Miguel de Unamuno's Quest for Faith: A Kierkegaardian Understanding of Unamuno’s Struggle to Believe

It is important to record the actions taken by this Spanish philosopher that affected the trajectory of Spanish history, actions that sprang from his faith and his longing for God to exist.

“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”

Unamuno claims that truth must be lived and his truth, his faith is querer creer (to want to believe).

These two authors offer an important counter-discourse for our twenty-first century aversion of suffering, but the ultimate purposes of that suffering are very different in Unamuno and Kierkegaard, and those goals should be clear to anyone who would take up the possibility of seeing positive ends for suffering.

“unhealed wound”

One can reasonably ask if Unamuno’s stance of privileging doubt over faith keeps him from the more robust Christian faith of Kierkegaard and Pascal.

While I will argue that Kierkegaard and Pascal share much of Unamuno’s view, it is ultimately Unamuno’s view of reason that is the source of his inability to make the leap of faith that Kierkegaard and Pascal make. Kierkegaard and Pascal see that there are limits to human reason and this makes them approach the problem of the “hiddenness of God” ve

Is doubt a necessary part of faith? Are doubt and faith mutually exclusive? Are there dangers in claiming certainty for belief?

Truth only becomes truth as it is acted on in passion and becomes embodied in a person’s life.