In this Green Paper we shall provide an overview of the history of the theology of faith, hope, and love, with specific emphasis on their reception as virtues. As we shall see, the history of these terms has seen marked differences in the way in which each of the three has been understood; the understanding of concept of virtue itself; the understanding of what agency consists in; and the level of involvement of the agent in the acquisition and exercise of the three.
In what follows we shall focus on a number major figures in the history of theology, at times using them as points of departure to discuss the context in which their thinking emerged. We shall begin by discussing the locus classicus of faith, hope, and love within the theological tradition: St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. By examining Paul’s letter, we shall identify a number of questions with which to focus our discussion of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Paul Tillich.

In October 2015 we published ‘Experiences of Powerlessness in End-of-Life Care’. This paper identified three key features of experiences of powerlessness as described in advanced medical research. Moreover, we proposed that these features manifest an experience of powerlessness insofar as they undermine what we called ‘the power to be oneself’. In this paper, our aim is to deepen the discussion of this latter notion.