Katerina Khokhlakova is
a fairly minor character in Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. She is the
mother of Lise, the little girl who begins the novel as an invalid, but who
later develops a close loving relationship with Alyosha. Madame Khokhlakova in
the end is not an especially sympathetic character. She is vain and foolish,
and is used at times as a sort of comic relief. But the chapter in which she
first appears in conversation with Father Zosima has a very deep discussion of
faith. In this chapter, “A lady of little faith” (p. 53-59), she is not
referred to by name. The reader only later finds out who she is. Perhaps, this
is intentional. Her surname sounds slightly ridiculous, like a parody of
Ukrainian. It goes well with her later ridiculousness, but she does not at all
appear ridiculous in this initial conversation. Rather, she puts forward
concerns that must touch many readers.
Madame Khokhlakova says
to Father Zosima that she suffers from lack of faith. She does not quite dare
say that she lacks faith in God, but she lacks faith in the idea of life after
death. Really, this is just a matter of politeness, for the one issue goes with
the other. From a Christian perspective, to cease to believe in life after
death is to cease to believe in God. If a person believes in a Christian God, a
belief in life after death follows as a matter of course. Although she believed,
mechanically as a child, she wonders now if faith came about because of the
fear of death, thus that it is a product of man’s fear and unwillingness to
accept that after death there is nothing. She wonders if when she dies there
will simply be a grave and nothing more. She comes to Father Zosima looking for
proof. She wants him to convince her.
Zosima immediately says
that there is no question of proof, but that it is possible to be convinced. He
says “Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed
in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence of God and the
immortality of the soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of
your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able
to enter your soul” (p. 56)
How can it be that by
loving others a person will be convinced about the existence of God and
immortality? One way to understand this is through an appreciation of the work
of Søren Kierkegaard and the Epistle of James. In the Epistle of James the
emphasis is on actions. The author of James writes, for instance, “What doth it
profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? … faith
if it hath not works is dead” (James 2: 14-16). Kierkegaard throughout his authorship
shows a great deal of respect for the Epistle of James, which in itself is
somewhat surprising as he was brought up a Lutheran and Luther notoriously
called James an ‘epistle of straw’.
In the first discourse
of For Self-Examination (p. 13-51) Kierkegaard looks closely at a text in the
first chapter of James which includes the following:
“But
be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For
if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the
perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” (James
1: 22-25)
Kierkegaard asks
himself “What is required in order to look at oneself with true blessing in the
mirror of the Word?” He answers “The first requirement is that you must not
look at the mirror, observe the mirror, but must see yourself in the mirror”
(p. 25). How though can a person see himself in a mirror without observing the
mirror? If however, we reflect that the mirror is God’s word, there may be an
answer? Kierkegaard is saying that a person must not look at God’s word and
only see the words; rather he must see himself in the words, or see that the
words apply to him. What this means is that the words require something of him,
and that thing is action.
There are all sorts of
ways of putting off action. One of these is to interpret. He writes “God’s Word
is indeed the mirror … but how enormously complicated.” (p. 25). He reflects on
the fact that the Bible is frequently difficult, hard to understand and that
there are many interpretations. We don’t know which books are authentic and who
wrote them. But if a person looks at the mirror in this way, it will always
remain confusing. The task is to see
yourself in the mirror, but what prevents this is if the person continues
endlessly to interpret. The problem with scholarship is that it is a way to
avoid acting. The scholar can always reflect that he will just come up with a
slightly better interpretation of this or that passage before acting on it. The
crucial thing however, is not to interpret, but to realise that the text
applies to me. Kierkegaard writes that “when you are reading God’s Word, it is
not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that
you are to comply at once” (p. 29). The amount of scholarship required to act
according to God’s word is so minimal that all that is required has already
been done. We have had for hundreds of years a reasonably accurate translation
of the Bible and this contains enough clear statements of required actions to
last a lifetime.
The task for
Kierkegaard is to take the Bible personally. Thus he writes “If you are to read
God’s Word in order to see yourself in the mirror, then during the reading you
must incessantly say to yourself. It is I to whom it is speaking” (p. 40). The
reason why this is crucial is that it is instrumental in creating the Christian
self. He writes:
“If
God’s Word is for you merely a doctrine something impersonal then it is no
mirror - an objective doctrine cannot be called a mirror, it is just as
impossible to look at yourself in an objective doctrine as to look at yourself
in a wall. And if you want to relate impersonally to God’s Word, there can be
no question of looking at yourself in mirror, because it takes a personality,
an I, to look at yourself in a mirror; a wall can be seen in a mirror, but a
wall cannot see itself or look at itself in a mirror” (p. 43-44)
If a person reads
objectively, he cannot see himself in God’s word for there is no self to see.
Reading personally creates the “I” and thus creates the Christian self.
Recognising that the Bible applies to the self is instrumental in creating the
self which recognises that the Bible applies to it. When the self is objective,
like a wall, it can be seen, but it is not self-conscious because it is not conscious
of itself as a spirit or a soul and thus it cannot see itself. The self is
created when it relates itself to God through relating itself to God’s word. To
do this however the self must be personal and it achieves this through relating
itself to itself. The self-relation is achieved through the recognition that
God’s word applies to it. The self relates to the self that it sees in the
mirror of God’s word and thus at the same time relates to itself and to God.
The whole passage about correct reading as opposed to scholarship is about how
the Kierkegaardian self is created. It is by following God’s word by loving
one’s neighbours that the sense of self, the sense of spirit is created. By
relating myself to God’s word, I relate myself to God. I see myself in the
mirror, relate myself to myself, but also relate myself to another.
Kierkegaard writes that
the “The demonstration of Christianity really lies in imitation” (p. 68). From
a perspective that sees belief as a matter of reason this is absurd. Kierkegaard
is saying that through imitation a doubter will lose his doubts. But if a
person doubted due to lack of reasons, why would he imitate? Kierkegaard though
is looking at the matter in a different way. By imitating Christ a person
demonstrates that he is a Christian. Moreover, if Christian belief (faith) is
action, which is what has been learned from James, then if a person does not
act, he does not really believe it. If he does not believe, then he doubts. The
only solution to doubt is action. To act is to cease to doubt, and to cease
doubting is to cease looking for reasons.
We can now see an
interpretation of how Father Zosima’s advice to Madame Khokhlakova can help her
to have faith. If we see faith as a matter of action, then by acting, by loving
others, the person automatically has faith. Faith that just contemplates, that
fails to act, is a lifeless thing. No wonder then that she does not feel it.
Moreover, if
Kierkegaard is right, it is through action, through loving others, that the
spiritual self, (the self that relates itself to itself and relates itself to
others and indeed God) is created. If a person fails to act, if he fails to
follow God’s word, he will lack any sense of the spiritual. Only when a person
relates to God’s word does he relate to God and in doing so create the soul.
In this sense it may
even be that the atheist is right. He does not believe in the soul, he does not
believe in immortality. He is right as for him these things are not. Only by
acting in a loving manner does a person develop faith and with it the sense of
himself as a soul, as a spiritual being. Perhaps, only in this way does he
enable God to create this immortal soul. If this is so, then how we live our
lives really is decisive. Not because God will punish us, but because if we
have not related to him at all, there is nothing for him to save.
We see as the
conversation between Madame Khokhlakova and Father Zosima continues that she is
attempting to avoid action. She dreams of great, kind deeds. She dreams of
being a nun of giving up everything, of not being frightened by sores and dirt.
Father Zosima brings her back down to earth by saying maybe one day you will
actually do a fine deed. She realises that her dreams of acting kindly would
fail as soon as someone showed ingratitude. Father Zosima comes up with a similar
anecdote of a doctor who hates people individually but loves humanity. Again we
see someone who loves in theory but not in practice. What is to do be done?
Zosima is very kind and gentle. He thinks that it is a lot if the person is
already aware of his fault, aware of his lack of action. The key is to begin
acting. He says “Do what you can and it will be reckoned unto you. You have
already done much if you can understand yourself so deeply and so sincerely”
(p. 57). This however only works if the person is sincere and genuinely
repentant about his lack of action.
Zosima compares active
love with acting in dreams. This is similar to the idea in Kierkegaard which
compares someone who follows Christianity in theory with someone who follows it
in practice. But whereas Kierkegaard can be strict, Zosima is very gentle. He
accepts that we are weak. Active love is difficult. It is a matter of action,
and day to day action, not just one glorious act. It needs perseverance and
endurance and patience. But even if someone is as weak as Madame Khokhlakova,
there is hope for her. Even if she finds in the end that all her efforts at
active love have failed, that she is as far as ever from her goal, then she
will find that the miraculous and mysterious power of God is enough to save her
and that He always has been guiding her.
In Zosima’s view it is
enough to strive to love actively. He expects so very little of us. No more
than the mere act of striving. This striving is like Grushenka’s story (later
in the novel) of the gift of an onion. The solitary good act in a life of
wickedness can be enough to pull us out of the pit. God, perhaps, then does not
need more than our striving to be doers of the word. Perhaps, this is enough to
create the self for him to save. Perhaps, in the striving alone there is enough
self-relation and enough relation to another for the Christian self to come
into existence.
Zosima’s account is
very gentle as compared to Kierkegaard’s strictness. But that is not to say
that Kierkegaard would not have sympathised with Zosima’s view. After all,
Kierkegaard continually recognised our inability in the face of Christianity’s
demands, our powerlessness in the face of Christ’s example. Madame Khokhlakova
is powerless. She thinks that she can do nothing. But so long as she tries just
a little and so long as she does not use this sense of powerlessness as an
excuse, she, like all of us, can gain faith. Dostoevsky’s account of faith is
very gentle. In the end, we only need to give the tiniest thing. One good dead
is enough to save us. But this gentleness only works if we do not deceive
ourselves. It is for this reason that Zosima warns above all against lies. How
can a self look in Kierkegaard’s mirror if it is not honest with itself? A lie
destroys the self’s relation to itself and if a person cannot even find himself
in the mirror, how can he expect to find God?
The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Pevear and
Volokhonsky, Vintage, 1992.
For Self-Examination, translated by Hong and Hong,
Princeton University Press, 1990.
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