Dostoyevsky seems to be indicating that man without God is nothing. The background for his writing is that of nineteenth century secularism. The Enlightenment had surpassed the Reformation to affirm as truth the idea of a godless cosmos, in which the state is supreme and its subjects have lost the dignity of the divine image. Erich Fromm was correct in stating that the intellectuals got rid of God in the eighteenth century and of man in the nineteenth. Dostoyevsky reminds us, however, that God and man cannot be destroyed by this idea. Perhaps two of the darkest rebels are the old father Karamazov, who represents the collective sin of Russia, and Stavrogin in The Possessed, who is the second generation rebel and revolutionary. Like Lenin and his successors, Stavrogin had come to the position of assuming that without God all things – such as terrorism and murder – are permissible. The elder Zossima describes such a condition as hell; he reflects upon the question, “What is hell?” and answers it by replying that it is “the suffering of being unable to love” (page 234). Such is the awful consequence of the freedom granted to us to negate God, and with him our origin and destiny.
Creative freedom, on the other hand, is an act of grace. The gospel bears witness to the only One who was and is truly free. Like the pious people of the peasantry, Dostoyevsky saw the humiliation of God in Jesus, as it is described by St. Paul in Philippians 2:5–11, as the essence of the gospel. This humiliation as the essence of the gospel is, however, a phase of the divine exaltation in which we are included. In this respect the teaching of Irenaeus in the second century ad had a great deal of influence upon the spiritual life of the Russian Orthodox Church. His teaching is more timely than ever: namely, God became man that man might become one with God.
In Crime and Punishment Dostoyevsky tells the story of Raskolnikov, who believes himself to be liberated from the old morality of Christian culture to the extent that he is free to murder a woman whom he presumes to be a useless member of society. His crime appears to be without purpose and without passion. He is one of those who prides himself upon his inability to love. Yet it is by the love of Sonia, a Russian version of Mary Magdalene, that he is claimed by grace. He sees in her “a sort of insatiable compassion” which leads him to his first act of repentance (page 105). While still trying to believe in his freedom from God he turns to her, bends down, drops to the ground, and kisses her foot (page 110). This irrational act adds to his confusion to the extent that he tries to dismiss her as a “religious maniac.” Nevertheless, he asks her to read the miracle of the raising of Lazarus. This she does. In doing so she reads it in such a way that her reading of it is her great confession: “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the son of God which should come into the world” (page 119). By her faith the power of grace that brought Lazarus from the corruption of the grave is repeated in the experience of Raskolnikov. He has the assurance that by this grace he will be forgiven at the Last Judgment. He is thus liberated from the bondage of sin, guilt, and fear.
As Sonia, the humiliated woman, is the agent of Raskolnikov’s redemption, so the humiliated people of Russia will be the agent of its deliverance from the consequences of the sin of the nineteenth century intellectuals. This is a prophecy that may well be in the process of being fulfilled at the moment. “But God will save Russia as he has saved her many times. Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and their meekness” (page 223). It is those who share in the fellowship of suffering that share in the liberating action of the living God. The eyes of their faith are opened by grace so that they behold the mystery of God revealed in Christ’s agony on the cross. They understand, as the intellectuals cannot, that their salvation is beyond rational knowledge. It is of faith, for faith is our response to God’s revelation in Christ.
At this point it may be well to think about Dostoyevskv’s free characters. Three in particular are:
1. The underground man – or the equivalent of the ant who lives under the floorboards – is the man who dares to be free no matter how irrational such a claim may be. Despite the rational structuring of society and the attempted abolition of human freedom, he refuses to be a stop in the organ that can be pulled and pressed at the command of some superorganist. He is free to be absurd and to defy the system.
2. Prince Myshkin of The Idiot is the aristocrat who disregards the position granted to him by birth and wealth in order to take his place among the people in his freedom to be a fool in the eyes of his peers for Christ’s sake. His identity is with the humiliated Christ, and as such he is called upon to engage in his acts of deliverance. In his love for Nastasya Filippovna he is moved to bring – or at least to make the attempt to bring – Christ’s salvation to her, mad though she may be. In doing so he is reflecting the image of Christ – thus incurring the wrath of his critics who abuse and despise him and yet inwardly love him, even as the repentant rebel on the cross turned to Jesus beseeching deliverance. In describing the witness of the Prince, Dostoyevsky seems to be drawing upon the image of the suffering Messiah of Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12, which in turn is similar to the great kenotic passage in Philippians 2; Prince Myshkin thus is free to suffer. This is the cross he has accepted.
3. Alyosha is the pilgrim, and disciple, who learns that by repentance we participate in the benefits of Christ’s deliverance and are thus set free to love and to be responsible. Like Raskolnikov he is captured by grace. It is not his doing nor even of his seeking. Salvation is a happening beyond the control of church or state. It is an ecstasy of response to the wind of God that blows where it wills.
The miracle of grace in Alyosha’s life is related to Christ’s first miracle at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee. By the narration of this miracle Alyosha becomes aware that Christ visits people in their gladness to intensify their joy. Again, it is the humiliated who possess the gladness to respond ecstatically to the joy of Christ.
It is the elder Zossima, who in reflecting the grace of Jesus, leads Alyosha into his presence. By him he was called to participate in the joy of the celebration. Thus, in his dream, he perceives that the dead elder Zossima is alive in the power of the resurrection. It is to this life eternal that he is invited as the elder Zossima takes him by the hand to raise him from his knees. As he rises he hears the staretz say, “We are drinking the new wine, the wine of new, great gladness” (page 194).
Suddenly the mystery is revealed. His soul is filled to overflowing with rapture. In his ecstasy he throws himself down on the earth to kiss it and water it with his tears. By this unprecedented act “He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion…‘Someone visited my soul in that hour’” (page 198). How similar this is to the humiliation and exaltation of Raskolnikov.
Alyosha not only waters the earth with his tears and loves the stars, he also assumes the responsibility of “all men’s sins.” By such an act of love he fulfills the purpose of his freedom and participates in God’s continuing work of redemption. It is only by such love that he learns to “perceive the divine mystery in things” (page 229). This exhortation by Zossima is a moving poem of agape. In such love we may understand better the beatitude of the meek inheriting the earth.
Alyosha is the Christian who, in his freedom, responds to the living gospel. In responding he freely accepts responsibility for the sins and salvation of his fellow sinners. He loves in the love of Christ. By such love the condemnation of the ultimate judgment is overcome, and the mystery of the revelation is understood. Behind such a position we may note the good news of John 3:16: God loved, God gave his Son, God gives eternal life, God sets us free from the bondage of sin. Along with it is the testimony of St. John in the fourth chapter of his first letter: “God is love…There is no room for fear in love; perfect love banishes fear…We love because He loved us first.” Dostoyevsky’s love of the gospel is thus clearly evident in his writings, and Alyosha reflects his own pilgrimage to the city of God, the kingdom which is not of this world.
Dostoyevsky’s hosanna of faith was hammered out on the anvil of doubt. Doubt does not imply ignorance, nor denial of the gospel, but rather the testing of the truth of the gospel. He tells in his Diary of a Writer that he was brought up in a pious Russian family. He received instruction in the gospel “almost from the cradle.” Such an upbringing was unusual among the Russian intellectuals