Document Type
Article (Journal or Newsletter)
Scholarship Type
Faculty Scholarship
Publication Date
2017
Abstract
In this essay, I offer an existential-phenomenological consideration of what it might look like to live joyfully after losing social hope. Using the example of the widespread hopelessness that many are feeling in light of the election of Donald Trump, I suggest that the danger of losing hope is that we can also lose our selfhood in the process. In order to develop a conception of “eschatological hope” that would be resistant to the loss of such social and political expectations, I draw specifically on Søren Kierkegaard’s notion that “the expectancy of faith is victory,” and Jean-Louis Chrétien’s idea of “the unhoped for,” in order to develop a model of hope that remains when it seems like all other hope has been lost. Rather than being overcome by anxiety about the future, eschatological hope fosters joy in the present.
Additional Affiliated Department, Center or Institute
Religion
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Simmons, J.A. Living Joyfully after Losing Social Hope: Kierkegaard and Chrétien on Selfhood and Eschatological Expectation. Religions 2017, 8(3), 33
Comments
This article belongs to the Special Issue In Anticipation: Eschatology and Transcendence in Contemporary Contexts in Religions 2017, 8(3), 33; doi:10.3390/rel8030033