Faith

The Theme in the Work

In The Brothers Karamazov faith is almost never discussed as doctrine: it is measured by what each one demands in order to believe, or by what he does when the expected sign does not come. Elder Zosima teaches that it is born of love put into practice, and not of a proof; Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov accepts God and returns the world that He created; Smerdyakov treats it as a reckoning of deadlines and rewards; Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, as an item on his agenda; the monastery, on the day of its master's death, measures it by the smell of a coffin. Amid these measures the book places Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, who does not doubt God and discovers, on the worst day of his life, that what sustained him was a desire for justice. The question that runs through the work is what remains of a faith when none of the expected proofs arrives, and the answer never comes as a thesis: it comes as a scene.

In chapter IV of Book II, Madame Khokhlakova, who says she suffers from unbelief in the life to come, asks the elder for a proof, and he answers that there is no proof, but there is conviction.

In chapter VII of Book III, at Fyodor's table, apropos of a soldier flayed alive for refusing to renounce Christ, Smerdyakov measures the faith of the old servant Grigory by the mountain that does not move.

Fyodor, laughing, admits that his unbelief is a question of time.

In chapter VIII of Book III, brandy in hand, Fyodor asks seriously, first of Ivan and then of Alyosha, whether God exists, and hears one answer and then its opposite.

In chapter III of Book V, in the tavern, Ivan says that he accepts the wisdom and the purpose of God, so unknown to us, and that what he refuses is something else.

In chapter II of Book VII, on the day the master's body gives off its smell, Rakitin asks Alyosha whether it was only for that reason that he got angry with God, and Alyosha answers irritably.

In chapter IV of Book VII, after the night of the dream and of the earth, he says what happened, without naming who came.

In chapter IX of Book XI, the visitor whom Ivan takes for a hallucination confesses his dream: it is not to tempt, it is to believe.

In chapter X of Book XI, Alyosha, falling asleep beside his feverish brother, reduces his affliction to an alternative.

In chapter XIV of Book XII, in his last words before the jury withdraws, Mitya asks for what he most fears losing.

In chapter III of the Epilogue, beside the stone, Kolya Krasotkin, who in Book X spoke of God as a hypothesis, asks the boys' question and hears Alyosha's answer.

Who Embodies It

Zosima is faith proven by acting: in chapter IV of Book II he offers no argument to one who asks for proof, he offers a path. Alyosha is the wounded faith that goes on, and the text shows it on the day of loss, not on the day of peace. Ivan is the faith that withdraws at the moment of accepting: he accepts God and returns the ticket. Smerdyakov is faith as calculation, and Fyodor, faith as postponement. Father Paisius and Father Ferapont, over the smell of the coffin, are two ways of reading a sign.

Where It Appears

• Book II, chapter IV: Madame Khokhlakova asks the elder for a proof of the life to come, and he answers with the experience of active love.
• Book III, chapter VII: Smerdyakov challenges Grigory to move a mountain, and Fyodor says he does not believe for lack of time.
• Book III, chapter VIII: Fyodor asks his sons whether God exists, and Ivan denies it while Alyosha affirms it.
• Book V, chapter III: Ivan tells Alyosha that he accepts God and does not accept the world He created.
• Book VII, chapter I: The smell of Zosima's coffin divides the monastery between those who read a verdict in it and those who keep silent.
• Book VII, chapter II: Alyosha tells Rakitin that he believes and wants to believe, and that what he refuses is the world.
• Book VII, chapter IV: In the dream of Cana and in the night on the earth, Alyosha feels that someone visited his soul.
• Book XI, chapter IX: Ivan's devil says that his ideal is to light a candle with a pure heart, and Ivan says he would like to believe in it.
• Book XI, chapter X: Alyosha prays for Ivan, between the light of truth and the hatred of one who served what he does not believe.
• Book XII, chapter XIV: Mitya asks the court not to deprive him of his God, because he knows he will rebel.
• Epilogue, chapter III: Kolya asks whether it is true that everyone will rise, and Alyosha answers yes, and that they will tell one another everything that happened.

Where the Readings Diverge

Joseph Frank, reading the novel through the author's notes, records that Dostoevsky rejected the label of ignorant faith.

The book admits two readings of the faith it proposes. In one, it is apologetic: Zosima, Alyosha, and Mitya answer Ivan's revolt, and the faith that lasts is the one that demands no proof and acts. In the other, the novel never refutes Ivan: it shows lives that believe, and the question that closes the book is asked by a boy.

The text sustains both because Alyosha's faith arrives without proof and without argument. In chapter IV of Book VII he says that someone visited his soul, and the Russian text, which leaves this someone without a name, does not decide between miracle and the end of a tension. Ivan's devil, in chapter IX of Book XI, suggests that believing is a capacity before it is a reason: he wants to light a candle with a pure heart and cannot, and Ivan, who has reasons to spare, cannot either. The faith of the book, in this sense, is not the winner of a debate; it is what remains in one who manages to love without a sign, and that is why the signs the monastery expected, the incorruptibility that did not come, the miracle that did not happen, never decide anything.