Page 235 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

D O S T O E V S K Y A N D T H E D R A M A O F F R E E D O M
which Dostoevsky wrote. Alongside this, the rise of socialism,
his Siberian exile, and his encounters with the Russian starets
gave his vision its depth and prophetic force.
His heroes cannot be classified by ordinary moral catego-
ries. They are neither simply good nor evil, virtuous nor cor-
rupt. They are capable at once of heroism and cruelty, sacrifice
and destruction. At first glance they seem pathological, yet
they are profoundly human, closer perhaps to the hidden
truth of ourselves than the polished figures of moral literature.
Dostoevsky’s struggle is directed against moralistic anthropol-
ogy—the belief that man can be understood through ethical
categories or improved through culture and civilization.
Against modern optimism, he insists that culture does not
cure the depths of human contradiction. Even the most civi-
lized man may become brutal when given power, as Dosto-
evsky learned in Siberia.
From here he rejects the classical definition of man as a
rational being. Man is not governed by reason alone. In Notes
from Underground, Dostoevsky mocks the dream of a per-
fectly rational society in which every action is calculated. Such
a world, he says, will always be shattered by the human desire
to act against reason in order to assert freedom. Man does not
seek merely what is beneficial; he seeks independent will, even
when it leads to suffering. Indeed, Dostoevsky dares to say
that man may be passionately fond of suffering. Here lies his
central insight: man can only be understood in the light of
freedom. Freedom is both his greatness and his tragedy.
But what is freedom? Dostoevsky is not interested in trivi-
al choices. He asks whether man is free to affirm himself as
lord of creation. Here man confronts God. In Dostoevsky’s
world, God appears as the existential limit against which hu-
man freedom tests itself. Ivan Karamazov expresses this when
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