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Hope, Prayer, Trust and Reliance Upon Luck; Or, the Ignoble Handouts Oft by Noble Emotions

You will probably misunderstand the intention of this post, no matter how much I try to express the concept as something “good.” So be it. I still have the duty to try. Time has a way of playing its role, but it takes…time. Time nurtures and time destroys. So be it.

Here goes: There a lot of things that exist, in mind, body and spirit, which are only good in discrete measures; that is, only good within a certain context and only to a certain point.

Water is only good to a point of nourishment, but it does not follow that the goodness of water nullifies the destructive or torturing power of water when water is misplaced or misused. Similarly so with air and fire. Similarly so with ardent love. Existence of things have metes and bounds, and proper contexts.

Western Culture introduced, much through Abrahamic spirituality (though certainly not only introduced by Western Culture) the “virtues” of Faith, Hope and Charity (Love), sometimes called the “Christian Virtues.” These Christian Virtues were tacked onto the Socratic “Cardinal Virtues,” being Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice.

But, I will suggest to you that the Christian Virtues are misnomered and miscategorized.

I will suggest to you that the Christian Virtues are not virtues in the manner of the philosophical Socratic Cardinal Virtues, and should never have been categorically added to the Cardinal Virtues.

Indeed, Socrates loved, a lot. Socrates hoped. And Socrates had faith. And, yet, Socrates omitted Faith, Hope and Charity (Love) from his list of the Cardinal Virtues. No, the magnificent Socrates did not make a mistake or “miss it.”

In all his wisdom, Socrates purposefully omitted the Christian Virtues off of his list of virtues. And I will tell you why.

I will tell you why Socrates omitted Faith, Hope and Charity (Love) from his list of Cardinal Virtues:

Faith, Hope and Charity (Love) are not even virtues, let alone Cardinal Virtues. The reason? To the extent that the Christian Virtues achieve any “goodness” they do so only by application of the Cardinal Virtues.

The Christian Virtues are something different and a lower tier than the Socratic Cardinal Virtues. The Cardinal Virtues, taken as a group as intended, are perfect. Clarity of cause, effect, and goal (Wisdom), with the power to go when we want to stop (Courage), the power to stop when we want to go (Temperance), and the balance and harmony of those attributes (Justice).

They achieve the perfection of humanity. All good, nothing bad. Wisdom never invites foolishness, Courage never invites cowardice, Temperance never invites gluttony, and Justice never invites unbalance.

However, all evidence of human existence proves that the emotion of Love invites the emotion of its opposite, Hate. (Please, we just need to review the suggested claimed best and brightest, ala, by the Crusades.) Even Jesus expressed the conjoinment of opposite emotions with his two-masters teaching, saying to love one is to hate the other. [1.1]

Faith and Hope also invite their opposite, Fools, or at least, Foolishness, oft by a function of gullible misplaced trust. Faith, hope and love are imperfect and require the tempering of the cardinal virtues.

Crazy stupid love.

Alas, Romans killed Jews for love. Jews killed Jesus for love. Romans killed Christians for love. Romans became Christians for love. Christians kill Muslims for love. Muslims kill Christians for love. Christians became Nazis for love. Nazis killed Jews for love. Christians kill Christians for love. The conjoinment of love with hate. It is a misnomer simplistically to call the Klu Klux Klan a hate group, because they are purposed by love of something, perhaps just love of the wrong thing, being the perennial god and country, with implementation contrary to broader evolved culture in which the group seeks to exist.

History teaches that it was the burning love of god (or the gods) that adduced many a burning at the stake. And, if we can see it with our eyes, that stake is one big beam. Saint Sir Thomas More loved god and country, too, and he did not just burn Christian crosses, he burnt Christians.

Love and hate start to look like mirror images, each just with an opposite perspective.

Thusly, Love, Faith and Hope are not really virtues per se, but better denominated as “Noble Emotions” (or “Noble Attributes”).

Like water, air and fire, they can all be beautiful things, provided they know their place and limitations. They need to work within containment, properly directed.

The Noble Emotions cannot be the equal of the Cardinal Virtues, because it is exactly the Cardinal Virtues that must subjugate them. It is Wisdom and Temperance that force alignment of Love to conduct for context. Ask any cheating spouse, or battered wife. The flesh is weak. It is the Cardinal Virtues that fix the Noble Emotions when the Noble Emotions would descend to become the Ignoble Emotions.

I will never forget (with some irony) attending Sunday worship services from a luxurious family cruise on an island in the Caribbean. The service was celebrated in a modest if not destitute location. The weekly lesson was on the “Widow’s Last Coin.” [1.2] Usually, this teaching is to give until it hurts, but here the lesson was not to give, because of the risk of the mothers praying, hoping and trusting foolishly at the expense of their children who need the money to buy life-sustaining food. That was a wise celebrant teacher; I had never heard that lesson being mitigated, and it always stuck with me.

We know that much of prayer is begging a deity for something, much of it by many of us shamelessly. We can have all the faith we want, but we know that god (or the gods) give atheists as many benefits as theists, and that it is statistically true that each answered prayer is matched to countless unanswered prayers. Perhaps prayers are answered with a successful war to acquire oil rights, but just ask the mothers of all the killed soldiers. What we really know is that, pray or not, god (or the gods) do exactly what god (or the gods) want to do, no matter what we ask. For every testimonial of an answered prayer there are countless other unanswered prayers. Just ask the priests raided by the Vikings. [2]

Hope is the last refuge of a victim. Indeed, it should be the rare situation for many of us to think ourselves as victims. We must know that we enjoy innumerable gifts, attitudinal perspectives, opportunities, and options.

By now, perhaps you’re misunderstanding my point, which is not that Faith, Hope and Charity (Love), or related emotions, are bad things. They are certainly not bad things. They can be very good things.

But, all of Prayer, Hope, Trust (Faith) are audacious to suggest that they are always good things. Because, in fact, they can be very bad things, when overused, or misused, or misplaced. For example, Hope is not perfect unto itself—Hope requires the scrutiny of Wisdom for Hope’s proper placement. Hope requires Wisdom, but Wisdom does not require Hope. Without the Cardinal Virtues, one can become a glutton of Hope.

Audacious to say, perhaps, but I will suggest that Prayer, Hope, Trust (Faith), and reliance upon Luck, are externalizations of causation, displacements of power from self-reliance, and empirically proper only as a last resort. Consider the correlation between the degree of reliance upon Prayer, Hope, Trust and Luck, with the implicit concession of vulnerability and failure of situational control.

Action is earning. Doing is earning. But Prayer, Hope, Trust, and reliance upon Luck, are often adducements for handouts within the context of vulnerability and lack of control, one way or another.

What is not a handout is self-actualization: the pain of—the virtue of—making wise decisions, being courageous to begin and disciplined to endure implementation, with the harmony of doing good everywhere—without displacing self-responsibility or becoming foolish in the process.

Pray and dig. Hope and row. Trust and secure. And, then maybe ever-present luck will appear to give some good help.

These things can give us our power, until they give us excuses, and Wisdom is understanding the difference.

“The miserable have no other medicine but only hope: I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.” ― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure


“Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” Jesus ONE®: 372

“Pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Jesus ONE®: 2123

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Samuel Goldwyn

“When Opportunity knocks, have dinner on the table.” Gregg Zegarelli

“A man said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, should I tie my camel and trust in Allah, or should I leave her untied and trust in Allah?’ The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, ‘Tie her and trust in Allah.’” Muhammad, Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2517

“Trust in God, and keep your powder dry.” Oliver Cromwell

“And then those who are examined by me, instead of being angry with themselves, are angry with me!…If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable. The easiest and the noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves.” Socrates

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[1] ONE®: The LinkedIn Reference Set [#GRZ_183] 1.1 ONE: 582 [T6:24] (“Serve Two Masters“); 1.2 ONE: 2178 [R12:41, L21:1] (“Poor Widow’s Gift”)

[2] The Proseuché (The Prayer of Socrates) Ch. VIII [Prayer] [#GRZ_131]

“Spes est ultimum refugium victimae.” (“Hope is the last refuge of the victim.”); “Amor et odium sunt imagines speculi, licet per prospectus oppositi.” (“Love and hate are mirror images, albeit by opposite perspectives.” [To love one is to hate the other.]) ~ grz


© 2023 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.

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