Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to analyze Unamuno’s reasoning for claiming that we are all inevitably led to his notion of religious faith given our own anguished condition, the “sentimiento trágico de la vida” (“the tragic feeling of life”). The kind of religious understanding of the world Unamuno’s religious faith consists in is explained, as well as how that religious understanding is taken to move us to a lovingly agapistic giving of ourselves over to the whole world, thereby arousing in us the feeling of communion with the whole world.
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Notes
- 1.
My translation. The Spanish text reads: “Y si te he de decir la verdad, me duele y me hiere el ver que los hombres marchen tan confiados como si marcharan por suelo firme, confiados en sus prejuicios y antiprejuicios, unos de la fe religiosa, esclavos otros de la ciencia, esclavos otros de la ignorancia, esclavos todos. Quiero que duden, quiero que sufran, quiero sobre todo que se desesperen, quiero que sean hombres y no progresistas. La desesperación, aunque resignada, es acaso el estado más alto del hombre. Dios, amigo, no me trajo al mundo como apóstol de paz ni para cosechar simpatías, sino como sembrador de inquietudes y de irritaciones y para soportar la antipatía. Esta, la antipatía, es el precio de mi redención”.
- 2.
For those interested in the study of the literary works of Unamuno, it is worth mentioning that this is what explains that love is as present as death in Unamuno’s novels, or even more so.
References
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Oya, A. (2020). Love, Charity, and the Argument from Common Consent. In: Unamuno's Religious Fictionalism. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54690-8_7
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