A review by benplatt
This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund

4.0

An excellently structured and explained bit of philosophy that never quite justifies the abandonment of all religion that seems to be the logical end of Hagglund's conclusions. Overcoming religious faith, as he advocates in the otherwise excellent conclusion, does not feel as though it follows from the explication of the previous hundreds of pages. His example of MLK Jr. feels like a sticking point for me - how is religious faith not a communally governed set of norms, ala Hegel's God? And for what reason should we abandon that method of deliberation if we can make it democratic? Are "we" (I'm not even sure who I mean by that) able to sustain a world of entirely secular faith with no aspirations for the spiritual eternal? I genuinely don't have answers to these questions, but I'm not quite convinced Hagglund does either. Despite all of that, what he does focus on, the connections between spiritual faith, eternity, and capitalism, are thoroughly compelling.