The essence of Christianity after F.M.Dostoevsky. Suffering & Reward.

1. Suffering

Thinking about his epileptic state, prince Myshkin discerns that it contains a step, just before the crisis, when suddenly “through the sadness, spiritual darkness and pressure, some moments his brain becomes absolutely clear, and with an extraordinary force gathers all his life powers once again. Life perceiving, self-conscience nearly disappears in this instant which continues like a lightening. The mind, the heart – are illuminated by a strange light; all his concerns, all his doubts, all his worries turn peaceful suddenly… they resolve themselves in a sort of higher stillness full of lucid and harmonic happiness and hope, full of reason…” (“The Idiot” F.M. Dostoevsky)
Prince Myshkin thought these moments are sparks of the higher reason, or maybe even – of the higher being… - beauty and prayer.
This is the way of sufferance.
Being able to suffer, and suffering as state is to be considered as a great gift…for there’s also much joy in this, much gratitude and life.

In “the Karamazov Brothers” Lise tells a strange story to Alexei. She says that a jew has cut by 4 fingers on the both hands of his four aged child, and then crucified him on the wall. He died in 4 hours. And that man said this was quickly.
She even laughed telling this and exclaimed: “This is good!”. She confessed that she’d probably do the same and, more over, she would take a glass of juice to watch upon this little suffering boy. She also pointed out that it is good being despised, too...
This macabre passage has a profound meaning.
We will not rest upon the idea of contemplating someone else's suffering. We would stop on the thought that a great purification takes place through the experience of pain, and the little boy crucified on the wall has attained, before anyone else, the true happiness. Why? In the case of Myshkin and of anyone else who knows what suffering means, the life power grows vigurously and high above everything. Thus, some seconds are really enough to come to an absolute understanding and perception of Being. The example Jesus Christ gave is just a confirmation of the exposed ideas.


2. Reward

Starets Zosima talks about his brother who used to say that “Heaven begins the very second we come to understand that we are all guilty each in front of other, thus embracing each other and crying.”
Heaven: it is not a certain state of “after”, it is not even in “other” world, when we die. It is – yes – in other life, but this new life begins here, for we begin living once again since the revelation. There’s no way back. And it may not be associated in a direct way with splendid gardens and a peaceful mankind… but these could be symbols for what happens inside and the new way of contemplating the Creation, both the outer world, with its immense landscapes, beings and phenomenon and the self, sensitive and overwhelmed, too. Heaven is not a place, it’s a mystical experience that has no equivalent in words (true is the expression of Wittgenstein, who says that “There are, really, things that cannot be named in words. These things should be shown. These things are what is mystical.”) But a fact is still clear – it begins exactly when we want to understand some essential and elementary things. However, this understanding is not about a rational and dull approach upon the unspeakable, but more of “seeing”, and seeing differently.
Only the experience of heaven could make clear what is intended to be shown here. Those who wait for the heaven, for they believe it should come after time, will never find it. But those who pass near the experience of heaven, lives the same way – in the slavery of bread, miserable and low… we don’t need other clarification for what hell is, for – where the paradise misses we meet its opposite.
Much is to be understood behind words, much is to be seen without reading, much is to be experienced…

The essence of Christianity after F.M.Dostoevsky. Miracle & Liberty.

1. The miracle

The miracle won’t be regarded here as a compulsory component of Christianity. My intent is definitely other: showing how the attitude towards it reveals the true Christian belief.
There’re essentially 2 ways: 1. from the wonder towards the divinity 2. Vice-versa. To be clear, the one who believes grace to the marvels, because he is overwhelmed and astonished by them, won’t have the true, profound vision of the higher world. He would continue living as before, as nothing changed inside, even if one will probably feel something new from the start. But this is not a pure way towards Christ. Any religion could show infinite miracles and speculate on them, so people would be easily gained by that. Thus, this belief is not a genuine Christianity.

The second way is deeply Christian as long as it begins with the revelation (that has nothing to do with miracles) so it will admit, only grace to the insight of the Godly power, the happening of the wonder. But they won’t seek them and won’t be based in their spiritual living on the unusual happenings.

We could watch out even in the Bible the hunger for miracles the society has. The gray mass needs to be testimony to such an event for being “assured” in the Godly nature of Christ. Even when Jesus is crucified they want to see him descending from the cross, for in this way, they think, he would prove his fundamental nature. Now, the true believer, the one who lives for immortality and is close to the essence would probably find this naïve and even stupid, because the divine spiritual transformation is far beyond any miracles of outside. Even if Christ would have descended then, after a while this fact would’ve been regarded as something unimportant. (For how could be explained then, the fact that he was crucified despite the so many wonders he did in front of the people?)

We have an exhaustive example in “The Karamazov Brothers”. Ivan Karamazov had composed a poem about the second arrival of Christ, which virtually has happened in the 15th Century, during the Inquisition. Here, the Inquisitor meets Jesus and talks to him. What he says is absolutely touching: after having been in the desert as anchoret, after having cleaned himself from the worldly desires and felt closer to God, he thought about the rest of mankind, the so many simple people driven by only miracles (which give them happiness, for they feel divinity closer through that) and then, renounced to God and to the saint life in favor of lying the people through wonders and making them happy this way. Ivan explains: “He is one of those who ate roots in the desert and tortured himself, triumphing over his flesh, for making himself free and perfect, but, in the same time, loving humanity his entire life, and seeing in the end that there’re millions of creatures that would never have the power to deal with their liberty…” The Inquisitor chose “hiding the mystery from the weak and unhappy people, for making them content”. The outline of his speech contains one single, essential word: freedom. He says: “You (Christ) didn’t descend from the cross back then only because you didn’t want to concern people by the miracle and desired for a free belief, but not a miraculous one” Through this – liberty enters the game, being situated between the 2 ways.

2. Liberty

Dostoevsky says: "There's nothing as great for the man as liberty of his conscience, but, also, there's nothing as torturing."
First idea, out of that, would be that liberty is a predefined state for the man, a "gift", we might say. But this is the greatest test, too - if one finds God through his own will, the reward he takes is proportional to his urge to attain divinity. Otherwise one receives nothing. But here we come into contradiction: revelation can only happen to the "chosen" ones in Christianity, and what does it mean to be "chosen"? Secondly, why do exist so many "weak and unhappy" creatures that would never find God? (as the Inquisitor says in his speech.)
Ivan talks about liberty, but we find from his words that freedom is to be attained. (The Inquisitor found it through being anchoret in the desert - but many, the majority would never attain it, as they don't owe the will for doing the same.) There's liberty on one side, and there's bread on the other, and the author points out that both liberty and bread would never happen to be sufficient sincronically.
The same could be discerned from the words of Zosima: "Perceiving the freedom as a multiplication and a quick fulfillment of needs, the man distorts his nature, because he implants in himself a lot of senseless and stupid desires, habits and absolutely brainless inventions. And thus we’ve come to a moment when man has gathered more, but happiness turned less."

Therefore:
We've lost freedom as initial state in favor of bread. Now, only those who deserve would free themselves and only those would be eligible to receive the enlightenment and true happiness.

The essence of Christianity after F.M.Dostoevsky. Two extremes.

Supposing that an alien culture would like to understand and perceive the main traits of humanity, and one of them would certainly be Christianity, both as religion and way of being, a very good point to begin with in its knowledge would surely be the works of F. M. Dostoevsky. I won’t exhaustively explain this evidence, but it seems to be the most compact and concentrated trait of Christian morals. This is especially explicit in The Karamazov brothers, in the figures of Alexei Karamazov and Zosima, yet more over in the general development of the books, the thoughts and ideas that compose it (to which we would return). Giving away the lower part of religion, the exoteric one (and through this I mean: the gray mass, the simple peasants, people that receive superficially the divine message) we would find there the inner message Christianity brings: its meaning, in a word. In a subjective way, the essence of Christianity has always been for me a mystery. I couldn’t understand a thing, maybe because this exoteric part is still not sufficient and it still doesn’t really bring the necessary light and order. We could not receive a thing from burning a candle without knowing and sensing the symbolic meaning it has, we cannot “talk to god” when we don’t know what specifically does a prayer mean, we cannot understand the Bible without a deep sense both intellectually and inherently, we cannot be Christians in an authentic way when we don’t know what exactly this belief supposes (but more over, we can’t be such without a revelation). I do not bet for being Christian, nor do I think about this religion as about a special one, my only attempt is to synthesize its core for at least a little clarification.


Two extremes

I. The very first thing that strikes us from the start is the revelation. This is amazingly clear in the experience Alex had. And more over, a very important thing in all of this is the accent Dostoevsky puts on his realistic nature. For this means that his belief is from the start radically different from an “exoteric”, profane one. Not that he does not believe in miracles, but that he is inclined naturally to overlook them, to have a special approach to them, may we say cold and equilibrated. Not the miracles interest Alex in the higher world, but the true living, the eternal one. And here we have two absolutely suggestive phrases from the book: “If a realist once believes, then he namely grace to his realism should allow a miracle” and “Once only he begun thoughtful in a serious way, amazed by the fact that god and eternity exist, then he immediately told himself: “I want to live for immortality, but I don’t accept the halved compromise.”” The denial of the “halved compromise” is crucial in here. It could make you tremble. This is the adequate essence of a revelation: this cannot be told or described, but it changes you from inside, so you can no longer live as before. This is not a forced change, a restructure of the visions by reason or some other means; this is mainly a rebirth, so it won’t allow you to turn back anymore. We can clearly see this in the example of Alexei: he found strange and impossible to live as before. “It was told: “Give away everything and follow me, if you want to be perfect.” Alexei told himself: “I can’t give instead of “everything” only 2 rubles…etc.”” So through revelation, without any complications and influences of a religious nature, this hero would know God into himself and dedicate his life to the Eternal. This, by no means, should be understood as something trivial. We must understand that there must be something very serious and deep that could make people renounce to the worldly life, and this is – revelation.

I.2 Yet should we recall one other example, that would be the one of Zosima. He talks about his youth and a special event that changed its turn. I won’t give details about the secondary facts; the essential one is that he, being a military, used to play a duel with the husband of a lady he liked as young gentleman. Such combats were a common thing in modern Russia, so, generically it was nothing immoral or “bad” in the society’s acceptance. It was even a pride to participate in such a fight and it was a shame for the one who didn’t, or turned off from the “duty” to defend his self-importance this way.
One day before the fight, Zosima returned home and being bad-tempered and mad has beaten his comrade. Once again, such a thing was usual and never a reason for remorse for him. But something happened the morning after.
Waking up, Zosima felt something new. He admired the birds and the sunlight, the fresh day… and something seemed like “moved” from its course. What exactly? He suddenly remembered the words of his brother: “Truly, every one of us is guilty in front of anything and everything, but none of us knows about this…and if we knew, we would immediately be in heaven.” Such a strange phrase at the first sight turned to him absolutely clear after so many years and suddenly, the whole truth has been revealed to him: the fight a day before, the coming one, his entire life… “Gentlemen – look around to these divine gifts: the clear sky, the clean air, the gentle grass, the birds, the nature is wonderful and pure, we only are Godless and stupid, and we don’t understand that life is heaven, because it suffices only wanting to understand, and immediately would it begin in its entire beauty, and we would embrace each other and cry.” This is the crucial thought in his awakening. What should be pointed here is that he renounced to the combat (but still he didn’t run from the enemy’s shot, which is a sign of nobility: he didn’t renounce to the battle out of being too fearful or weak, but his denial of such acts is to be considered absolute and brave) without fearing for his social status after, about the shame or anything else. It was a humble act, but in an infinitely profound way. More over, this act has been regarded as something noble and wise even by the society. In a way, it was a kind of revelation for them too.


II. Smerdiakov. There’s an impressive chapter on this hero, where we could admire a very original, yet exponential example. Smerdiakov didn’t have any revelation. But he, from the very start, is a mystical nature. So being mystical without having a revelation, without being initiated and enlightened is also a drama. But he, in any case, has shown the other extreme side of the belief. He talks about a martyr killed by the Muslims in the Caucasus; the Muslims, we should point out, asked the Christian to renounce to his religion, and when he didn’t agree – they killed him. But the essential is the commentary Smerdiakov makes. He says: “if I had such a deep belief so I would move the mountains, how could those Muslims ever kill me? And if I don’t have such a power of belief, I’m not worth dying for God, so I would definitely renounce to His name.” What should be pointed here is the hunger for miracles he has. He sough for God, that is absolutely clear from the dialogues, (that gives us the right to call him "mystical") but yet, the ways he walks upon are more about rejection and the other extreme that doesn’t accept the halved compromise: nothingness. But he, still, is far in front of the gray mass and the profane ones.