“I Have an Ideal, it Was Given me: Christ”: Dostoevsky’s Christology in the Context of the Tradition of Moral Interpretation of Dogma

Abstract

The present article continues a series of studies devoted to the theology of Fyodor Dostoevsky in the context of the tradition of moral interpretation of dogma, which was developing in Russian thought during the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. The article focuses on Dostoevsky’s Christology, presented through the prism of the idea of transforming dogma into a commandment. It is shown that Dostoevsky’s perception of Christ as the “ideal man in flesh” should be understood not in the context of utopian thought, but as a manifestation of the idea of the deification of man, as expressed in the patristic aphorism: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” Dostoevsky’s polemic with Konstantin Kavelin is discussed from the point of view of the Christological dogma. It is illustrated how the assertion of the equality of the two natures, Divine and human, in Christ affects the anthropology and historiosophy of Dostoevsky. Views of writer’s contemporaries who developed the idea of a moral interpretation of the dogma of the God-man, such as: archimandrite Fedor (Bukharev), bishop Ivan (Sokolov), Nikolay Fedorov, archimandrite Antony (Khrapovitsky), Viktor Nesmelov, Sergey Bulgakov are also considered.

Keywords

• dostoevsky’s creative works
• dogmatics
• ethics
• moral idea of dogma
• christology
• philosophical and theological context