Page 18 - GALIET BENEATH THE ICON: The Lamp Dostoevsky´s Kirillov IV

did not turn completely, towards atheism. Dostoevsky knew well about it, and therefore, he stressed the transitional, vacillating condition of Kirillov; that between faith and disbelief, between man-god and Christ.”20
In addition, Speshnev, an atheist and a member of the Petrashevsky circle, further adds that “anthropotheism21 is also a religion” by insisting that, “the object of deification is new, but the fact of deification remains the same. Instead of god- man we now have man-god.” According to Shneidman, Speshnev sees no “difference between the principles of god- manhood and man-godhood.”22 Kirillov, therefore, is the new anthropotheistic man who wants to overcome God by creating a new concept of being.
Torn between his heart and reason, Kirillov’s next and last dialogue and confrontation with Peter, elucidates fully on Kirillov’s strenuous dichotomy “God is necessary, therefore, He must exist” against “But I know He doesn’t exist and can’t exist.”23 Kirillov’s uncertainty is so palpable that he goes on justifying his own pseudo-negation “there’s no idea greater than the fact that God doesn’t exist...The only thing man has done
20 Shneidman, N.N. Dostoevsky and Suicide. London: Mosaic Press. University of Toronto. 58
21 A science that recognizes man as the only highest being in nature. p. 58
22 Shneidman, N.N. Dostoevsky and Suicide. London: Mosaic Press. University of Toronto. 59
23 p. 690
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