My semester is finally ending, and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. This has been a particularly taxing semester, and so I welcome its departure. I must say, though, that I have grown increasingly fonder of the Russian novels that I have been engrossed in, and it will be a shame to leave that 'world'. Soon my head will once again be cluttered with a smattering of modernity, postmodernism, Germans, Czech's, Italians, Englishmen, and a host of others, whose novels with infiltrate my brain and muddle things. I will undoubtedly hearken back to the simple-complexity of the 19th Century Russian author, whose struggle for purpose and meaning amidst the darkness cannot help but inspire even a comfortable American.
The last of our novels, Anna Karenina, will be finished later today, but I wanted to pause and reflect on one of the last section of the book in which Levin 'finds God'. The wonder and amazement at his discovery gave me pause, so much so that I just couldn't go on and finish the last few pages without allowing his words to reverberate within me and flow out onto the keyboard.
Through the words of a peasant Levin's thoughts become entangled in his mind, and he begins to verbally work them out, saying,
To live not for one's needs but for God! For what God? What could be more senseless than what he said? He said we must not live for our needs - that is, we must not live for what we understand and what attracts us, what we wish for, but must live for something incomprehensible, for God whom nobody can understand or define...Thought worth pondering, if you ask me. Perhaps the greatest awakening within my soul these last few years has been that awakening to the mysteries of the faith. Perhaps this comment seems contradictory to my previous posts which concerned Calvinism and prayer, but I understand that God is not always a reasonable deity.
...Theodore says that Kirilov, the innkeeper, lives for his belly. That is intelligible and reasonable. We all, as reasoning creatures, cannot live otherwise. And then that same Theodore says that it is wrong to live for one's belly, and that we must live for Truth, for God, and at the first hint I understand him! I and millions of men who lived centuries ago and those who are living now: peasants, the poor in spirit, and sages, who have thought and written about it, saying the same thing in their obscure words - we all agree on that one thing: what we should live for, and what is good. I, and all other men, know only one thing firmly, clearly, and cerianly, and this knowledge cannot be explained by reason: it is outside reason, has no cause and can have no consequence.
Was it reasonable to have Isaac sacrifice his son as a sign of obedience? Soren Kierkegaard put it quite well when he called this act absurd. It is the absurdity of the faith that gets lost in our modern, post-enlightenment world. We want to label our beliefs, answer the questions that are ambiguous and contradictory in Scripture, and conduct the Christian life as we do the fields of technology and science. Everything is knowable, and with enough effort we do not have to live in the dark anymore. There is no room for the absurd anymore.
Tolstoy reminded me today that faith in God is beautifully unreasonable sometimes. One must live recklessly, leaning into the unknown, and realize that not all mysteries are meant to be solved. That makes me contented....I glimpse Levin's amazement.
I'm going to try and post later today! It's been a lot busier at MY school lately. :P Keep 'em coming, Mr. Stone. :)