Failure of education? Unamuno, Life 6.6
Unamuno
develops his theme that reason and faith require one another, as
foes, to render human life possible. We want to reconcile their war,
but we cannot. This is the tragedy of our situation. Here he finds it
in the history of European societies moving from the middle ages into
the present.
Al
cristianismo, a la locura de la cruz, a la fe irracional en que el
Cristo había resucitado para resucitarnos, le salvó la cultura
helénica racionalista, y a ésta el cristianismo. Sin éste, sin el
cristianismo, habría sido imposible el Renacimiento; sin el
Evangelio, sin San Pablo, los pueblos que habían atravesado la Edad
Media no habrían comprendido ni a Platón ni a Aristóteles. Una
tradición puramente racionalista es tan imposible como una tradición
puramente religiosa. Suele discutirse si la Reforma nació como hija
del Renacimiento o en protesta a éste, y cabe decir que las dos
cosas, porque el hijo nace siempre en protesta contra el padre.
Dícese también que fueron los clásicos griegos redivivos los que
volvieron a hombres como Erasmo a San Pablo y al cristianismo
primitivo, el más irracional; pero cabe retrucar diciendo que fué
San Pablo, que fué la irracionalidad cristiana que sustentaba su
teología católica, lo que les volvió a los clásicos. «El
cristianismo es lo que ha llegado a ser —se dice— sólo por su
alianza con la antigüedad, mientras entre los coptos y etíopes no
es sino una bufonada. El Islam se desenvolvió bajo el influjo de
cultura persa y griega, y bajo el de los turcos se ha convertido en
destructora incultura.»
Salimos
de la Edad Media y de su fe tan ardiente como en el fondo
desesperada, y no sin íntimas y hondas incertidumbres, y entramos en
la edad del racionalismo, no tampoco sin sus incertidumbres. La fe en
la razón está expuesta a la misma insostenibilidad racional que
toda otra fe. Y cabe decir con Roberto Browning, que «todo lo que
hemos ganado con nuestra incredulidad es una vida de duda
diversificada por la fe, en vez de una de fe diversificada por la
duda».
All
we have gained then by our unbelief
Is
a life of doubt diversified by faith,
For
one of faith diversified by doubt.
(Bishop
Blougram’s Apology.)
Y
es que, como digo, si la fe, la vida, no se puede sostener sino sobre
razón que la haga trasmisible —y ante todo trasmisible de mí a mí
mismo, es decir, refleja y consciente—, la razón a su vez no puede
sostenerse sino sobre fe, sobre vida, siquiera fe en la razón, fe en
que ésta sirve para algo más que para conocer, sirve para vivir. Y,
sin embargo, ni la fe es trasmisible o racional, ni la razón es
vital.
Rational
Greek culture saved Christianity—saved
the insanity of the cross, and the irrational faith that Christ
returned from the dead to resurrect us, too—and
Christianity saved Greek rationalism. Without Christianity, the
Renaissance would have been impossible. Without the gospel, without
Saint Paul, the nations who passed through the Middle Ages would
never have understood Plato or Aristotle. A tradition purely
rationalist is as impossible as one purely religious. We are used to
debating whether the Reformation was born as a daughter of the
Renaissance, or in protest against her: the correct answer is both,
for children are always born in protest against their parents. We are
also accustomed to hear that when the classic Greeks reappeared among
us, they transformed promptly into mere men, returning like Erasmus
to Saint Paul and primitive Christianity, which is most irrational.
To this we must rejoin that it was Saint Paul, whose Christian
unreason supported his catholic theology, who returned these folk to
the classics. “Christianity is what it is,” we are told, “only
because of its alliance with antiquity, being reduced to a clownshow
among the Copts and Ethiopians. Islam, meanwhile, developed under the
influence of Persian and Greek culture, and the Turks' cultivation
has turned it into destructive barbarism.” (†)
We
left the Middle Ages, scorched with faith so ardent that it betrayed
deep desperation, beset with doubts that touched us intimately and
profoundly. We left, and entered into the age of rationalism, which
bears its own uncertainties, its own doubts. Faith in reason is
subject to the same rational challenge as all other faith. It is
quite right to agree with Robert Browning (‡),
that all our incredulity has gained us is a life of doubt illustrated
by various faith, in place of a life of faith illustrated by shifting
doubts.
All
we have gained then by our unbelief
Is
a life of doubt diversified by faith,
For
one of faith diversified by doubt.
(Bishop Blougram’s Apology.)
If
matters stand the way I say, then faith and life cannot be sustained
without the foundation of reason, which makes them transmissible. The
most important transmission here involves me sharing them with
myself: reason is what renders life and faith objects of my own
reflection and awareness. If we grant this, then reason in her turn
becomes similarly reliant upon faith and life, as we must trust her,
must believe that she serves some end beyond simple knowledge. We
must have faith that she serves life. Nevertheless, to our chagrin,
faith is neither transmissible nor rational, and reason is not vital.
---
(†)
Unamuno finds this unduly harsh judgment of ancient east African
Christianity & Turkish Islam in Troeltsch's Systematische Christliche Religion
(pub. 1909), a volume in the
series Die Kultur der Gegenwart,
edited by Paul Hinnenberg.
(‡)
Robert Browning (1812-1888)
was an English poet, raised in a family of religious nonconformists
who allowed him ample means and freedom to study his interests alone
and with tutors, as his forays into school revealed profound distaste
for it. He married another poet, Elizabeth Barrett, and moved with
her to Italy, where he pursued
the career of writing for
publication (as did his wife,
with his encouragement, becoming a celebrated poet herself). Upon her
death, he returned to London, where he eventually published The
Ring and the Book, his magnum
opus. He died abroad, in his son's home in Venice.