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Despair (theology)
In theology, despair is the abandonment of hope, typically in one's own salvation, in having one's sins forgiven, or in having the means to attain salvation. In some contexts, it has a moral dimension, which covers a "complete and voluntary" abandonment, while in others it is simply the abandonment itself.


 * Summa

Catholicism
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines despair as "the abandonment of hope in salvation and the forgiveness of sins". The Catechism contrasts it with the virtue of hope and considers it contrary to God's goodness, mercy, and justice. In some contexts, the Catechism also uses the term despair with a transitive definition, meaning to despair on behalf of someone else's salvation.

Thomas Aquinas wrote extensively on despair in the Summa Theologica. Aquinas describes despair as an irascible passion contrastively paired with hope. Like all other irascible and concupiscible passions, Aquinas did not believe that despair itself was sinful. Rather, these passions exist in all thinking animals and contain no moral element until reason or will is applied to them. Aquinas wrote that all the passions, including despair, could could lead to sin and to virtue.

Aquinas gives an explicit example of how despair can move an individual to the mutable good:

"Despair threatens danger in war, in account of a certain hope that attaches to it. For they who despair of flight, strive less to fly, but hope to avenge their death: and therefore in this hope they fight more bravely, and consequently prove dangerous to the foe."

A few modern theologians have disputed Aquinas' view of despair being morally neutral because – even originating from its neutral state – it can never lead to a mutable good, though others have vigorously defended Aquinas' view. Jeffrey Froula, chair of moral theology at Saint Patrick's Seminary and University, argues that, although Aquinas is right in stating that despair is of itself morally neutral, "there is something different about despair [...] as it is the only passion that is a movement away from a good object". Froula considers despair to have the capacity for movement towards a mutable good because it can be used to "free us from what would be an unreasonable preoccupation with some impossible or even unreasonably difficult good". He clarifies:

"Suppose a starving man were to come upon a massively tall apple tree, loaded with many luscious apples, some of which are hanging low in the tree, while one particularly delightful apple hangs from a small branch at the very top of the tree. There are too many branches in the way for the man to have any chance of knocking the apple down with a rock or stick, and besides, the fall would damage the fruit. Suppose further that the man who sees the delightful apple is actually physically unable to climb the tree without grave danger of falling and the serious injury that would come from it. What is the proper response of the starving man? Would it not be to despair of the delightful yet impossible apple and partake of some of the more accessible fruit?"

Aquinas attributed the origin of despair as deriving from both sloth and lust. According to Aquinas, lust can lead to despair by subordinating taste in spiritual good to a disproportionate enjoyment of physical pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure, whereas sloth can lead to a dominating depressive state that causes the mind to believe that the spirit is able to attain any "arduous good".

Protestantism
Regarding cheap grace, the need for despair?

The Cost of Discipleship.

In The Cost of Discipleship, Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer comments several times on despair. In a defense of Martin Luther's exhortation to "sin boldly", Bonhoeffer explains that, while no one is free from the inclination to sin, he views Luther's "sin boldly" statement as the "very last refuge" of hope from which a person despairing of never escaping his concupiscence and throws himself either headlong into sin or into what he termed "cheap grace" can find solace. In other words, when a person falsely believes that they can escape their sinful nature and then loses all hope in (i.e., despairs of) that escape, they will give into sin fully or fail to live up to the full embodiment of Christian virtue; instead, one should embrace the inevitability of sin but remain steadfast in striving against it, regaining hope and resting in the mercy of God.

In a reference to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Bonhoeffer alludes to despair as an attempt to relieve oneself of the burden of costly grace. He describes the final question from the lawyer in the parable – "Who is my neighbor?" – as "the parting shot of despair" and a final attempt "to justify his disobedience" to God.

Kierkegaard, certainly. Possibly a good source here.

Michael Theunissen contends that Kierkegaard secretly "would like to prove the existence of God by way of the existence of despair. That is, one proof for the divine power that established the self is to be provided by the despaired willing to be a self." What.

Kierkegaard appears to distinguish between two kinds of despair: despair of not wanting to be what one is (i.e., one's Dasein) "in defiance" or "for spite". Is this a correct interpretation of Theunissen? Basically, there is a "pre-given Dasein" and struggles against it are impossible; thus, the "revolt against God" itself leads to despair. This appears to be "authentic", wherein the rebel is conscious to his rebellion, whereas "inauthentic despair" refers to the "unconscious despair"; the lack of understanding of himself, that what he feels is despair, or even what despair is. Theunissen contests that despair is possible "without somehow knowing it", but one can have an inadequate idea of it. "Then, what is meant by it [what is "it"?] is likewise revealed as a not willing of another kind. As persons in inauthentic despair, we will not to be ourselves insofar as we do no even begin establishing ourselves in relation with our pre-given Dasein despair in which we are able to will or not to will it."

The Sickness Unto Death, particularly p.144 in Hannay's translation.

Judaism
"For a Jew it is a sin to despair."