We trust people, not events. Unamuno, Life 9.2
Unamuno
believes that faith is ultimately a matter of belief, which in his
mind means that it is always doubtful of material events &
directed properly toward persons rather than things. We trust people,
even when they are unable to deliver perfectly on particular promises
(because of misunderstanding or misfortune). We do not trust events.
Pero
la fe, que es al fin y al cabo algo compuesto en que entra un
elemento conocitivo, lógico o racional juntamente con uno afectivo,
biótico o sentimental, y en rigor irracional, se nos presenta en
forma de conocimiento. Y de aquí la insuperable dificultad de
separarla de un dogma cualquiera. La fe pura, libre de dogmas, de que
tanto escribí en un tiempo, es un fantasma. Ni con inventar aquello
de la fe en la fe misma se salía del paso. La fe necesita una
materia en que ejercerse.
El
creer es una forma de conocer, siquiera no fuese otra cosa que
conocer nuestro anhelo vital y hasta formularlo. Sólo que el término
creer tiene en nuestro lenguaje corriente una doble y hasta
contradictoria significación, queriendo decir, por una parte el
mayor grado de adhesión de la mente a un conocimiento como
verdadero, y de otra parte una débil y vacilante adhesión. Pues si
en un sentido creer algo es el mayor asentimiento que cabe dar, la
expresión «creo que sea así, aunque no estoy de ello seguro», es
corriente y vulgar.
Lo
cual responde a lo que respecto a la incertidumbre, como base de fe,
dijimos. La fe más robusta, en cuanto distinta de todo otro
conocimiento que no sea pístico
o de fe —fiel
como si dijéramos—, se basa en incertidumbre.
Y es porque la fe, la
garantía de lo que se espera, es, más que adhesión racional a un
principio teórico, confianza en la persona que nos asegura algo. La
fe supone un elemento personal objetivo. Mas bien que creemos algo,
creemos a alguien que nos promete o asegura esto o lo otro. Se cree a
una persona y a Dios en cuanto persona y personalización del
Universo.
Este
elemento personal, o religioso, en la fe es evidente. La fe, suele
decirse, no es en sí ni un conocimiento teórico o adhesión
racional a una verdad, ni se explica tampoco suficientemente su
esencia por la confianza en Dios. «La fe es la sumisión íntima a
la autoridad espiritual de Dios, la obediencia inmediata. Y en cuanto
esta obediencia es el medio de alcanzar un principio racional es la
fe una convicción personal.» Así dice Seeberg.
But
faith is ultimately a composite thing, made from a logical, rational,
or knowing element united with an affective, lively, or sentimental
one. Though irrational, strictly speaking, still she presents to us
in the form of knowledge. Hence the insuperable difficulty we face
whenever we try to separate her from any particular dogma. Pure
faith, freed of every dogma, about which I have written so much in
the past, is an illusion. Not even the trick of imagining that we
have faith in faith herself was able to overcome this hurdle, in my
earlier attempts (†). Faith needs matter for her work, a material
substrate.
Belief
is a kind of knowledge, even if only the kind that comes from
recognizing our desire to live such that we can express it in a
coherent shape. In our time, believing has taken on a double
meaning that contradicts itself: on the one hand, it indicates the
strongest commitment of which our mind is capable, a conviction that
some particular knowledge must be true; on the other, it points to a
weak and vacillating mental commitment. For if believing something is
the strongest affirmation of it that we are able to give,
nevertheless it is still quite common to hear phrases like this one: “I
believe that such is the case, but I am not at all sure of
it.”
This
is in keeping with our earlier observation that doubt is the basis of
faith.The strongest faith, strongest inasmuch as it stands apart from any other
knowledge that might partake in belief or conviction—faith that is
faithful, in other words—stands on a foundation of uncertainty. The
reason for this is that our guarantee of things hoped for is more our confidence in a person who guarantees than it is any sort of
rational commitment to a theoretic principle. Faith supposes an
element of objective personality. We believe more in persons than in
things: the person who promises or assures us of something is more
faithful than any of the things promised per se. Belief, then, is for
persons, belonging to God inasmuch as he is the person and
personification of the universe.
This personal or religious element in faith is evident. We are already accustomed to say that faith is neither a theoretical knowledge of the truth, nor a rational commitment to it, nor even simply a confidence in God. “Faith is intimate submission to the spiritual authority of God, an immediate inner obedience to Him. Insofar as this obedience becomes our means of acquiring a rational principle, faith is a personal conviction.” Thus Seeberg (‡).
---
(†)
Perhaps a reference to Unamuno's plays The Sphinx (La
esfinge, 1898)
& The Truth
(La
verdad, 1899).
See the twelfth volume of his complete works in the Vergara edition
(ed. in 16 volumes by Manuel García
Blanco, 1958-64).
(‡)
Reinhold Seeberg (1859-1935), a German evangelical theologian
remembered
eventually for his somewhat unfortunate fixation with the modern
problem of Christ's race. Unamuno is here citing Seeberg's Christliche-protestantische
Ethik (1.4,
1906)
in the multiauthored
series
Die Kultur der
Gegenwart (ed.
Hinneberg, 1905-26), which he uses repeatedly as a source for
academic theology.