 Because of this ambivalence, hope in the ordinary sense is not a virtue for Aquinas. As a passion, humans can display an excess and a deficiency of hope (ST II-II 17.5); furthermore, passions are not virtues by definition (Bobier 2018). This changes, however, as soon as we examine theological hope, i.e., the hope we can put in God. First, as primarily directed towards God, such hope does not know any excess. Second, we cannot understand theological hope as a passion. We must analyze it as a habit of the will. While hope as a passion can only be incited by sensible goods (and subsequently motivates action insofar as the subject takes herself to be capable of realizing that good), we can also hope for God’s assistance (ST II-II 17.1) in reaching eternal happiness (ST II-II 17.2). As eternal life and happiness are not sensible goods, this kind of hope cannot be a passion but must reside in the will (ST II-II 18.1). Note, however, that Aquinas describes the theological virtues as habits of the will of a special sort: They cannot be acquired by habituation, but can only be given by God’s grace (ST II-II 17.1, see Pinsent 2020 for an interpretation of hope as an “infused” virtue).