Book 1 Reflection: The Scandal of Fyodor

I have been eager to read The Brothers Karamazov not only because it is one of the greatest novels of all time, but also because it is considered one of the most beautiful and powerful works in the Christian theological tradition. The fact that the book is so highly esteemed among Western theologians is notable insofar as it came from the pen of an Eastern Orthodox Christian. I am not aware of any nineteenth century Russian Orthodox theologians who are widely read in the West today. But Dostoyevsky is known by all.

I cannot claim any specific expertise in Russian theology, or nineteenth century Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, I have had the opportunity to read many of the Eastern Church Fathers, upon whom all subsequent Orthodox theology is built. I am especially interested in theological anthropology, and the ways in which the Eastern and Western understanding of man is said to diverge in the early Church. (As an aside, I believe the difference is more a matter of terminology than substance.)

I know that The Brothers Karamazov deals with the question of human nature. I will be eager to trace this discussion in light of what I know about Eastern theological anthropology, and compare it to our Western assumptions.

Having said that, I am already fascinated by Fyodor Pavlovitch. Perhaps it is because I feel a certain kinship with him, not so much as it pertains to excessive drinking and orgies, but because he is a buffoon—a vicious clown (vicious as in the antonym of virtuous). With this character, Dostoyevsky paints a portrait of the sensual man, the man who is a slave to the passions.

It is notable that Fyodor lives his life in the shadow of a great monastery. In the East, the monastic tradition has survived and thrived in a way that it has not in the West (not to say, of course, that it has here died completely). The monastery is the place of ascetic practice, the place where man is able to go to battle with the “flesh”. When we read about the great ascetics of the Christian tradition—those who excelled in prayer and fasting and every kind of self-discipline—it is essential to remember that these men and women did not hate the physical world and its many pleasures. They knew as well as anyone that the corporeal world was called “good” by God himself. What the great ascetics have attempted to do is to fight our perverted tendency to become enslaved to the pleasures of this world (this sinful tendency is called “the flesh” in the Bible). We do not truly enjoy food or drink or sex or any other good while it is a master over us. Changing metaphors, the horse cannot serve human beings while it is still wild and unruly; it must first be tamed. The Christian monastic tradition is not about hating the world, but purifying oneself (by God’s grace) so as to approach and enjoy the world rightly.

Fyodor is the foil to the great monastic tradition. He has given himself over to every pleasure. He cannot say “no” to any sensual enticement, and thus he is entirely enslaved to his passions. Ironically, there seems to be no pleasure in his life; no joy, no peace. Only the virtuous man can enjoy the world truly, and only he has freedom. I see the extent of Fyodor’s captivity, for example, when Dostoyevsky says that he “was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his own direct disadvantage…” (9). He had no control over himself, and he was reduced to playing a role, not one of his choosing, in a dark and pathetic drama.

Fyodor is absurd, he is a buffoon, because he has chosen the path of self-destruction. In Eastern theology, there is a great awareness of the telos of man: we were made for participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 2:4). The Fathers of the East (and West!) called this “deification”, where human beings come to partake of the divine life, which is communion with the Trinity. Adam was created in the “image and likeness” of God (Gen. 1:26) precisely so that he could be adopted into the divine family. Ontologically, therefore, man was made capable of union with God. In fact, this is the true end toward which all human beings are fundamentally oriented; in those famous words of St. Augustine: “O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

At the fall, Adam turned his back on communion with the Holy Trinity, thus turning away from his own happiness.

Eastern theologians—remembering that we were created both in the image and likeness of God—make a helpful distinction between the two. They argue that the likeness of God was lost at the fall, but not the image. The image of God is woven deep into human nature: all human beings, no matter how wicked, maintain a basic dignity insofar as they were created in the image of God, which is to say, created for deification. But the likeness has been lost and must be regained. Through the practice of the virtues, we perfect the image through growth in the likeness of God.

In the patristic tradition, we regain the likeness of God only through communion with Jesus Christ (by whose grace we are made virtuous). According to the well-known maxim, “God became man so that man might become God.” In other words, Christ—by being fully God and fully man—bridged the gap between the eternal and temporal, the infinite and the finite, making possible perfect communion between human beings and the Blessed Trinity. Another notable patristic phrase says that by grace we become what Christ is by nature (divine): when—by grace—we are made to be “in” Christ, we enjoy through adoption what he enjoys as the natural Son. But it is important to stress that God created us in His image and likeness from the beginning precisely so that this adoption in Christ, this deification, could occur. We were created to receive this most remarkable gift, the gift of participation in the divine nature.

Dostoyevsky, as an Orthodox Christian, is very aware of this understanding of human nature. Fyodor is an absurd character from the start because he is made in the image of God, and yet he has destroyed the likeness of God in himself completely. In every respect he has ordered himself away from his true end, a spectacular self-destructiveness, self-mutilation. And yet, because of the disorder caused by the fall, each of us is tormented by a similar temptation to annihilation. God created a world of goodness and beauty and order, and yet we slump in the direction of chaos and ugliness and nothingness. It is a tragic disposition that can only be called buffoonery, and Fyodor personifies it.

Made to partake of the divine nature, he rolls in the mud. And we with him.

Alyosha is an example of one who is truly alive, a man in whom the likeness of God is being perfected. But with Fyodor, the great buffoon, I can more easily identity. O God, that your likeness might be restored in me, too, I pray!