And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:13
My wife and I chose Corinthians as part of our wedding mass. It's one of my favourite passages. That said, I've heard the argument that the passage is wrong, that in fact it is hope that is the strongest, because without hope what do we have left? I've considered how this applies in fiction for a while and I've come to the conclusion that, in fact, Corinthians is correct.
There are times when the hero has lost everything, when there's nothing left to fight for, even the hope that the villain can be defeated. A rational person would give up and let the bad guys win.
Luckily, human beings are far from rational.
Sometimes a person will keep fighting, despite all odds. They'll stand to protect someone because they can't stand to see them hurt and they'll do anything, even face certain death, to try and prevent their suffering. Not because they think they have any chance of succeeding, but because they love them. Sometimes, just trying to make a difference is what really matters.
And that is stronger than anything in the world.
Nov 16, 2011
Faith, Hope and Love
Paul Anthony Shortt believes in magic and monsters. In ghosts and fairies. The creatures that lurk under the bed and inside the closet. The things that live in the dark, and the heroes who stand against them. Above all, he believes that stories have the power to change the world, and the most important stories are the ones which show that monsters can be beaten.
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I'm not sure how appropriate it is for me to be commenting on this, coming from a rather strongly non-religiousish perspective as I do.
ReplyDeleteBut I would like to say that I agree. Not just because of what you have said, but because it is so often in love- all different kinds of love- that we find things to have faith in and things to hope for. I have a kind of faith in an inherent goodness of most people. I have love for those around me, for the world in which we live, for knowledge and discovery and creativity. It is from this love that I draw my sense of hope, for it is only with love that we can know what to hope for.
I welcome everyone's opinion, regardless of their beliefs. Thank you for commenting!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't opening this up as a religious topic. I consider myself more spiritual than religious. I was more using the Corinthians quote as a jumping-off point for the topic, because it's what originally got me thinking about this. But love is a universal thing, not restricted by belief.
Absolutely! I was just unsure of where you were coming from, didn't want to tread on toes if you were being more specifically religious.
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