As I reflect on my own desire to know and try to follow its instinctive orientation toward a fullness of being, truth, goodness and beauty, I can expect to find a satisfactory setting for this desire only in some version of a theological – and specifically eschatological – understanding of reality. Such a worldview could be declared illusory by definition only if it frustrated or failed to support the unfolding of my desire to know. But religious hope, including belief that my critical intelligence is in some sense imperishable, serves to shore up my natural inclination to value the mind in such a way as to encourage me to surrender humbly to its imperatives. Hope can serve the cause of truthfulness if it encourages me to remain faithful to my desire to know in the face of all apparent frustrations. I have proposed, therefore, that anticipation of subjective survival beyond death is much more consistent with, and supportive of, the spontaneous trust I place in my critical intelligence than naturalistic pessimism could ever be.