HOPE AMIDST THE HOPELESS (THE MOLTMANNIAN CONCEPT OF HOPE VERSUS THE NIGERIAN SITUATION)
INTRODUCTION
January 1, 2012, saw Nigerians greeted with the very much dreaded removal of fuel subsidy. There were reactions and counter-reactions which culminated in the grounding of proceeding in people’s work places, particularly civil servants. It was so bad that everything in the country came to an unfortunate halt, due to what people termed as the insensitivity of the government. Accordingly, it was stated that the government had no concern for the poor and that were only concerned about fattening their already fattened bank accounts. While government opined that this was in the best interest of the nation. They made promises that the money derived from this feat of theirs would be channeled in making the poor man’s life better. Nigerians groaned about this statement, saying “we have been told this over and over again, but nothing works”. It was and still is a case of the promises the government against the terrible experiences of the masses. It would be worthwhile to imprint here the cliché which says, once beaten twice shy. Nigerians, who are a bunch of hopeful people even in the midst of pain and suffering, are now on the threshold. Instead of exuding with hope, hopelessness is getting the better of us. In such wise, it would be very relevant to consider the concept of hope particularly in the Nigerian situation. In considering this, Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of hope, would be very much put side by side with the situation in the country. This is to indeed see whether Nigerians have the right to be hopeful of a brighter future, after the past and the present have disappointed.
Who is Jürgen Moltmann?
Moltmann was born in 1926 in Hamburg, Germany. His childhood and pre-university education were lived during the years of the Nazi regime. In 1944 he was sent off to war and was captured (in February 1945) by the British. Although the war ended three months later, he was held as a prisoner of war for more than three years in Scotland and England. These were formative years for Moltmann. He spoke of the grief he felt over the crimes of his country and the individual's need to face the truth of it and take whatever share of the guilt belonged to him or her. He taught systematic theology at the University of Tübingen from 1957. During the mid-1960s he achieved international prominence as the leading exponent of the "theology of hope." This, along with subsequent works in Christology, anthropology, and ethics, established him as one of Germany's most important Protestant theologians of the 20th century.[1]
THE CONCEPT OF HOPE
Hope is a spes docta; hope itself is a fundamental human effect. Hope is the presupposition behind the human “will to live.” In this basic sense, hope is the wager that there is some correspondence between this human will to live and the world which supports and sustains life. According to Ernst Bloch, hope is the name of the human spirit as conative openness to reality, as outreach in search of the meaning and value of life. And where there is hope, there is religion. Hope is at once the source and the product of religion. In a loose sense, to hope for something merely means to wish for it with some fear that what one wishes will not come about.[2] In Christian thought, one of the three theological virtues, the others being faith and charity (love). It is distinct from the latter two because it is directed exclusively toward the future, as fervent desire and confident expectation. When hope has attained its object, it ceases to be hope and becomes possession. Consequently, whereas “love never ends,” hope is confined to man's life on Earth.[3] According to jurgen Moltmann, hope as not only as a promise of what is to come or an expectancy of some sort, but the full realization of one’s present needs and situation. Thus the hope has a somewhat eschatological attachment to it. (The eschatological quality of hope pertains to the futuristic reality of hope). This eschatological quality of hope is not to be take literarily, for a theological look into this conceptual reality, will reveal that its quality of eschatology is not solely reserved for tomorrow but has its application here and now. He maintains: “theological perspective of eschatology makes the hope of the future, the hope of today.”[4] He maintains that:
Christianity… is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day. For Christian faith lives from the raising of the crucified Christ, and strains after the promises of the universal future of Christ.[5]
In practice, one fails in hope by planning and living one's life as if one either were not really interested in what God promises, could do without him, could take him for granted, or could not count on him.[6] Hope means to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.[7] Moltmann as such marries hope to the belief in the promises of God. Hope as a concept would lack a sense of meaning if it were not applied to God, having man as the chief beneficiary of all that is hoped for.
DOES HOPE CHEAT MAN OF HAPPINESS AT THE PRESENT
The most serious objection to a theology of hope springs not from presumption or despair, for these two basic attitudes of human existence presuppose hope, but the objection to hope arises from the religion of humble acquiescence in the present. Is it not always in the present alone that man is truly existent, real, contemporary with himself, acquiescent and certain? Memory binds him to the past that no longer is. Hope casts him upon the future that is not yet. He remembers having lived, but he does not live. He remembers having loved, but he does not love. He remembers the thoughts of others, but he does not think. It seems to be much the same with him in hope. He hopes to live, but he does not live. He expects to be happy one day, and this expectation causes him to pass over the happiness of the present. He is never, in memory and hope, wholly himself and wholly in his present. Always he either limps behind it or hastens ahead of it. Memories and hopes appear to cheat him of the happiness of being undividedly present. They rob him of his present and drag him into times that no longer exist or do not yet exist. They surrender him to the non-existent and abandon him to vanity. For these times subject him to the stream of transience -- the stream that sweeps him to annihilation.[8] The fact of hope most times, lets man down the road of despair. To this, Moltmann asks, as I do today “Does this hope cheat man of the happiness of the present?” And He answers: How could it do so! For it is itself the happiness of the present.
Hope, accordingly, pronounces the poor blessed, receives the weary and heavy laden, the humbled and wronged, the hungry and the dying, because it perceives the parousia of the kingdom for them. Expectation makes life good, for in expectation man can accept his whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow, happiness not only in its happiness but also in its pain. Thus hope goes on its way through the midst of happiness and pain, because in the promises of God it can see a future also for the transient, the dying and the dead. That is why it can be said that living without hope is like no longer living. Hell is hopelessness, and it is not for nothing that at the entrance to Dante’s hell there stand the words: ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’ An acceptance of the present which cannot and will not see the dying of the present is an illusion and a frivolity -- and one which cannot be grounded on eternity either. The hope that is staked on the creator ex nihilo becomes the happiness of the present when it loyally embraces all things in love, abandoning nothing to annihilation but bringing to light how open all things are to the possibilities in which they can live and shall live. Presumption and despair have a paralyzing effect on this, while the dream of the eternal present ignores it.[9]
The fact that hope is directed to the future does not in any way reduce or make redundant the fact that hope actually affects our present. Hope is future directed, but gives man the fulfillment that this expectation brings. Hope finds its substance in expectation, and this expectation is what makes man strive on in the midst of the pain he experiences at that present. Thus, although not very much fulfilled, hope gives man the will power to live for the future by living in the present.
THE NIGERIAN SITUATION AND HOPE
We have seen a country that was born on promises degenerate into a place where despair thrives because all those promises were never kept. The Nigerian situation is very much known to the most illiterate of people today. Even if one does not know of the “mains” with regards the situation of Nigeria, one knows for sure that things are not working. Bombs have become toys which men play with. They ply with these not for their own edification, as children do, they do this not for their own destruction, but for the destruction of others. Religious intolerance grows by the day, as Nigeria is on the part of division much in the same way as Sudan. This religious intolerance is very much heightened because religion has been used as a tool for destruction. The infamous boko haram strike with surprising confidence and all the president has to say is that they have infiltrated his cabinet. This sect, whose etymology is “western education is forbidden”, has not seen the explosion of schools or institutions of learning. It has rather witnessed the destruction of churches, and even mosques. And they say that they are combating western education. We know that there is a sect that has sworn that nothing in Nigeria would work, and have termed themselves as Boko Haram. They have struck along religious lines, affecting that which is very key to the lives of people in Nigeria. In the midst of this, people have started doubting their religious beliefs; Christians are now leaving their faith to go for a more assured protection as they call it. This assured protection is in charms, locally made by what we refer to as African Magic. The law agencies that are meant to promote law and order see themselves falling short of their calling, as they now apprehend and free criminals without any iota of regret, claiming that they have no idea of how the criminal escaped. It is very surprising. Imagine further that in spite of the continuous threats by the government to combat this menace, it has led further to the more fulfillments of the threats made by these evil people. Government give us the impression that they are trying, but we know that they have been put in a tight corner, as some of those in government have sold their souls for percunia. There is a great deal of injustice in the land and because of that peace has packed up its baggage and left for neighbouring countries. We have tried to make contact with peace but it seems that it has gone into oblivion. In the absence of peace, chaos has become the lord of the land. This is just a summary of the whole issue in Nigeria that is actually more complex than this. It is a situation of “if I see tomorrow, then I thank God”. How does hope work in such situation?
EVALUATION
Hope does not cease even in the midst of piercing hopelessness. In fact, if hope were to cease then we would surely say that man’s life ceases as well. The Nigerian situation, no matter how badly it degenerates, can never be void of hope. Hope is that which at present sustains this country. The work of hope is ceaseless and boundless. The fact that no one knows what tomorrow will bring is enough proof to give vent to the doctrine of hope. Some may say that we have hoped for a brighter tomorrow, but we have experienced a darker one. This in no way means that hope should be non-existent. The mere fact that today is bad does not determine how tomorrow will be like. Man is a being at present, and a being that is also thrown to the future, he is built up in such a manner as regards his threefold existence of past, present and future. He has the ability to transcend the present and meet the future. This tendency in man is made possible by virtue of hope. Nigeria might be passing through very trying times, as determined by the insensitivity of some very greedy people, who hide under the mask of nationality while perpetrating the most “un-national” of all acts. In spite of this, all hope is not lost, as earlier opined, if we were to lose hope then we would lose, simultaneously our existence.
The brightness of hope comprises of making the right decisions today. We have stated that hope is actually for the future, but has very significant meaning to the present. Hope being what it is beckons on the hopeful to lead a life of hope not just by words of mouth, but by deed, practical and necessary deeds. The demands of hope not only pertains to the government or a select few, it calls on all and sundry to partake in this task of making our future bright. Thus no one should be left out. The hike in fuel price due to the removal of fuel subsidy might be the most pressing issue now, after other issues like the Boko Haram, the Niger delta militants, etc. In the spirit of hope, we ought to realize that every country, like every individual encounters trying times. These times would not stop the individual from existing. For what is worth, it will make the individual and indeed the country, stronger and better off for it, only if the right decisions and intentions are applied.
Man is by nature, a being of hope. He may not have any reason to hope, but this does not stop him from living, consciously or otherwise, the life of hope. Even the man who commits suicide, does it with the hope that he would end his hopeless existence. Our lives are centered on hope; the Nigerian situation is not bigger than the reality of hope.
[1] Moltmann Jürgen, in Folio Views for windows, CD-ROM, copyright 1992-1999. Open market Inc., all rights reserved.
[2] Micheal J. Scanlon OSA, HOPE, in the New Dictionary OF Theology, J.A. Komonchak, M. Collins, D.A. Lane,(theological Publications, Bangalore, 2006), p493
[3] "hope." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Moltmann#Eschatology_.2F_Theology_of_Hope
[5] Jurgen Moltmann, The Theology of Hope, in Folio Views CD-ROM, op.cit.
[6] Living a Christian Life Chapter 2: Hope, Apostolate and Personal Vocation Question A: What Are the Essential characteristics of Christian Hope in God?
[7] http://www.donotgiveup.net/Hope.htm
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Moltmann#Eschatology_.2F_Theology_of_Hope
[9] Ibid.
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