The two states are completely different. In despair, hope is gone. Faith is gone. Love has been destroyed.
In the Dark Night, one hopes and works out of faith without any assurance of salvation and without clarity of sight.
Faith and hope are operative in the Dark Night. In the Dark Night, especially that of the soul, one makes acts of faith and hope over and over and over.
One suffers intensely in the Dark Night, but in faith.
To be continued....
