Religion

Abstract

In this chapter we will refer to both religious belief and practice: to questions of a theological and metaphysical nature, relating to Christianity and other religions; and to ways in which religious belief impinges on people's lives, as individuals and as members of societies. Such an approach accommodates Lorca's central conviction, shared with Nietzsche, that ‘God is dead’, and his exploration of the human consequences of that. Art may assuage where metaphysics fails to satisfy. Considered within a context of the history of ideas, Lorca's is not an unusual case, given central trends of Spanish liberal thought: many seriousminded people were repelled by the Catholic Church's doctrinal and political intransigence, but could not quell their anxiety over big questions that refuse to go away. One thinks here, for instance, of the lay ethos of the Residencia de Estudiantes that Lorca himself attended, or of the influence of a figure like Unamuno. The following survey cannot be exhaustive; it will aim, rather, to draw out a number of significant emphases within Lorca's writings.