Miguel De Unamuno goes on to comment on what he believes a truly Christian life should look like. For him, any Christian life must in some way 'embody' or 'incarnate' the agony of God and the true agony that lies at the heart of the Christian life. For this reason, Unamuno is skeptical of any attempts at apologetics or at a rational Christianity, for he thinks that such an effort seeks to remove the 'agonic' aspects of Christian life. Robbing Christianity of it's essential tension, of the tension that causes rage and pain, is to rob Christianity of it's very spirit, and it's creativity. For Unamuno, the war between reason and faith, between an agonic Christianity and the attempt to create a rational culture, is the war that births true and authentic western civilization.
Unamuno doesn't think a simple roadmap can be given as to how a Christian should live. Rather, we must look for people who seem to be paradigms of Christian agony and try to live like them. We must 'incarnate' these lives in our own, just as they incarnated Christ in their own lives. The truth is, though, that Unamuno does think one particular kind of Christian life is purer...that of the monastic. For him, the monastic's pain at separation from the world, and his total devotion to God is a kind of living testimony to the true cost of discipleship.
But even in a monastery, politics and human relationships play a role. The world seeps into the monastic community, and this causes tension and discord. Everyone has to make SOME compromise with the world, and this compromise is the source of proper agony, as Unamuno sees it. Involvement with the world is inevitable, and everyone must accept this. But to accept this is not to like it. One has to feel a fear, a kind of dread, a dread that one's very soul may be at risk as a result of this compromise with the world. From this dread comes the agony that is the very heart of Christianity.
The two men that Unamuno thinks most exemplify the agony of our faith are: Blaise Pascal and Father Hyacinth Loyson. Unamuno thinks that Pascal felt more acutely than most the conflict between faith and reason. Pascal was both scientist and theologian, and he couldn't see any way out of life besides suicide: either of the self (by rejecting faith) or of the mind (by accepting it). Pascal's marriage to this kind of suicidal pact is, on Unamuno's view, proof of his agony and thus of his union with God. But Unamuno leaves out the 'night of fire' that Pascal speaks of. Unamuno paints Pascal as a man who never found a firm ground for his faith. But this isn't entirely true....Pascal's mystical experience ended up being the resolution of his inner contradiction. Thus Pascal is not as much a tragic figure as Unamuno makes him out to be. The agony of Christianity ended in unity for Pascal, and so agony turned to joy.
Father Hyacinth, who I was unfamiliar with but now really want to know more about, apparently was a monk who fell in love with a woman, and so left the cloister to join with the world, where he became a theologian and political speaker. Hyacinth was keenly aware of the compromise he was making by joining the world, and this filled him with the kind of dread that Unamuno thinks is the mark of the true 'agonic' Christian.
In the end Unamuno remains an essentially tragic thinker. But to me his tragic premises do not need to lead to tragic conclusions. He has, unwittingly, opened a way out of tragedy and agony, by coming to understand it's divine roots. For if sharing in God's agony leads to union with God, then it is also a pathway to joy and peace. Not a joy and peace found by leaving the storm, which Unamuno rightly sees as cowardice and weakness, but a peace within the storm, a peace born of its very essence. The Cross is proof that such a peace and such a union with God can be found. Unamuno's method and premises are spot on, and this book is one I thoroughly enjoyed and learned from immensely. But his final conclusions are off. In the end, I highly recommend this book, but only for those who can think critically and who are not too easily influenced. For it is dangerous in its persuasiveness. Embrace agony...but seek in the end to transcend it.
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