Abstract
Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom offers a naturalistic, this-worldly theology with eloquence and heart. Nevertheless, from a religious studies perspective, there is a fair amount to criticize. This review essay identifies two shortcomings in this book and then develops a typology of religious teachings about eternal life in order to assess places where Hägglund’s critique succeeds.
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Notes
For a good argument that Hägglund should not call this-worldly commitments a secular ‘faith,’ see Pippin and Hägglund (2019).
Hägglund refers to the first kind of eternal life as ‘timeless repose’ (28). Kevin Hector (2020) also marks the distinction I am making, categorizing the two kinds as, respectively, ‘a mystical strand’ and ‘an abundant life strand’ of eternal life.
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Schilbrack, K. Spiritual Values for Those Without Eternal Life. SOPHIA 58, 753–759 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-00754-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-00754-8