In what is the fourth chapter of the book Hope and History, Josef Pieper examines in some detail the thought of Ernst Bloch, particularly his work on hope. Josef Pieper suggests three questions that challenge a Marxist view that sees the object of hope as being the final manifestation of a truly socialist transformation of society, or any other idealist or materialist view that likewise sees the object of hope as some this-worldly achievement.
Josef Pieper firstly suggests that these views covertly distort the original sense of the concept of hope.
Is not the aim of describing and elucidating what is to be hoped for supplanted by a program of practical action, of changing and producing things? Not the least objection can be made, of course, to such a program "in itself", which can be something entirely sensible and necessary. And yet it is possible that, through it, precisely that which is intimated to us by the indwelling wisdom of language itself becomes drowned out: namely, that it is obviously characteristic of men by nature, as those who truly hope, to be directed toward a fulfilment of just the kind that they cannot bring about themselves.
Josef Pieper observes, secondly, that these entirely "intra-historical" or "this worldly" perspectives rarely, if ever, address the question of death. In placing their hope in some kind of collective future they leave out something that is part of the experience of each individual person.
What I insist on, however, is this: no conception of a future state of affairs that just ignores the fact of death, that thus simply fails to take into consideration not only the man who lives toward death, who is destined for death, but also those who have already died, the dead - no such image of the future can seriously be put forward as being in any sense an object of human hope! How can one speak of hope when what is hoped for is conceived in such a way that it could not at all be granted to the very being that is solely capable of hoping, namely, the individual, the particular person?
Josef Pieper has earlier observed that only what is really possible can be hoped for, and that there are no limits as to what one might wish for. He finally suggests that, as far as wishing goes, it is sufficient to ask the question, "What do you wish for?", without giving attention to the grounds for that wishing. He indicates that there is not cogent reasoning to support the expectation that human longing will be satisfied through intra-historical activity of one kind or another. As far as hoping is concerned, the situation is different. The question is not just one of "What do you hope for?" but also "What are the grounds for that hope?" It is in his next and final chapter that Josef Pieper will look at Christian faith in relation to hope.
A paragraph (n.3) from Pope Francis' Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee 2025 describes the grounds for Christian hope:
By his perennial presence in the life of the pilgrim Church, the Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope. He keeps that light burning, like an ever-burning lamp, to sustain and invigorate our lives. Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or the sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35.37-39). Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life. As Saint Augustine observes: “Whatever our state of life, we cannot live without these three dispositions of the soul, namely, to believe, to hope and to love”.
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