" ... self-deceiving smugness ..."

"[Miguel de Unamuno] sought to challenge the self-deceiving smugness of anyone who fails to experience anguish rooted in our irreducible uncertainty about personal immortality.  He shared Pascal's horrified astonishment and anger at those insensitive to their eternal destiny, a concern for which, he believed, lies at the root of all religious striving:  'Religion is the yearning not to die, and is faith in immortality . . . reason by itself kills, and imagination gives life . . . for myself, I do not wish to make peace between my heart and my head, between my faith and my reason:  I want them to fight one another and to deny one another reciprocally, since their combat is my life.'"

--Eric Southworth, "Nigh Is the End," Times Lit. Supp., Dec. 7, 2007, at 25 (reviewing Miguel de Unamuno, Treatise on the Love of God).