Sublime

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

Although Unamuno rejects the normal proofs for God’s existence and says many times that his own faith was destroyed by trying to rationalize God, he presents a compelling and richly intricate ground for belief in God, the only possible guarantor of our living after death.

Unamuno was convinced that out of the tragic sense of life—the despair and pain that unfulfilled religious longing entails—emerges heroics deeds, hope, and love.

The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought.

Unamuno was unhappy with God because God remains hidden, especially from reason. He was offended that the only avenue toward knowledge of God that God leaves open is revelation, which he could not accept.

respuesta creativa de Pessoa a un mundo

Doubts are, or at least can be, good things. Although Unamuno was quite prepared to doubt reason, it worries me that it never seemed to occur to him to doubt his doubts.