Dostoevsky and Scholastic Theology: Points of Intersection

Abstract

The article considers the reflections of scholastic theology in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works; their range spans Dostoevsky’s works from Notes from Underground where the Underground man alludes to the second proof of the existence of God to The Devils where Stepan Verkhovensky transforms Thomas Aquinas’s concept of creation in his view of the relationship between man and God. Similar verbal and structural references are also present in The Brothers Karamazov where Book Five is titled “Pro and contra.” The links with Summa Theologiae also paradoxically connect the Underground man’s ideology with that of these alleged opponents, the rationalists, by drawing parallels between St. Thomas’s arguments and Auguste Comte’s The Catechism of the Positive Religion. References to Thomas Aquinas’s theology were picked up by Dostoevsky’s contemporaries and they are intended to guide the readers in the philosophical and religious world of the writer and his characters.

Keywords

• summa theologiae
• thomas aquinas on creation
• auguste comte
• johann gottlieb fichte
• scholastic argument
• notes from underground
• the devils
• the brothers karamazov
• medieval hermeneutics