Not By Bread or Theory Alone. Unamuno, Life 9.6
~ Unamuno sees belief or faith (he does not distinguish the two) as active commitment that necessarily transcends any kind of intellectual conviction. The latter is not sufficient to inspire lively action, which needs more will than it is ever capable of drawing down. ~
Mas, por otra parte, este elemento personal de la creencia le da un carácter afectivo, amoroso y sobre todo, en la fe religiosa, el referirse a lo que se espera. Apenas hay quien sacrificara la vida por mantener que los tres ángulos de un triángulo valgan dos rectos, pues tal verdad no necesita del sacrificio de nuestra vida; mas, en cambio, muchos han perdido la vida por mantener su fe religiosa, y es que los mártires hacen la fe más aún que la fe los mártires. Pues la fe no es la mera adhesión del intelecto a un principio abstracto, no es el reconocimiento de una verdad teórica en que la voluntad no hace sino movernos a entender; la fe es cosa de la voluntad, es movimiento del ánimo hacia una verdad práctica, hacia una persona, hacia algo que nos hace vivir y no tan sólo comprender la vida.
La fe nos hace vivir mostrándonos que la vida, aunque dependa de la razón, tiene en otra parte su manantial y su fuerza, en algo sobrenatural y maravilloso. Un espíritu singularmente equilibrado y muy nutrido de ciencia, el del matemático Cournot, dijo ya que es la tendencia a lo sobrenatural y a lo maravilloso lo que da vida, y que a falta de eso, todas las especulaciones de la razón no vienen a parar sino a la aflicción de espíritu. (Traité de l’enchaînement des idées fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l’histoire, § 329.) Y es que queremos vivir.
Faith makes us live by showing us that life, though it relies and depends on reason, has its springs and power elsewhere, in something supernatural and miraculous. The mathematician Cournot, a singularly balanced spirit or soul, much nurtured on science, told us already that it is our affinity for the supernatural and miraculous that gives life, and that without it, all rational speculation leads only to spiritual affliction (†). We want and love and long to live (‡).
(‡) Here Unamuno inserts a note directing us to St. Thomas' Summa Theologica, II.2, Q4.2, which maintains that faith resides in the subject rather than the intellect, citing St. Augustine (who makes faith subsist in the will of believers, in credentium voluntate: De praedestinatione sanctorum V).
La fe nos hace vivir mostrándonos que la vida, aunque dependa de la razón, tiene en otra parte su manantial y su fuerza, en algo sobrenatural y maravilloso. Un espíritu singularmente equilibrado y muy nutrido de ciencia, el del matemático Cournot, dijo ya que es la tendencia a lo sobrenatural y a lo maravilloso lo que da vida, y que a falta de eso, todas las especulaciones de la razón no vienen a parar sino a la aflicción de espíritu. (Traité de l’enchaînement des idées fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l’histoire, § 329.) Y es que queremos vivir.
On the other side of things, this personal element inherent in belief gives it an affective quality, endowing it with love and orienting it also towards hope, at least in the case of religious faith. Hardly anyone would sacrifice his life to maintain that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals that of two right angles, as this truth is not one of those that needs us to offer our lives. But many have died to maintain their religious faith; in fact, it is more correct to say that martyrs make faith than that faith makes martyrs. For faith is not merely an intellectual adherence to abstract principle. It is not the recognition of theoretical truth, an event in which our will plays a minimal role, moving us only to understand. Faith is a matter of vital & vibrant will, a motion of the soul toward practical truth—toward a person, toward something that makes us live & do more than just understand this life.
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(†) Unamuno refers the reader here to Cournot's Treatise on the Development of Fundamental Ideas in the Sciences and in History, published in 1861. Antoine Augustin Cournot (1801-77) was a French philosopher & mathematician, remembered chiefly for his work on oligopoly, the tendency of historical markets to create few potent agents, & for the insight that economists should not use math to speak too precisely about market realities (which are not perfectly or precisely legible, in mathematical terms).