Modernity and the Question of Hope: Some Perspectives through Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

: I dwell on the question of hope qua a critique of modernity and theology’s role in this, arguing that authentic hope cannot but include a theological horizon that is necessary for a humane and liberative social imaginary. Two insights are drawn from such: a critique of modernity is not exhausted by a historicist discourse, and an alternative reading o f Aquinas’ theology of hope may be developed via a discussion of the crisis of critical theory. I forward my argument in three parts: 1) I rehearse an account of the congeniality between modernity and religion developed by Charles Taylor; 2) I discuss the distinction between Taylor’s perspective and the historicist reading of modernity; and 3) I try to reconstruct Aquinas’ theology of hope within the framework of its reflexive unity with the two other theological virtues, faith, and charity. I use the three virtues’ grounding in grace’s radicality to counter the dominant historicist bias in interpreting both the question of hope and modernity. The whole discussion promises to be an alternative reading of modernity and Aquinas’ theology of hope , guided by the question: What different account of modernity and hope can be drawn from a re- reading of Thomas Aquinas’ theology?