Looking past the sphinx. Unamuno, Life 8.26
Unamuno
thinks that reason is not enough to show us the feelings we need for
a good life. These feelings or sentiments⸺hope, faith, charity,
beauty, purpose, kindness—originate necessarily from our
apprehension of something more than any rational plan or system is
sufficient to show. We cannot know rationally that these feelings are
warranted, that they occur objectively in a universe beyond our
being. They are not demanded from us, nor enforced upon us, but if we
find and choose to nurture them, they can grow within us to form a
revelation of the divine mystery that is Life (including but not
limited to our own momentary existence, as rational mortals). It is
our love and longing for life that shows us the face of God, Unamuno
thinks, a face that no rational calculation can ever reveal.
Y
ahora viene de nuevo la pregunta racional, esfíngica—la Esfinge,
en efecto, es la razón—de: ¿existe Dios? Esa persona eterna y
eternizadora que da sentido—y no añadiré humano, porque no hay
otro— al universo, ¿es algo sustancial fuera de nuestra
conciencia, fuera de nuestro anhelo? He aquí algo insoluble, y vale
más que así lo sea. Bástele a la razón el no poder probar la
imposibilidad de su existencia.
Creer
en Dios es anhelar que le haya y es además conducirse como si le
hubiera; es vivir de ese anhelo y hacer de él nuestro íntimo
resorte de acción. De este anhelo o hambre de divinidad surge la
esperanza; de ésta la fe y de la fe y la esperanza la caridad; de
ese anhelo arrancan los sentimientos de belleza, de finalidad, de
bondad.
Veámoslo.
Here
again we confront the question that reason poses, sphinx-like. (The
sphinx is effectively our reason.) Does God exist? The
eternal personage who makes personality eternal and gives feeling—I
shall not say human feeling,
for there is really no other kind—to
the universe: is this being
something substantial
outside our consciousness, a
material reality beyond the
realm of our desire? Behold a riddle with no solution, worth more
because we cannot know its answer. It
should be enough for our reason that she cannot prove that divine
existence is impossible.
Believing
in God is desiring him to exist, and moreover conducting ourselves as
though he did. This means that we live from our desire for him,
making God the most intimate origin for our own personal action. From
our desire or hunger for divinity, hope rises, and from her we take
faith: together, faith and hope give us charity. The eventual fruits
of this our desire for God are the feelings by which we know beauty,
purpose, and kindness.
Time
for a closer look at this desire.