This Incredible Need to Believe

"Unlike Freud, I do not claim that religion is just an illusion and a source of neurosis. The time has come to recognize, without being afraid of frightening either the faithful or the agnostics, that the history of Christianity prepared the world for humanism." So writes Julia Kristeva in this provocative work, which skillfully upends our deeply entrenched ideas about religion, belief - and the thought and work of a renowned psychoanalyst and critic. Through a clever patchwork of dialogue, lectures, and excerpts of essays, Kristeva analyzes our "incredible need to believe" - the inexorable push toward faith that, for Kristeva, lies at the heart of the psyche and the history of society.

Examining the lives, theories, and convictions of Saint Teresa of Avila, Sigmund Freud, Donald Winnicott, Hannah Arendt, and other prominent individuals, Kristeva investigates the human desire for God and the shadowy zone in which belief resides. She suggests that human beings are formed by their need to believe, beginning with our first attempts at speech and following through to our adolescent search for identity and meaning. Kristeva then applies her insight to contemporary religious clashes and the plight of immigrant populations, especially those of Islamic origin. Even if we no longer have faith in God, Kristeva argues, we must believe in human destiny and creative possibility. Reclaiming Christianity's openness to self-questioning and the quest for knowledge, Kristeva urges a "new kind of politics", one that will restore the integrity of the human community.