In opposition to many of their contemporaries, Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard attempt to deal with the rise of modernity and its concomitant existential anxiety by asserting the necessity of subjection to the divine in order to achieve true freedom. This paper shall examine the encounter with the officer from Notes From the Underground and the three spiritual epiphanies in The Brothers Karamazov -- in light of the writings of Soren Kierkegaard, existentialist theologian Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be and Matin Buber’s I and Thou in order to demonstrate that, for Dostoyevsky, cleaving to God redresses existential anxiety by repairing divisions in the human will. Such divisions paralyze the 19th century man: he is fraught with choices, yet he does not have the necessary passion to execute his desires, and thus, his actions lack consequence, and he is consumed by his hunger for reflection. In order to lift himself from narcissistic nihilism, his passion must be wholly directed to God. Dostoyevsky's solution for the modern man, therefore, is a redirection of eros toward a proper object, such that he experiences an ascent into true Being.
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we will see face to face: now I know only in part; but then shall I know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love (αγάπη) abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor.:13:12-3)[1]
Much of 19th century thought can be characterized – either as a continuation of or reaction to – Marx’s summation of the present bourgeois age as being “all that is solid melting into air”.[2] Paradoxically, many Christian existentialists use the numinous as a source of solidity for the modern age. Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard attempt to deal with the rise of modernity and its concomitant existential anxiety by asserting the necessity of subjection to the divine in order to achieve true freedom. I shall examine the encounter with the officer in Notes From Underground and the three spiritual epiphanies in The Brothers Karamazov in light of the religious writings of Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber’s I and Thou, and existentialist theologian Paul Tillich's work The Courage to Be, in order to demonstrate that, for Dostoyevsky, cleaving to God redresses existential anxiety by repairing divisions in the human will. These divisions paralyze the 19th century man: he is fraught with choices while lacking the necessary passion to manifest his desires.
The Underground Man negates his humanity by being overwhelmed by nonbeing. The only way to escape this conflict, as Martin Buber suggests, is to enter into an authentic ‘I-Thou’ relationship. The Underground Man, however, only engages in an ‘I-I’ relationship. He therefore never experiences liberation through communion with the Other. These encounters may be experienced with other human beings but their highest form is that relationship which is with God. The Underground Man never achieves this relationship, and therefore is never free. In contrast, submission to God provides differing forms of solace for the majority of the principal characters in The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky’s solution for the 19th century man, therefore, is for him to redirect his eros away from narcissistic nihilism, and toward God, such that he experiences an ascent into true Being. This ascent requires a tentative faith, a courageous hope, and a self-sacrificing love.
Kierkegaard describes the present age as an age of passion lacking enthusiasm. (1)[3] Such passion, for Kierkegaard, results in the self-induced malady of the present man, caused by his excessive penchant for reflection. Likewise, the Underground Man opens with the statement “I am a sick man ... I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. …. However, I don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me. I am not being treated”. (5)[4] Though the Underground Man is undoubtedly physically ill, the mimetic relationship between his physical illness and existential ailments is of far more interest to this discussion. His two biological conditions – general sickness and inflamed liver – on a somatic level, inform the other two conditions of anger and spite on a psychological level. Yet there is a suggestion that if he was able to cure his psychological maladies, the others would become more bearable. Throughout the novel, as the Underground Man attests to himself (26) and Alina Wyman notes, the Underground Man has an uneasy – one may even suggest loathing – relationship to strict biological determinism[5]. Yet beyond these four maladies, there is a higher sickness, which, arguably, is the genesis of the lower states: the dread of non-being. He is ill, but does not understand why. What is more, he refuses to seek treatment. His enthusiasm and anger, as Kierkegaard suggests in The Present Age (1), flare up briefly and sink into the repose of inaction. Furthermore, Kierkegaard comments in Sickness unto Death that there is within each person despair about his existence, but that he who is aware of the despair and cognisant of its source, which for Kierkegaard is absence of the divine, is that much closer to redressing it. (SUD 133)[6]
The Underground Man is aware that he is sick, for, as Wyman further suggests, he is caught in the uneasy bind of the Russian intellectual: that is, the presence of both determinist ideologies and the opposing commitment to political liberalism corrode his intellectual faculty,[7] yet he does not apprehend the proper solution. Paul Tillich adds further nuance to the Underground Man’s predicament by distinguishing between fear and anxiety. He notes that fear is apprehension with a direct cause, whereas anxiety is apprehension human beings face when they confront nonbeing. Since nonbeing, by definition, cannot be manifest, anxiety cannot be attached to it: consequently, anxiety cannot be resolved and comes to paralyze the person without faith because he cannot properly deal with it except by a trust in the ground of Being itself (Tillich’s conceptual term for God). Yet such an encounter with the ground of Being requires what Martin Buber has called an authentic “I-thou” relationship, wherein one recognizes God as friend and partner, but also as holy other, which manifests itself in opposition to “I-it” relationships.[8] Less perfect, yet still meaningful manifestations of “I-thou” encounters, for Christian existentialists, are the authentic encounters that require one to experience a self-emptying communion with another human being.
While some recognize their full personhood and the agency of others, the Underground Man can achieve neither form of relationship, and, out of this failure, his spite and anxiety is born. Tillich develops a tripartheid typology of anxiety corresponding to what he views as the three main historical periods of human beings. For the classical period of human development, the main question at issue was finitude. For the medieval – and to a lesser extent, Renaissance – periods, there was tremendous anxiety concerning retribution. Yet, for the modern man, the principal anxiety is dread concerning meaninglessness. Each age has its own dominant anxiety, though all anxieties are experienced in every age. For Tillich, the idea of meaninglessness is often the most profound. It represents not the negation of the person at some future time but the perpetual ontological negation of the person occurring in the present. [9]
The Underground Man expresses his anxiety concerning meaninglessness when he laments his desire to become an insect, but regrets that he is incapable of even that pathetic feat (6-7). This assertion is a desperate acknowledgement of his own nonbeing; for he cannot even become the most insignificant of creatures. Furthermore, if Mikhail Bakhtin is to be believed, and the fundamental character of Dostoyevsky’s work is dialogical[10], then the tragedy of the Underground Man rests on a parody of genuine dialogue. The Underground Man’s confrontation with the officer develops his aporia of nonbeing by highlighting his insignificance. He is insignificant in the technical sense of the word, for if he is a sign for nonbeing, he is a sign for nothing: he is a man without a firm place on which to stand and he can, therefore, be dislocated by the officer with ease (48). Firstly, this dislocation angers the Underground Man, for the officer refuses to enter into an authentic “I-thou” relationship with him. Rather, the officer, by treating the Underground Man as an object, enters into an “I-it” relationship. Yet it is this very relationship that the Underground Man admires, and which The Underground Man attempts to emulate in his relations with others, since the officer is independent (50). The Underground Man wishes to befriend the officer while simultaneously vowing revenge. This friendship – if it were to come to fruition – would negate the trait of the officer that he admires — his perceived independence. It is important to emphasize ‘perceived’ here, since it is purely the Underground Man’s own assumption that the officer is independent. The officer yields to generals, which shows his respect for social propriety. This is in contrast to the Underground Man, who wants to yield to no one, but yields to everyone on the Nevsky Prospect (42-47).
The Underground Man schemes for two years, plotting to bump into the officer – even borrowing money so that he could have the proper attire for the occasion – yet, upon achieving this aim, his actions are inconsequential and pathetic (53). It is not that the Underground Man truly desires independence, for he desires some form of interaction, despite his protestations to the contrary; but he desires a morally deleterious form of communion. In Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard contends that human beings exist in an eternal dyad of matter and spirit, Being and nonbeing. Since God resolves these tensions within Himself, submission to God is the only way to reconcile the tensions within the human will (203). The Underground Man himself notes that there is, occurring within him, a war of conflicting passions and ideas (10). Kierkegaard makes a similar claim in The War Within when he comments that there is within each person a struggle between existence and nonbeing, or, for Kierkegaard, following God (which brings being to existence) and ignorance of God, which ultimately negates authentic being. Therefore, God ought to be the focus of one’s consciousness. Only with authentic love and submission, as Kierkegaard says in Sickness Unto Death, can we resolve what Paul Tillich would later call the anxiety of meaninglessness. As well, in Dare to Decide, Kierkegaard points out the immense gift of making a decision and concludes, therefore, that not to decide is, in essence, not to act and thus, not to decide is not to be. This boon requires authentic risk on the part of the agent. (DTD, 3) This risk must be taken: in Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard concludes that one either loves God or hates God, and since this is a decision concerning ultimate reality, the decision to love God should be made with absolute fervour. Since God, however, is able to reconcile the inherent fractures in the human psyche (in both the modern and ancient meanings), this should be a joyous decision. The Underground Man cannot make decisions with conviction concerning secular principles, let alone divine ones. The Underground Man, in Northrop Frye’s sense of the word, is truly an ironic man[11]. For Frye, the ironic tragic mode of literature has at its center a pitiful and often romantic figure, and subjects him to an even greater fall. Yet the thing that is truly tragic about the Underground Man is that his sense of meaninglessness causes him to remain, in the words of John Milton, “forever fallen” and unable to arise from the hell of nihilism.[12] For F.F. Seeley, Dostoyevsky’s characters often struggle to choose between the realm of ideas and the realm of action. In many ways, the Underground Man represents the collapse of the Romantic ideal: he is unable to engage in authentic interaction with either the world or any being, including God. Thus, he has no clear aesthetic aim. Ivan Karamazov suffers from a similar malady. Both characters, since they cannot ultimately make a decision, have their stories concluded for them, the former by an external narrator (NFU, 130) and the latter by the sickness of insanity (BK 864)[13]. To quote Hamlet’s grotesque exchange with Ophelia, these men of menacing malady of mind are “proud, vengeful,
/ ambitious, with more offences at [their] beck than [they] have / thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, / or time to act them in.”[14]If one were to stop there, Dostoyevsky’s literary and theological vision would not be complete. The epiphanic experiences of the three siblings in the Brothers Karamazov offer to each in turn a revelation of divine power that is both didactic and noetic and is specifically tailored to each man. Each point to what Dostoyevsky thinks is true about the divine. Northrop Frye has argued that sophisticated religious literature should always develop what he calls a “double artistic vision”: on the one hand, literature, as an aesthetic project, should describe human beings and their internal processes; on the other, it should point to a higher reality that transcends discursive truth. If it were to explicitly state this truth, it would be philosophy and not literature. [15] In The Great Code: the Bible and Literature, Frye also contends that the structure of the biblical narrative is essentially parabolic with a comic restoration occurring at the end of time.[16] The spiritual epiphanies experienced by Dmitry and Alyosha are comic, while Ivan’s vision is ironic. Similar to Notes from Underground, the three epiphanies pose an aporia of meaninglessness, yet in contrast, their hortatory characters provide one with the courage to be an authentic person in the face of nihilism. Ivan’s experience is negative; the other two visions are positive exhortations towards virtue.
In the chapter “Rebellion”, Dostoyevsky begins to set forth the reasons for Ivan’s epiphanic experience. Ivan begins to discourse with his brother on the inadequacies of theodicy. Similar to the Underground Man, as Kierkegaard would suggest, he is unable to make a leap beyond reflection into faith. (PA. 63) Yet through the authenticity of his depiction, one sees the true tragedy of his situation. Mikhail Bakhtin sees Dostoyevsky as the polyphonic author par excellent. That is, in his works, and in Brothers Karamazov particularly, there is not one dominating authorial voice or one dominating hero, yet a plurality of voices, often in authentic conflict with each other and the world around them.[17] As Elizabeth Blake and Ruben Rosario note, “Ivan is disputing … with himself, and Alyosha is not disputing with Ivan as an integral and unified voice but rather intervenes in his internal dialogue, trying to reinforce one of its rejoinders”.[18]
Yet this diological interpretation does not preclude some truths emerging from the polyphonic narratives; it merely gives due weight to author, characters, and the reader. Ivan’s consciousness is divided: he is shriven between his aesthetic and ethical inclinations and the desire for reason, order, and justice. It is important to note that Ivan is not an atheist. For he does not reject God; he merely rejects God’s justice. He says to Alyosha that because of the suffering of children, he cannot obey God, since how can God be omnibenevolent, if the innocent suffer? (BK 324-326)[19] He further argues that if even one innocent soul has to suffer in the divine economy, then an ethical person must renounce God’s grace. He frankly states, when referring to the eschaton “It isn’t that I reject God; I am simply returning to Him most respectfully the ticket that would entitle me to a seat”. (327) In this quotation, Ivan might have begun to enter into an authentic relationship with both Alyosha and God, but does not take the sentiment far enough, since he is blinded by the intellectualism of his age, and thus, renounces life altogether. The rejection of God’s justice is a rejection of the anxiety experienced when persons confront nonbeing. For if the universe is not just, thinks Ivan, how can existence have any significance? The underground man foolishly tries to redress the war within him by practicing a living death, while Ivan plans to take a more violent step. Yet these two actions are in essence the same. For Dostoyevsky, as authentic as Ivan’s criticisms may be, to reject God’s justice is to reject God, because God qua God is Justice, and vice versa. Both Ivan and the Underground Man want – borrowing Erik Voegelin’s phrase – to immanentize the eschaton.[20] Ivan signifies the plight of the 19th century man: He is desirous of all knowledge immediately and he has forgotten the freedom of joyful expectation.
Though the following chapter – “The Grand Inquisitor” – is often primarily seen as a critique of Catholicism,[21] it is also an exposition of how human beings disregard the freedom afforded to them by God through Christ. As is well known, the episode in the “poem” by Ivan depicts a Church Inquisitor who rejects the returned Christ, since the Church has fulfilled men’s needs. Men do not desire the freedom of Christ; rather they desire comfort and authority, which the Church provides. The Church has accepted the three temptations posed to Christ by the devil — physical comfort, political authority and spiritual dominion (Matt. 4:10). The Inquisitor must, therefore, remove the threat of Christ’s presence, in order to protect the true happiness of human beings who prefer to be enslaved. (BK 334-350) When commenting on Karl Barth’s understanding of the Grand Inquisitor, Blake and Rosario note that the Inquisitor’s crime is to respond erroneously “to this existential encounter with the divine— this crisis of human existence that reveals the futility of all our efforts to reach the divine—by substituting his own version of the divine-human relationship [rather than the authentic encounter with the divine that is revealed to him]”.[22] In contrast, the visions of the other two brothers point to Dostoyevsky’s theology born of an open-ended eschatology that waits in hope.
The situation of the Grand Inquisitor is a mirror for Ivan’s character. He recognizes that there is suffering, and with genuine compassion seeks to alleviate it. Yet in so doing, he seeks to make all knowledge immediate. Like the Underground Man, his hunger for reflection paralyzes him; for he is unable to trust in God. Kierkegaard would suggest that reflection on Being itself is the only way to propel a person out of existential paralysis (PA 62). Blake and Rosario contend that Ivan’s reaction to the divine is a hubristic act, and not a rejection of the divine itself; by placing himself in the role of God's accuser, Ivan acknowledges the divine. It is crucial to explain at this juncture that Ivan assumes the position traditionally ascribed to Satan (Job: 1:6-12), and there is a sense in which, as shall be demonstrated shortly, by wishing to assume the role of Satan, Ivan becomes Satan. His reflection and bellicose arrogance destroy all that is human in him. His pugnacious rebukes are hollow, since he is secretly hoping that God will rectify injustice. This wish has embedded eschatological hope, but Ivan cannot take the necessary step to form the only satisfactory answer within his implicit Christian teleological framework: that is, to let God be God.[23] For as Jesus says to the Grand Inquisitor: “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”. (cf. Matt. 4:4) The war within himself caused by his failed aesthetic and moral sensibility leaves Ivan in a very precarious position indeed.
Thus, confronted with his role in the murder of his father, Ivan experiences his demonic epiphany. In this epiphany, one sees the complete collapse of the Romantic and hubristic personality. It is important to note that if this personality were not fully realized and allowed to speak with an authentic voice, its collapse would not seem tragic but excessively platitudinous and sententious. Much has been said about the Ivan-Satan encounter.[24] For want of space, I shall only comment on its general outline and a few noteworthy phrases. Firstly, like Ivan, Dostoyevsky’s Devil is often sarcastic and rancorous. Yet unlike Ivan, who is filled with emotion, the Devil becomes more chilling, on account of his prosaic manner. (BK 859) Some sort of demonic retribution, one might suppose, would further corroborate Ivan’s theory that God is unjust and, therefore, validate his contest; instead, Ivan is met with frigid indifference. This indifference illuminates the emptiness of his protestations and is the appropriate punishment for his particular sin. Again, it is interesting to note the parallel here between Ivan’s demonic epiphany and the theophany experienced by Job (4:13-16). Ivan, however, is given anything but an irenic ending.
What is more, Satan does not appear to harbour extreme resentment towards God. He even links the demonic with Being itself, saying that without him, there would be one undifferentiated hosanna, and that he exists so that man can be free. (BK 860) Ivan has used this freedom for demonic ends, and therefore is demonic. Hence, Ivan is terrified by the Latin phrase adapted from Terence “I am Satan and I think nothing human alien from me”.[25] (BK 860) A volume could be written on this exchange, because it illuminates several key thoughts of the author. It elucidates Ivan’s divided soul, since he cannot determine – and never could – whether his thought originated in his mind, and thus whether this is an authentic vision. It elucidates the fact that general evil is concomitant with human existence and that human beings cannot estrange themselves from it by some real or imagined partition, as Ivan attempts to do: it is something indivisible from human essence. No amount of rebellion or purposeful sin – or so Ivan believes – will repair this psychic fracture. For Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard, the only consolation is grace.
Through Ivan’s rejection of this grace, and his antithetical search for justice, one sees a sensitive soul descend into the depths of psychic malady born of his own sin whence there is no redemption. Ivan exemplifies the Underground Man’s belief that human beings can intentionally choose evil and do so out of spite for the sheer fruitless pleasure of enacting their will upon the world. This act of will, however, is utterly destructive because it causes Ivan to experience Paul Tillich’s three types of anxiety simultaneously: firstly he experiences immense fear concerning mortality; secondly guilt concerning his father’s murder causes him to dread retribution; and finally, he dreads that he is a broken man able to do nothing. He cannot leap past these three paroxysms of dread, since the time for obedience has long passed.
Conversely, Dmitry and Alyosha experience two visions of grace. These visions are suited to the unique spiritual constitution of each man. Both visions give the men hope but Dmitry receives a moral consolation, whereas Alyosha receives solace through mysticism. While being interrogated for the murder of his father, Dmitry is haughty and can’t understand the injustice of the circumstance. He is preoccupied with matters of procedure and is incensed at the affront done to his moral character. (BK 660) Then Dmitry experiences a vision which gives him hope in the face of injustice; for it causes him to surface from the underground existence of pride and depression, into the higher reality of agape, and thus into authentic being. In his dream he sees a peasant village, wherein the inhabitants are starving. What wounds Dmitry’s soul the most is the tragic vision of the suffering Madonna and child he receives. When the mother is black with soot and emaciated from hunger and unable to nurse her child, he insists upon asking his coach driver to tell him “why there have to be poor people, why the poor must suffer, why the steppe is barren, why people don’t love and kiss one another,” (BK 677) and so forth.
Like Ivan and the Underground Man, Dmitry engages in understandable reflection; yet for him it does not result in paralysis for he is able to see love even in the midst of suffering. He is struck by the quaint diction of the peasants when he hears them refer to their children as “babes” rather than babies, for it makes him realize the warmth and depth of human love (BK 678). One should note here that both Ivan and Dmitry struggle with the suffering of children, yet Dmitry is able to rationalize the suffering through love. Furthermore, the vague Madonna and child image in this vision suggests that God in the form of Jesus also suffers with humanity. Human beings, therefore, should in turn bear the suffering of one another with the authentic communion born of a shared sense of responsibility. Dmitry arises from his vision spiritually enervated and is able to endure the trial with a measure of grace, even if he does not always manifest this grace outwardly. It is worth commenting here that Dmitry is often torn between the hubristic impassioned impiety of Ivan and the poetic idealism of Alyosha’s religious commitment (to be discussed below), and that the tension arising in Dmitry's will often prevents him from meaningful action. After his epiphany, however, he is able to forge a new path, through his unique encounter with the divine. This encounter requires faith, hope and love, which in the mind of the author are equivalent to complete openness; for that is the meaning of agape. This kenosis is impossible for either the man of reflection, the Underground Man or the obstinate Ivan. These three are too full of paralytic speculation, in order to empty themselves, such that they are able to receive grace – and with that grace – meaningful existence. Unlike Ivan or the Underground Man, Dmitry's experiences eventually bring him closer to an authentic I-Thou relationship, both with God and other human beings.
An important caveat ought to be raised here: Dmitry’s vision does not make him a perfect person. Indeed, if it were to do this, the vision would undermine the dialogical character of the novel previously discussed. His experience merely calls him into authentic being: that is he becomes a more actualized version of himself. True moral perfection and absolute consolation for Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard must wait until the eschaton. This actualized humanity born of his epiphanic experience – unlike the Underground Man and Ivan – simply allows Dmitry to participate in the world as a newly constituted spiritual and moral agent. Here one sees the constitutive power of agape; for God’s recognition of agape in human beings is simultaneously an anagnorisis on the part of God and an act of self-recognition on the part of humanity. As well, it is an act of creation that affirms our being enabling us to participate in the world and recognize others as agents.
Likewise, Alyosha’s vision of the marriage at Cana deepens his faith and strengthens his agency. Svetlana Klimova notes that Father Zosima is the ideal Russian saint and embodies an ideal type of hesychastic monasticism –- an asceticism that is engaged with the world. Furthermore, she contends that Dostoyevsky was influenced by the writings of the Orthodox saint Isaac of Syria who preached a doctrine of universal love and redemption for all souls. This influence provided the general framework for Father Zosima’s doctrine and characterization.[26] Throughout the novel Alyosha struggles with his dyophysite constitution; his will is bifurcated between spiritual and earthly concerns, but he moves through his epiphanic experience to a monophysite character. His vision reveals a method of making the finite infinite, and vice versa.
Alyosha continually wonders how he will be a pious Christian in the midst of such corruption and with his inherited violent nature. Thus, he flees to the monastery, in order to escape vice, showing marked contemptus mundi. In the quest for an appropriate father figure, Alyosha clings to Zosima, who through his charisma and doctrine, sanctifies and restores the paternal archetype. Through his admiration of and subjection to Zosima, Alyosha erroneously canonizes him. Hence, when the Elder perishes, and his corpse putrefies – against the Novice's hopes – Alyosha experiences anxiety. Once more this occurs in the now familiar triadic typology. The decay of the Elder's body causes Alyosha to experience anxiety concerning the finitude of the flesh. For if such a pious man is subject to decay, the flesh is indeed, corrupt. (BK 430-436 & cf. Gal.: 6:8). Zosima’s decay also makes Alyosha fear retribution, since he wonders whether any human being can be truly virtuous, if his idol is not sacrosanct. Finally, this leads him to question whether his existence has meaning. He is adrift: his biological father is a contemptible drunkard; his beloved spiritual father is now deceased. He, therefore, must undergo a double turn toward both God and the world, since he will achieve true adoption and its concomitant gift of authentic freedom.
Thus, as the gospel of John is intoned over Zosima’s corpse the Novice experiences a vision of the Marriage at Cana, in which he sees Zosima with the transformed Christ. Zosima comforts him in the tribulation he is experiencing and urges him to be his own earthly master, and so, to participate fully in the world. He then awakes from this vision feeling reassured, endowed with a new freedom and a revived faith (BK 482-486 & cf. Jn. 2:1-11). The contrast between Dmitry's and Alyosha’s vision is striking and further elucidates the theme of God's constitutive and rectifying agape. Dmitry – who is excessively attached to material things – is given a vision which illuminates the hollow nature of the man who is too much of the world. As well, Dmitry struggles with compassion, so he receives a vision that attempts to address the principle flaw which prevents him from communion with God and other persons. Since too much reflection often overwhelms Dmitry, he receives a vision which emphasizes simple obedience and love; for the Spirit fills each according to his need (Gal. 5:10-22).
Conversely, Alyosha’s vision exhorts him to be more in the world. In The Marriage at Cana, Jesus shows compassion to those who desire earthly pleasure (namely alcohol), and therefore, he partially sanctions terrestrial desire. He is also compassionate to those who are more of the Earth. His compassion draws all the members of the celebration into greater communion with one another and subsequently, into greater freedom. Alyosha needs to embrace earthly pleasure, the imperfections of other persons and his own faults in order to experience an I-Thou relationship which is the answer to existential anxiety. It is interesting to note that Dmitry sees a version of the infant Christ, whereas Alyosha sees the adult. This distinction reflects their differing spiritual maturity. Additionally, Alyosha sees a vision of the transformed Christ with his Elder, suggesting that one day he too may achieve such a transformation, but he can only do this by engaging with the world, despite all its existential hardships
Taken together, these two visions point the reader to the gospel injunction to be, "in the world but not of the world”. (Jn. 17:16) Yet none of the authors’ epiphanic experiences offer a dogmatic or monological voice, since the nature of epiphany itself transcends language. Furthermore, many of Dostoyevsky’s characters are so well realized that they – as it were – possess psychic lives fully known only by them. Dostoyevsky merely creates a universe in which circumstances almost appear to unfold of their own volition. He points the reader to certain truths through his uncanny observation of human beings and the vivid environments he creates. Yet the reader – similar to the characters – must decide to take the final leap of faith into truth and freedom.
Some time after Alyosha's epiphany, the novel concludes with the funeral of Ilyusha, an innocent child, taken in the prime of life. Alyosha exhorts his despondent young friends to eat and continue with their lives, even though there is suffering, in the hope that one day they will all share in the feast of Cana. (BK 1045) Tellingly, the body of the deceased child does not smell of the grave. (BK 1049) This turning of the spiritual and secular vision of human beings toward hope, trust and obedience, for Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky, will help humankind emerge from the ills of the present age. It is through this double vision held in tension by the eternal "not yet" of the Christian teleology that human beings will emerge from the underground and its anxious nihilism into the "ground of being" itself. Through epiphany or in the case of the Underground Man, lack of inspiration, Dostoyevsky provides readers with a path to ascend through didacticism to noetic awareness of the divine. Yet this path necessitates substantial risk, spiritual growth, and the commitment of one’s being to God. Ivan and the Underground Man stand on one side of this precipice, while Dmitry and Alyosha have jumped into Existence, exhorting readers to do so also.
Notes
[1] The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. (All other scriptural sources, unless otherwise noted, are from this edition)
[2] Karl Marx. Communist Manifesto trans Samuel Moore and F Engels, 1848. Retrieved from marxists.org November 10, 2011
[3] Soren Kierkegaard. The Present Age : On the Death of Rebellion. New York London: Harper Perennial, 2010. (All future references from The Present Age refer to this edition and will be noted in parentheses as PA)
[4] Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes from the Underground. New York: Signet Classics, 2004. (All future references from Notes from the Underground refer to this edition and will be noted in parentheses as NFU)
[5] Alina Wyman, “The Specter of Freedom: “’Ressentiment’ and Dostoevski’s Notes from Underground”. Studies in East European Thought, 59, ½, Dostoevskij’s Significance for Theology and Philosophy (Jun 2007), 123.
[6] Soren Kierkegaard. Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis,
2003. (All future references from Kierkegaard’s Religious Writings refer to this edition and will be noted in parentheses. Dare to Decide will be abbreviated as DTD, Sickness Unto Death will be abbreviated as SUD, War Within will be abbreviated as WW, and Fear and Trembling will be abbreviated as FT)
[7] Wyman, 123.
[8] Martin Buber. I and Thou. (New York: Scribner, 1970), 20.
[9] Paul Tillich. The Courage to Be. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
[10] Mikhail Bakhtin. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1984), 18.
[11] Northrop Frye. Anatomy of Criticism. (New Jersey: Princeton U. Press, 1957), 92.
[12] John Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 330, in John Leonard, ed. The Complete Poems. (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 128
[13] F.F. Seeley, “Ivan Karamazov” in New Essays on Dostoyevsky, ed Malcolm V. Jones and Garth M. Terry. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 40.
[14] Act 3, i, 124-7. Available at http://shakespeare-navigators.com/hamlet/H31.html
[15] Northrop Frye. The double vision: language and meaning in religion. (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 78-90
[16] Northrop Frye. The Great Code: The Bible and Literature. (New York: Harcount, Inc., 1982), 171
[17] Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1984), 6-8
[18] Elizabeth A Blake and Ruben Rosario. “Journey to Transcendence: Dostoevsky's Theological Polyphony in Barth's Understanding of the Pauline” Studies in East European Thought. (June 2007) p 27
[19] Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Brothers Karamazov. New York: Bantam Books, 1981. (All other citation from The Brothers Karamazov are from this edition and will be noted in parentheses as BK.)
[20] Eric Voegelin. The New Science of Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. p 165
[21] Svetlana Klimova. “Conceptualizing Religious Discourse in the Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky” Studies in East European Thought. Vol. 59 pp 60
[22] Elizabeth A Blake et al. “Journey to Transcendence” p 13
[23] Ibid. p 13
[24]See, for example, Irwin Weil. “Novelistic representations of Christ and Satan” in Classics of Russian Literature. The Teaching Company: Boston. 2006
[25] “Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto”, my translation
[26] Klimova. p 56
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