‘The Dream that does not Cease to Haunt us’: Iris Murdoch’s Holiness

TL;DRAbstract

Iris Murdoch's philosophy consistently denies the existence of a personal God, the divinity of Christ and life after death, and is suspicious of Christian dogma and iconography. She assumes 'that human life has no external point'; 'we are transient mortal creatures subject to necessity and chance' and 'our destiny can be examined but it cannot be justified or totally explained. We are simply here' (EM, p. 365). Murdoch was born, however, into an Irish Protestant family: 'I could pray as soon as I could speak and I knew that God was present […] I had a feeling of communing with God' (TCHF, p. 209). This tension between the denial of God and a desire for God underlies her theological expression throughout her life.KeywordsHuman ConsciousnessChristian FaithSocial EvilTheological DebateLiberal TheologianThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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