Today, in a Western secular context, the affective phenomenon of religious zeal is often associated, or even identified, with religious intolerance, violence, and fanaticism. Even if the zealots’ devotion remains restricted to their private lives, “we” as Western secularists still suspect them of a lack of reason, rationality, and autonomy. However, closer consideration reveals that religious zeal is an ethically and politically ambiguous phenomenon. In this article, I explore the question of how this ambiguity can be explained. I do so by drawing on Paul Ricœur’s theory of affective fragility and tracing back the ambiguity of religious zeal to a dialectic inherent to human affectivity and existence itself. According to Ricœur, human affectivity is constituted by the two poles of vital and spiritual desires which are mediated by the thymos. As I show, this theory helps us to understand that religious zeal as a spiritual desire is neither plainly good nor plainly bad, but ambiguous. Moreover, it enables us to acknowledge the entanglement of abstraction and concretion that is inherent to the phenomenon of religious zeal. Finally, this theory helps us to understand why religious zeal, as one possible expression of the human quest for the infinite, is both a promise and a threat. In conclusion, human existence is tragic not in that we necessarily fail, but in that no matter which path we take with regard to our spiritual desires—that of affirmation, rejection, or moderation—we are and remain fallible.

今天，在西方的世俗背景下，宗教狂热的情感现象常常与宗教不容忍、暴力和狂热联系在一起，甚至被等同于宗教不宽容、暴力和狂热。即使狂热者的奉献仅限于他们的私人生活，作为西方世俗主义者的“我们”仍然怀疑他们缺乏理智、理性和自主性。然而，仔细考虑就会发现，宗教狂热在伦理和政治上是一种模棱两可的现象。在这篇文章中，我探讨了如何解释这种歧义的问题。为此，我借鉴了 Paul Ricoeur 的情感脆弱性理论，并将宗教热情的模糊性追溯到人类情感和存在本身固有的辩证法。根据利库尔的观点，人类的情感是由生命欲望和精神欲望的两个极点构成的，这两个极点由胸腺。正如我所展示的，这个理论帮助我们理解作为一种精神欲望的宗教热情既不是明显的好也不是明显的坏，而是模棱两可的。此外，它使我们能够认识到宗教热情现象所固有的抽象和具体的纠缠。最后，这个理论帮助我们理解为什么宗教热情作为人类对无限追求的一种可能表达方式，既是一种希望也是一种威胁。总而言之，人类存在的悲剧性并不在于我们必然会失败，而是在于无论我们选择哪条道路来满足我们的精神欲望——肯定、拒绝或节制——我们都会犯错，而且仍然会犯错。