the ideals of Right vs. Wrong through his Amatory contributions, Zealous and Inquisitive nature when confronted with his misguided loyalty to his role models. Like many boys, when Miro first learns that he is attracted to a girl, in this case, Kate, feelings start to stir up inside of him that sometimes make it hard to distinguish between being amatory or misunderstood lust, leading him to fantasize about what he would do with and to her.

For example, Miro was on the bus, intentionally watching Kate get undressed and other things too. But mostly, Miro looks at her in an inappropriate way and comments on her body in a vulgar way. He knows it wrong to watch, but not wrong at the same time because he knows about girls but doesn’t know what happens when it comes to a more extreme level which is why he is confused and startled. Cormier states this two different times, in two different ways, “He was looking at her, suspended, caught in mid-motion, one foot on the top step near the driver’s seat. Frozen. He wore the mask which always emphasized his eyes. His eyes were huge and startled. She could see them even at this distance. There was something else in those eyes. She knew that look”.“He watched the girl. As he never watched before. From all over the bus, from many angles…

But this watching was different. It was watching but also looking. It was using his eyes as a blind man would use his hands. Like now:…, he squinted up at her, seeing the right side of her face only as she bent over one of the children. An errant shaft of light outlined her profile. He would love to trace that delicate profile with his finger, down her forehead, over the nose that had a slight rising in it, and across the lips to the delicate chin. He pictured her, foolish thought, opening her mouth and nibbling at his finger, The thought startled him. Where do such thoughts come from? His finger in her mouth, her lips nibbling?… He had always been embarrassed by the sexual displays of American girls…She did not know he was watching. His eyes were half closed as he sprawled in the seat, pretending indifference.

Kate was only seeking to relax, to ease her tired body, as if she were alone in her room. He could not take his eyes away from her breasts. They were not large but they stood out prominently. He wondered what it would be like to hold one of her breasts in the palm of his hand as if it were a small puppy to be petted and caressed… But he could not deny the attractiveness of the rounded buttocks in the tight jeans. He tried to recall her buttocks as he had seen them in that earlier glimpse, unclothed, uncovered, pale and pink in their roundness, the glimpse too swift, too little. Now Miro was able to study her buttocks without hurry, for she seemed preoccupied with whatever view lay beyond the window… He continued to stare at Kate’s body while Kate continued to look out the window”. Miro struggles with his newfound feelings for Kate. He is turned on by her body because he has never seen a naked girl other than in the body charts that he used to learn for torture tactics.

He imagines what he will do to her sexually, and what she will do back to him. Even some of his references such as petting her breasts like small puppies shows that he is immature, while at the same time sexually, to the point of being a pervert. He likes her but doesn’t really understand what these feelings are really about because he was taught only to see a body for torture, rather than for the artistic beauty that it can be. He is not mature, nor old enough to really understand sex and the feelings that he experiences toward Kate. Miro is conflicted with the ideals of right vs wrong since he was never taught how to think about or treat a woman (or girl in this case). He wants to be like Artkin, who is a cold-hearted vicious person who believes he is doing these things for his country’s freedom. Yet, he has feelings of desire toward another person and seems to want to make a connection with Kate, which is something that Artkin seems incapable of doing.

Atkin sticks to a plan, where Miro is able to daydream about what could be, even sexually, which allows Miro a little bit of freedom in its own way. Being zealous can be a good thing unless you are misguided in your loyalty for another person or thing Miro, eager to learn and please, places his trust in Artkin, who takes him down the wrong path. A path of terror and death. Miro feels a sense of duty and loyalty to a person that has a warped sense of duty to his country. He is eager to please and falls into the trap of devotion, however, misplaced. Miro’s relationship with Artkin is not based on respect, but rather master and subject. It is written by Cormier, “And now it was Miro’s turn to follow Artkin’s example”. “He had been waiting for four, almost five years now”.

“Expect for Artkin”. “The world would become meaningless without him. So would Miro’s own life”. “To die with Artkin would be a great thing”. Miro has trained for this moment for a long time. He trained under Artkin who he sees as a true patriot and therefore wants to follow in his footsteps. He is zealous manner leads him down of the path of terrorism because of his misguided sense of loyalty for another person. He is eager to please Artkin and do whatever he is told to do in carrying out a plot to hurt others in the name of patriotism. Miro believes life is not worth living without the approval of Artkin. He is eager to die with his mentor, however misguided, all in the name of patriotism and loyalty. Miro longs to feel a sense of belonging and his zealous nature puts him in a dangerous way of life. Because Artkin tells him that his parents are dead, Miro feels the need to please Artkin through his sense of loyalty even when faced with doing the right thing (should he kill Kate or not). He struggles with right vs wrong in the name of patriotism.

Being inquisitive is a natural way to learn in every aspect of life. Miro gains Artkin’s trust and starts to ask more questions about the mission and their relationship. Miro begins to question if Artkin has been intentionally lying to him so that Miro can be manipulated into carrying out the missions. Miro begins to question his role in the missions and purpose in life and how he fits in with Artkin and his plans. Miro’s mind starts to wander in the middle of the mission when being spoken to by Artkin. He has a hard time focusing due to his longing for information. Cormier states in the book, “Miro had dared not question Artkin–no one was foolish enough as to do that”. “A question had formed itself in his mind, but he was too timid to ask it. He had never questioned Artkin before, had been content, indeed pleased, to carry out orders”.

“At least Artkin was now confiding in him, explaining their position. He also had not taken offense at Miro’s anger and impertinence. He had asked bold questions in the presence of Stroll, and Artkin had answered the questions”. “‘I have found that you are good at questions.’”. Miro learns to be bold and start asking questions of Artkin. His inquisitive nature allows him to dare to question Artkin even though other feared him. He struggles with a sense of misplaced loyalty and longing to belong to something and somebody, so he starts to inquire about many topics. Through his inquisitive nature, he is able to gain Artkin’s trust. Miro is full of questions and a misguided desire to learn and please his mentor who is not an appropriate role model. He struggles with pleasing a person that he really doesn’t really know or understand.

Patriotism for one’s country is a good thing when it is out of a sense of duty and loyalty to defend and keep others safe from acts of terrorism, war, and harm of any type. Miro is taken from a young age and trained to be a killer all under the name of patriotism for his country. He is mentored and trained by people who have no regard for life, even their own. As he starts to mature, he begins to ask a lot of questions from the very person who has taught him to hate and love at the same time. Artkin may have taught love but the type of love that he taught is not a good love because it teaches Miro to kill in the name of his county, not because of any wrongdoing from others, but because their end goal is to retake their country back from the United States.

Atkin believes his country was taken from them and will do whatever it takes to get it back, even die. Miro starts to ask questions and feel things toward others that he has never felt before. He is immature but has adult feelings for Kate even though those feelings are not reciprocated. He fantasizes about Kate to the point of being noticed by her, and even being a little uncomfortable while doing it. He doesn’t fully understand what or why he is feeling these things. Throughout the book, Miro struggles with his sense of duty vs the ideals of right and wrong. There are times when he knows that what he is doing and thinking are wrong, but he does them anyway, all in the name of patriotism. There are times when it is felt that Miro may do the right thing, but when raised with such hatred and manipulation, he has a hard time distinguishing the right thing to do. The author attempts to make the reader think deeply about right vs wrong, moral vs immoral, and reality vs imagined.

He makes one think about relationships, how they form, and how they can change over time. No matter what happens, and how Miro feels toward Kate, in the end, he goes back to what he knows best…. he suspects that she has lied to him about Artkin being his father, and does what he has trained his whole life for…he kills her. Miro’s sense of duty won out over his sense of doing the right thing. People should stop and assess their relationships in life so that hopefully they can make informed decisions about living their life in a meaningful, thoughtful, healthy manner. Growing up is difficult, but as one learns to trust from an early age, hopefully, they can learn to be inquisitive by learning and gathering information in order to make informed decisions and long-lasting, healthy, reciprocal relationships. Maturity is not a given trait, and learning how to feel and when to feel things, such as like, love, hate, sadness comes with time and trust in others.

Feeling amatory as Miro learned, is not about sex alone, it is about more about trust and knowing who to share those feelings with. Learning to control amatory feelings comes with time. All through life, young people are met with conflicts, navigating through right vs wrong and finding the right role models to follow. Sometimes the struggle to do the right thing because of a misguided sense of loyalty to another person can result in really bad things happening. Making informed decisions about who to be loyal to is extremely important. There is nothing wrong with being inquisitive, and zealous in life. These are traits that can help one achieve a lot of positive things as long as they learn to trust the right people and causes. Trust is an important factor in growing up healthy and successful. Having amatory feelings for another person is not a bad thing, but when a person is not mature enough to understand when and how to show these feelings, unintended things can happen. Save the amatory feelings for adulthood!

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Faith, hope, love, and A I

Our different responses to artificial intelligence point to different stories—and different christian virtues..

( Century illustration (Source images: Getty)

We need to talk about artificial intelligence. We can divide responses to AI into three groups. Let’s call them Not on Your Life; Yes, Please; and Yes, But. Each of these groups has an implied story.

The story of Yes, Please is rooted in science fiction. This is an optimistic Silicon Valley story, one in which humans can eventually gain mastery over all limitations. It’s a story closely linked to transhumanism, the attempt to extend human life span and cognitive capability. It sees life as surrounded by unnecessary constraints and AI as a unique opportunity to overcome many of those constraints.

As is often the case, Christians responding to challenges from social innovation are engaged in a clash of stories. Let’s take the three stories and see what’s at stake in each of them.

In the Yes, Please story, what’s at stake is the Christian virtue of faith. The Yes, Please story is essentially a remix of an ancient tendency to seek eternal survival through escape—escape from the human body, from the limitations of time and space, from the sheer givenness of the world. The inclination to escape isn’t a new thing for those obsessed with technological enhancement; it’s been there since religion began. What faith says is that God is with us in and through our created existence: seeking technological escape by transcending our human limitations won’t get us any closer to God or eternity. Christianity fundamentally says we don’t get close to God by escape—we get close to God by God in Christ coming close to us. Transhumanism is an impossible project; more importantly, even if it succeeded in preserving parts of us, it would leave behind the parts most worth having.

And here lies a question and an irony. The question is, Do we make those relationships the gravitational center of our lives, right now, or are we already preoccupied with securing control, identity, and survival by other means? The irony is, maybe it’s going to take the threat of AI to make us realize what’s most important in life lest we lose it. The threat of AI may turn out to be a gift that shows us what our lives should really have been about all along . 

Samuel Wells

Samuel Wells is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London and author of  Humbler Faith, Bigger God .

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Essay / Misc.

Who Invented Faith, Hope, and Love?

by Fred Sanders on August 7, 2006

Faith, hope, and love.

That triad sounds familiar because Paul uses it to conclude the famous “love chapter,” I Corinthians 13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Where did Paul get “these three?” He uses the triad about seven times, in various ways ( I Thess. 1:3 , I Thess. 5:8 , Col. 1:4-5 , Eph. 4:2-5 , Gal. 5:5-6 , I Cor 13:13 , Rom. 5:1-5 ). If the words “faith, hope, and love” didn’t constitute a definite sequenced formula for Paul, they at least seemed to him like words that should show up together in some order.

There’s some reason to believe that this triad of words belonged together before Paul got ahold of them. If that’s true, then they would be older than Paul’s first letters, and you could consider the triad “faith, hope, and love” to be a common saying in churches that were already established by the time Paul wrote letters to them. If a letter like I Thessalonians is from around the year 50 , then some of the first Christian churches ever were familiar with this group of words in a “pre-Pauline” period of church life… the year 45? 40? 35? How early? We’re bumping into the events narrated in the early chapters of Acts here.

Let’s admit that I’ve already used the word “if” three times, and am about to use it even more. But here’s the evidence for a pre-Pauline origin of “faith, hope, and love” as a traditional triadic formula from earliest Christianity.

A. M. Hunter argued this case, claiming that Paul’s triad was “not his own creation, but something common and apostolic, perhaps a sort of compendium of the Christian life current in the early apostolic church” (see his Paul and his Predecessors (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961, pages 33-35).

1. Paul uses it as an applause line in I Corinthians: After a ravishingly beautiful speech on love, he sums things up with a comprehensive phrase, “Now these three abide,” before singling out the greatest of them. It’s possible that he made up the triad just by asking himself, “what are the three virtues or graces that abide?” and came up with these three. But another possibility is that he was tapping into a familiar triad. “You know, the well-known three.” (Hunter p. 34)

2. When he says the words in I Thessalonians 5:8, he seems to have Isaiah 59:17 in the back of his mind: “The LORD put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head.” When he says that Christians should be sober, “having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation,” it’s easy to imagine him having Isaiah in one hand a traditional faith-hope-love triad in the other hand, and weaving them together by doubling up on the breastplate and making “salvation” into “the hope of salvation.”

3. Other New Testament authors use it also ( Heb. 6:10-12 , I Pet. 1:3-8 , I Pet 1:21-22 , Heb. 10:22-24 ). Maybe they were all influenced by Paul, or maybe Paul, I Peter, and Hebrews are all citing some other source. Like, um, a praise song they all knew.

4. Here’s the iffiest of the iffy connections. Macarius the Egyptian, a fourth-century Christian spiritual writer, reports a saying of Jesus which was not written down in Scripture but circulated orally through the centuries: “Take care of faith and hope through which is begotten the love of God and man which gives eternal life.” Is it possible that Jesus said such a thing and that the saying was passed down the centuries and recorded in the year 300? Yes, it’s possible. Jesus said many things, not all of them recorded on the spot ( agrapha they’re called). Acts 20:35 is the best example, and I’m glad that Luke wrote down the fact that Paul mentioned that Jesus said “it is more blessed to give than receive.” I’m greedy for red print and would like to have every saying of Jesus I can get my hands on. But the Macarius one, “Take care of faith and hope through which is begotten the love of God and man…” strikes me as unlikely, and shows up late.

Hunter is a wise man, so after making his case he admits, “I do not press it.” But he thinks the evidence “strongly suggests that this triadic formula is not only a bit of very early Christianity, but may very possibly be derived from a logion of Jesus.” (35)

It would be sweet if the origin of “these three which abide” were actually a teaching from the mouth of Jesus Christ, well known among the early churches, and used by Paul because he knew it would be recognizable to all.

All speculation aside, “faith, hope, and love” certainly do constitute a remarkable triad, and even if they’re not dominical (from the Lord) they’re definitely apostolic (from Paul and Peter). If they didn’t function in the earliest (pre-Pauline) church as “a sort of compendium of the Christian life,” they functioned that way later, as for instance in Augustine’s great little Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love , or in Aquinas’ treatise on the virtues in the Summa Theologia , or numerous other overviews of the Christian life.

If we don’t have definite access to the prehistory of faith, hope, and love, we at least have access to its later effects. Christians see a great deal in this set of words, and Paul is saying a mouthful when he thanks God for the Colossian church’s faith in Christ, love for the saints, and hope in heaven.

Fred Sanders

Fred is a systematic theologian with an emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity. He and his wife Susan have two adult children and are members of Grace Evangelical Free Church. Read more about Fred here.

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Calling all college and college bound students!!

Faith Hope and Love Jesus, Inc. is excited to offer 2 annual $500 college scholarships to childhood cancer or blood disorder survivors.  This will   be the easiest 500 words or more essay to write in the world.  Why?  Because it can be on any topic or subject.  You decide.  That's right.  We figure if you're going to write, you'll enjoy it more if it's something you want to write about.  So let the writing begin.  The deadline for electronic submission to [email protected] is every May 1st.   We will announce our winners every August 1st.

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