Dostoevsky

Focusing only on aspects of Dostoevsky’s work that relate to questions of religion, this chapter begins by examining the role of suffering in its manifold forms, including sickness and disease, social injustice, psychological disturbance, and violence. For Dostoevsky, deliverance from suffering must involve more than material betterment, and freedom must have a decisive role in any truly productive response. However, freedom must do more than protest, since humility and forgiveness also have a central role. Both question and response are figured in an exemplary way in the Bible, and Dostoevsky makes significant use of biblical figures such as Job and, especially, Christ. Several characters in the novels are often seen as Christ figures (Sonia Marmeladova, Prince Myshkin), though their roles remain debatable. More generally, the question is raised as to whether Dostoevsky’s ‘weak’, kenotic Christ has power to save, although Alyosha’s dream in The Brothers Karamazov also hints at the glorified Christ in heaven. Russia has a particular providential role in salvation in Dostoevsky’s journalism and also, though ambiguously, in the novels. Despite possible perceptions of narrow nationalism, Dostoevsky was from early on seen as speaking to the universal-human condition (thus Soloviev), and his work has been positively received in the West as contributing to a theological response to the crises of modernity.