Dostoyevsky and Solving Social Upheavals

My apologies for getting around to Dostoyevsky: Prophet and Radical Visionary for an Apocalyptic Future , a book review but not of any by Dostoyevsky. Here is more proof how I have neglected this blog for my other writings. A quick overview, it does confirm my prejudices that understanding Dostoyevsky needs an understanding of Orthodox Christianity, and how Dostoyevsky thought the West needed Orthodoxy.

Among Dostoyevsky’s staunch supporters was Vladimir Solovyov, a young and passionate philosopher who found in the great writer a kindred spirit and a guide amidst his own intellectual and religious struggles. Not all of Solovyov's works have been translated into English, although he went on to become the leading philosopher of the Silver Age and produced a robust system that strived to bridge the gap between Western and Russian philosophical sensibilities. In his works, The Critique of Western Philosophy and Philosophical Principals of Integral Knowledge, Solovyov offers a serious critique of Western philosophy. He argues that both metaphysical and empirical branches of Western philosophy (he traced the history of philosophy starting with Eriugena) arrived at the same dual conclusion: affirmation of idealism and skepticism about knowledge of the outside world. In other words, both already contained in themselves a rejection of metaphysics. Therefore, it should surprise no one that in modern times, Western philosophy appeared unrecognizable in the form of positivism.

I will argue for my prejudices that Roman Catholicism and Protestantism come ot the same spiritual end. A point I out into a recent post here is that American Protestantism has created a dogma imposed by thinking as hierarchical as any of the Roman Catholic Church.

For all I find Orthodoxy concerned with humanity, its humanism is very much tied to duties to our fellow humans imposed by Christ. 

Solovyov aimed at one question: What animated Dostoyevsky’s work?

Dostoyevsky’s work appealed to many people, though he was not as elegant a writer as some of his contemporaries, such as Tolstoy or Turgenev. And yet, despite his apparent stylistic deficiencies, Dostoevsky’s work seemed to appeal to people far beyond its apparent literary value. The appeal, Solovyov contends, is that Dostoyevsky’s novels are not content with describing the settled way of life that the Russian gentry enjoyed. Nor is he content with observing, however keenly, the general condition of Russian society as a whole. The world in his works is in upheaval. According to Solovyov, only Dostoyevsky made societal chaos and the radical movements it produced the very subject of his writing.

And yet, in his novels, Dostoevsky did not simply chronicle the development of social movements, nor did he let himself be influenced by their fads. Dostoyevsky possessed a long-term vision. The great writer could foresee where various social movements of his day would lead people and solemnly judged these movements along with the society that embraced them.

Solovyov argues that Dostoyevsky had the right to pronounce such judgments because he judged that which he knew and suffered himself. Even though Dostoyevsky’s intuition about social injustices was correct, his solution—an overthrow of the social order—led him to jail, hard labor, and ultimately to death row. Yet, it is there, among condemned-to-death revolutionaries, that Dostoyevsky became disillusioned and saw the emptiness of his radical views and experienced true faith in God.

I think here is another sign of Orthodoxy's influence. The Orthodox Church has no interest in temporal power found in Roman Catholicism or Protestantism.

In his larger philosophical project, Solovyov claimed that there are three types of Christianity, establishing a three-step theory in which humanity matures and develops in history. He defined history as the interaction between man and God, with the ultimate goal of reaching free and uncoerced unity with the divine. In his lectures, he placed Dostoyevsky within this framework and applied his theory specifically to Christianity as a historical and cosmic phenomenon.

First, there is a temple Christianity, the most basic form of Christian faith, when it is limited to the building of the church and its Sunday service. Outside of the church’s walls, the faith has no bearing on the life of worshipers. Such a Church is entirely exterior to people. Solovyov contends that temple Christianity has a kernel of the truth of Christ, but it comes in such small doses that it is utterly insufficient.

The second stage in the development of Christianity occurs when the faith is no longer content to stay within the walls of the church and spills over into the interior life of the person. Jesus becomes the highest moral ideal; the goal is the salvation of the individual. Solovyov calls this stage domestic Christianity. This Christianity contains some truth and must exist as a form of personal faith. However, it is also limited because domestic Christianity exists only within the bounds of the individual’s personal life, leaving the outside world with its political, economic, or ecological relations in the power of the anti-Christian powers and authorities. Both temple and domestic forms of Christianity are only partial at best and unable to circumscribe the totality of our existence.

There must be a third stage, Christianity’s truest form, the connection with the divine that incorporates every aspect of human life and interactions beyond individual encounters. Solovyov calls it universal Christianity. All humanity must come together in brotherly love, characterized by a free and selfless unity of all people. If Jesus Christ is the living Logos, the incarnation of the Truth, then the self-giving love embodied by Christ must become the very logic of all human existence. Solovyov admits that such Christianity does not yet exist. It is the Christianity of the future of which he speaks. However, Dostoyevsky, in his person and work, provides a glimpse and a foretaste of what such human existence might look like. This is the value of Dostoyevsky’s novels.

For Solovyov, this universal Christianity cannot be only about the geographical spread and global conquest of the Christian faith. Such an idea can only ensure that Christianity remains coercive and exterior to human life and thus only partial to our existence. Solovyov aims at something more profound..

Yep, that sounds like Orthodoxy to me. Just as this sounds like the doctrine of theosis - the joining of the faithful inot Christ as the end result of faith and Christianity.

Solovyov also argues Dostoyevsky spoke from his Christian faith, a personal belief that bore fruit despite the rocky soil of his personal struggles. His faith gave him the spiritual and intellectual power to rise above the various social movements churned out by the intellectuals of his day because this faith contained in itself the end and purpose of human history—a spiritual transformation (or ensoulment) not only of human beings but of the material creation itself: the true destiny of all humanity.

Read on - the full review, Dostoyevsky’s novels, the Orthodox Christian writers, and make up your own mind.

 sch 10/27, 11/5