I would say that you have faith in doctrine, but hope for the things promised. Faith is merely belief without evaluative content, but hope is a wish or desire that certain of the things potentially believed in become true. One can - from a secular perspective - hope without belief, for even a skeptic could hope for a life in heaven without belief in it’s likelihood. One cannot have faith without belief though, for faith is belief in religious or theological dogma. I think that therefore faith and hope can be independent, but in the religious context are related like a path and a walk, like hunger and a meal. Hope is a kind of “forehaving”, a walk along the path of theological possibility, an ‘imaginitive’ taste of potential future goods with the wish that that vicarious enjoyment become real.
When hope is a theological virtue it is connected to faith and therefore belief. One has faith in the future state and potential goods stemming from God and the religios life, and one hopes, or wishes (with belief in real possibility) that some or all of those goods will come one’s way. It is a preference for certain anticipated things.
I think that a sin against hope is presumption, and another is despair. They represent the two extremes of too much belief or too little belief. So, hope as a Christian virtue has a element of belief or faith and it is the middle way betwen two extremes.
Running through this thread are faith, belief and hope. Perhaps it is irrational to hope without some belief in the possibility of the hoped for coming into being. So, from the theological perspective, hope assumes a degree of faith in the Christian believer and to him or her hope is a rational response. Maybe even the skeptic would admit that it is irrational to hope without a degree of thinking something plausible.
For the Catholic, deliberate skepticism about dogma is a sin, an action to avoid. Therefore it is a sin to deliberately loose hope also. Perhaps therefore the life of faith involves a “foretaste of heaven” … with the belief that things will improve!
One might mention a quote here from Mathew "
24And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
25When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?
26But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; **but with God all things are possible. **"
So in this context ordinary logic and inductive reasoning about possibility is shown to be inappropriate for the believer. So the hope of the faithful is wider ranging that the hope of the secular scientist. With the belief that God is ultimately good, though faith that hope is secured.
