Faith, Hope and Charity

Earlier today, during church namely, namely during the Elders' Quorum lesson, we were discussing Christ-like Attributes, as they are presented in Preach My Gospel. The first one to come up was charity. Oh, charity. For part of the discussion I ended up pondering to myself that the greatest of faith, hope and charity is the latter, and compared that to how they're all so intertwined. I suddenly found myself wondering what they'd become without each other, and realizing why we need all three. I pulled out a scrap of paper and came up with the following:

Faith w/o hope = despair. We know the existence and justice of God, but have no hope of salvation, leaving only the expectation of damnation.

Faith w/o charity = hypocrisy. We know God and declare His teachings to be true, but fail to live the greatest commandments.

Hope w/o faith = unfounded optimism. We feel sure of a future, a bright one, but have no sure reason for that belief. This makes for a golden investigator.

Hope w/o charity = selfishness. We desire and expect salvation, but have no concern for the rest of the race, and any service given is hollow, given only to display one's own obedience to the law.

Charity w/o faith = Incomplete charity. A spiritual gift.

Charity w/o hope = Can lead to either an "carpe diem" attitude, motivating us to make the most of the time given, and help others as much as we can before whatever end comes, or it could lead to a doomsday attitude, in that we love everybody, but have no hope of their happiness, believing we're all doomed together to some unhappy fate. Either way, such charity is indubitably sincere, showing love without expecting pending retribution.


That's what I got so far. I am, though, not a prophet. No, really, I'm not. So this is sort of a rough draft on something I think will really boost my understanding of a lot of things. So I was thinking I'd post it on here and see what y'all had for insights. For myself I was surprised that, even though it's the basis of pretty much everything in existence, faith without the other virtues was decidedly negative in both cases, while the other virtues without faith seemed relatively okay, producing Doctrine & Covenants 123:12 sorts of people. Hope shows both sides, being able to both gladden or sour a life. Charity, though, is apparently a universally positive virtue, a great blessing even alone, and a great enhancement when combined with other virtues. Anybody with anything to add, comment away. Anybody who thinks I'm mistaken on any point, really comment away, cause I'd hate to have false doctrine running through my head, ya know?

And.... that's that. Bedtime.