"Give an Account of Our Hope" (1 Pet 3:15)

Part One

Abstract

The article originally published in SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE TEOLOGÍA, De la hope to Solidarity. XX Argentine Week of Theology, San Benito - Buenos Aires - 2002, 19-65, will be published in two parts, the first of which deals with the texts of the A.T.

For some years now, various philosophers and sociologists have interpreted current times as the crisis of Modernity or even as its end. This is how the now well-known “Postmodern” neologism has been coined. 

Among others, one of the characteristics that is usually attributed to this new era of human history, is precisely a deep crisis of the hope that clearly demands its reformulation and resignification.

The beginning of the third millennium impresses as if it were marked for the loss of hope. The men of this age seem repeat the words that the prophet put in the mouth of the people of Judah during the great catastrophe of the destruction of the Kingdom and the Babylonian captivity: "Our bones are dried up and our hope. We are lost!" (Ez 37:11), or what the disciples who returned to Emmaus in sadness said to the risen Lord, not knowing who they were talking to: "We were hoping it was Him who will deliver Israel..." (Lk 24:21).

We are faced with a specific pastoral issue and urgent: According to the Word of God, what can we expect? What can humanity legitimately expect? It's a question that has to do God, who is the source, guarantor and agent of this hope and, in the final, ultimate and appropriate object.