‘¿Qué es eso de creer?’ Religious Belief in Miguel de Unamuno and Gabriel Marcel

Abstract

Though not systematic philosophers in the accepted sense, Miguel de Unamuno and Gabriel Marcel were certainly thinkers who made important contributions in areas that most academic philosophers fear to enter lest they earn the scorn of their analytic colleagues. Neither Unamuno nor Marcel had any such fears, and both ventured boldly into areas of spiritual experience that do not lend themselves comfortably to rigorous analytical treatment. One of these was the nature of religious belief which occupies a prominent place both in their philosophical essays and in their imaginative creations. By looking at a number of essays and works of literature, the present essay uncovers significant coincidences between the two writers and some divergences as well. While their ideas on the nature of faith are scarcely orthodox ones within prevailing Christian traditions, both nevertheless displayed a creative commitment to exploring the reality of spiritual experience, of what it means to have faith.