Preliminary remarks
There has been, for some time now, the realization of our country as hopeless, I guess this is what made one controversial artist compose a song, with its hit point as Nigeria jaga jaga. Jaga jaja or not, the Nigerian situation has demands daily consideration. The Nigerian issue has been discussed over and over again, but there seems to be no way out of this mess that we have found ourselves in. it surprises me to see how Nigerians are yet resolute in facing their daily activities. The famous lyricist, Lionel Richie, has a song in which one of its lines reads …and I still walk on through the night and through the rain… this perfectly describes the Nigerian and his challenging environment. We have much hailed the Nigerian as one who does not give up in the midst of failings and disappointments. The Nigerian is always driven by that slogan: E go better. But how has this affected the life of the individual Nigerian? To really consider what hope is and can do to the Nigerian, in the present, the Moltmann’s Theology of Hope would be highly considered. The major thrust of this work will be to confirm the truth that hope lies in the present, even though it is future bound and actualized.
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.[1] Hope in this loose sense need not involve the idea of interpersonal relationship, but that idea is involved in hope in the precise sense relevant here. For here to hope means to count on another person to help one fulfill one's desire; one hopes in someone for something. 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.[2] According to Jürgen Moltmann, hope as the aforementioned, fails to produce the encompassing nature that it contains. He regards 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. He maintains: “theological perspective of eschatology makes the hope of the future, the hope of today.”[3]
Hope for the present: realistic or not?
In the light of Moltmann, we thus ask, does hope cheat man of his present happiness? Does hope mean that man would experience only the good in the future? Man is existentially a present being, for memory binds him to the past and hope takes him to the future.[4] In his own words:
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.[5]
We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.[6] Hope for the present does not mean that such things that are hoped for are attained by those hoping for them, for if one attained to that which one hoped for, then that would not be considered as hope again.[7] The hope of the present does not mean that that hope has been achieved. It does not mean that man has nothing to hope for. It means rather that there is a pull towards the future from the present. Thus any hope that is future based, will also have its meaning, full but unrealized in the present. What does the word “unrealized” imply? Hope comes with its promise, a promise of good tidings, better than that which we are presently facing. Hope does not make null the present difficulty we face. It rather assures us of a better life after now. Such assurance is the brain behind the resolute stance taken by the individual, to forge on regardless of what life may offer at the present. Thus one is not only preparing for the reception of hope, but one is living in that hope, which is realized in the future. Hope of the present is not the surety that all difficulties of the present will be done away with. Hope of the present is rather the fact that all difficulties will be done away with; by the continued striving in its light that is the light of hope. Hope places us beyond this challenges and difficulties, not potentially but kinetically, not “spectatively”, but actively. Hope will ever accompany man, till he attains to his desired end that is unity with God. The fact of this hope, being noted here, is likened to the resurrection hope, by Moltmann, which is for all Christians, indeed the whole of humanity, the climax of all things hope for. According to Moltmann, the resurrection of Christ assures us that this eschatological hope is not a façade. Hope is thus an ongoing process that finds its maturity in the realized eschatology. As an ongoing process, it starts from the present, surges us onto the future and then brings us safely to the end of all things in Christ. As a process, hope is not dormant, and thus he/she that is living on this hope, should not be dormant, but live in the process, in the hope process. Hope is both for the future and indeed for the present.
Concluding remarks: The relevance of hope in the Nigerian situation
The hope spoken of here is made in reference to the Christian belief, but this does not in any way deprive it of its transcendental nature, as such it is applicable to all human beings, in other words it will find meaning in the life of every Nigerian. As a Nigerian, I will gladly consider the situation of my country as pitiable, but not devoid of hope. There has been the tendency of Nigerians to consider the country as hopeless. There is yet another tendency that insists that all hope cannot find their fulfillment in the present, only in the future. The existential situation of this country is loaded with hope, although this hope is our assurance of the good things that are to come, this good thing(s) that we hope for, definitely finds its bearing in our present situation. Practically speaking, since we have hope, hope for the future, we have consequentially the will power to walk towards that future. Hope is such that it promises you, but expects you to claim that promise. In order to claim it, one has to act towards it. By so doing, one can be said to be living in hope, in extension, hope finds its relevance in the present. Walking(acting) in the light of hope ensures doing those things that will indeed make such hope come to reality, that is to say- DOING THE RIGHT THING. It means striving to correct the mistakes of the past, in the present, and ensuring that when the present fades into past, and the future becomes present, then, the hopes of the future may be fully achieved. Moltmann insists that Hope is always accompanied with planning. The two are interlinked and can only be attained by living in the process, doing the right thing.
[1] Micheal J. Scanlon OSA, HOPE, in the New Dictionary OF Theology, J.A. Komonchak, M. Collins, D.A. Lane,(theological Publications, Bangalore, 2006), p493
[2] http://www.donotgiveup.net/Hope.htm
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Moltmann#Eschatology_.2F_Theology_of_Hope
[4] Ibid.
[5] Moltmann Jürgen, THE THEOLOGY OF HOPE, (SCM Press Ltd, Bloomsbury, London, 1967), p26.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Stated by Fr. Lawrence Hammawa; A lecturer in St Augustine Major Seminary, Jos.
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