One of my former seminary students, who has just entered graduate school in theology at Mundelein, has been reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevski. He confessed recently that he found himself relating to Ivan Karamazov, the atheist intellectual, more than Alyosha, the religiously devoted brother who seeks to enter a monastery. It seemed a little strange to my seminarian, as if he had looked in the mirror one morning and seen the eyes of someone he didn't recognize looking back at him.
Dostoevsky knew that faith was not easy for an intellectual and boldly gave powerful expression to the attitudes he didn't necessarily sympathize with, which is one of the reasons The Brothers Karamazov is such a great novel. The character of Ivan Karamazov dramatizes the conflict between faith and reason in the most honest and poignant way possible. Dostoevski gives him such a compelling voice that it is not difficult to take him seriously, while at the same time deeply pitying him for his searing inner conflicts. Ivan's despair, inner desolation, cynicism and self-destruction make him a figure of deep pathos, particularly for anyone who has wrestled with the devouring Worm of Reason. I have taught philosophy in the seminary and I have at times battled the Worm and, like my seminarian, have sometimes looked to Ivan Karamazov as my soul-brother. Faith is not always easy. Nor should it be.
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