The Problem of “Higher Individuals” in the Works of F.M. Dostoevsky

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Li Xiaoyu ◽  
I.I. Evlampiev
Keyword(s):  
Personal Accomplishment ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The World ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

This article deals with the controversial issue of F.M. Dostoevsky’s concept of “Higher Individuals.” The latter are people who rise above other people and have a special influence on society and on history. The authors argue that this concept is most clearly expressed in “The Diary of a Writer” (1876) as well as in the story “The Sentence”, along with Dostoevsky’s commentaries on this story. By means of a detailed analysis of Raskolnikov’s “theory” within the novel “Crime and Punishment”, it is demonstrated that only a superficial version of the concept of “higher individuals” is refuted in the heroes’ argumentations; at the same time, the novel’s characters – Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, and Raskolnikov – can be viewed as examples of different degrees in the personal accomplishment of this “higher personality” state. In conclusion, it is observed how a person must go through three stages of development in order to become a “higher character”: firstly, the experience of an existential crisis and the understanding of the lack of meaning in one’s life; secondly, the “rebellion” against the Creator of the world and its laws along with the rejection of the traditional church faith, whose rejection leads this person on the edge of suicide; thirdly, the acquisition of a new faith, first of all, a faith in one’s immortality, which happens in an unusual, unorthodox form, as is well demonstrated by the character of Svidrigailov in Dostoevsky’s novel. According to Dostoevsky’s doctrine, the meaning ofimmortality lies in the continuation of a person’s existence in a new form in the earthly world or in a “parallel” world similar to the earthly one, and not in the ideal Kingdom of Heaven, as the church claims. Finally, the authors maintain that the process of a character’s transformation into a “higher individual” was consistently and fully described by Dostoevsky in the stories of Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov.

The Moral Heart of Vatican II

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-76
Author(s):  
Michael Barnes, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The background of Vatican II’s pastoral and missionary concerns cannot be separated from what is arguably the Council’s most unexpected and far-reaching document, Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions. While very often interpreted as changing, not to say reversing, traditional Church-centred soteriology, this chapter argues that Nostra Aetate needs to be understood primarily as an event, a moment of self-understanding on the part of the Church which provokes a radical conversio morum. By calling the Declaration the ‘moral heart of the Council’, the chapter focusses specifically on its original purpose. That the Declaration has opened up a broader interreligious perspective to which all the major religions of the world can relate is testament less to the power of particular theological ideas than to its central conviction that the Church finds its own origins not apart from but through the faith which it shares with the people of the Sinai Covenant.

Jesus and the Church as Vulnerable Strangers

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-265
Author(s):  
Abraham van de Beek
Keyword(s):  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

AbstractReferring to Marinus de Jonge, the author calls Jesus a stranger from heaven—he is the king of the kingdom of heaven. Christians are his members and share his life. As strangers on earth, they do not have an enduring city in the world (Heb. 13:14). They are not foreigners somewhere, but they are principally foreigners. They do not strive for earthly power, but participate in the life of foreigners. Due to this position, they feel acquainted with foreigners. They share the experience of exclusion, and, by consequence, strangers share their community—they believe by their exclusion.

scholarly journals FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT: REMBRANDT'S LIGHTING IN THE NOVEL “CRIME AND PUNISHMENT” BY F.M. DOSTOEVSKY

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-308
Author(s):  
S.I. Yermolenko ◽  
O.I. Kadushina
Keyword(s):  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Main Function ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
The World ◽  
Direction Of Movement

The F. M. Dostoevsky’s special art of chiaroscuro at different times was repeatedly drawn to the attention of researchers. However the observations of Dostoevsky scholars about one of Dostoevsky’s methods of the art of chiaroscuro - the so-called “Rembrandt lighting” - are still fragmentary, which does not allow us to fully assess its significance in the poetics of the writer and the implementation of the ideological and philosophical intention of the works. The authors of the article are guided by the principles of the «slow reading», which allows you to gradually immerse yourself in the meaning of a work or some of its separate episodes, without losing sight of the details and particulars, without which a deep understanding of the text cannot be achieved. The article analyzes three episodes of the novel “Crime and Punishment” (the death of Marmeladov, Raskolnikov’s half-confession to Razumikhin in the corridor, Sonya’s reading of the Gospel to Raskolnikov), in which F. M. Dostoevsky uses the Rembrandt lighting technique. The author establishes not only the significance of these episodes in the text of the novel, but also their internal correlation: they constitute a kind of “Rembrandt plot”, characterized by the invariable direction of movement from darkness to light. As a result of the analysis, a conclusion is made about the multifunctionality of this technique in “Crime and Punishment” (social, psychological, ideological and compositional functions). The main function in the novel is the religious and philosophical function of the Rembrandt illumination as a form of expressing the author’s position: the assertion of the inevitability of the final triumph of the Spiritual Light over the “slum” darkness in the world and the hearts of people.

Athanasius' ‘Vita Antonii’ as Political Theology: The Call of Heavenly Citizenship

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
SOPHIE CARTWRIGHT
Keyword(s):  
Political Theology ◽  
World Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Fallen World

This article explores the political theology of Athanasius' ‘Life of Antony’. It argues that the work is profoundly concerned with the relationship between the Church and the empire, which it treats as a component of the relationship between the Church and the fallen world order. Athanasius explores this issue through Antony, striving to live as a citizen of heaven within the fallen world. Athanasius sees allegiance to earthly authority as problematising allegiance to the heavenly kingdom, which is bound up with a concern for the Christian's identity: the Christian must understand himself and the world in relation to the kingdom of heaven, rather than the earthly kingdom.

When the Fences are Down; Language and Order in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Fields
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Primary Function ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Order ◽  
The Town ◽  
The Church

The world of Tom Sawyer, both that of the character and of the novel which bears his name, is a world dominated by fences; the neat, straight palings that surround the Widow Dougla's property, the fence around the Teacher house over which the lovestick Tom gazes longingly after Becky, and all the other upright boundaries delineating St. Petersburg respectability. As the central icon of the novel, Aunt Polly's white-washed fence appropriately represents the care and maintenance of order to which the town is committed, an order upon which both Tom and his story depend. Although Twain first identifies St. Petersburg as a poor, shabby, frontier village, it is far from defenseless in its confrontations either with shabbiness or wilderness. Well ordered by its fences and undergirded, like Tom's story, by the central institutions of civil and cultural order — the court, the school, the church — it is a society where things have been assigned their proper places and where the primary function of the St. Petersburg elect is to tend those places. This is a world overseen by guardians and Sunday superintendents, schoolmastes, and judges, authorities who, if sometimes mistaken, or even slightly absurd, are essentially benign and nearly always reliable. Thus it is that the minister, praying for the community's children, does so in the context of a hierarchy of responsibility that from country officials to the President of the United States, an ordering presence that, among other reassuring work, is to guarantee the well-being of the young. As though to provide the fullest representation of this benevolent system, Missouri's most important senator, Thomas Hart Benton, makes a cameo appearance in the novel, albeit one in which he is judged of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a book about boyish freedom, it affirms at every turn an order of the most conventional sort and depends upon that order for the version of boyhood it depicts.

scholarly journals Crime, punishment, and death: Reading finitude and the self in David Malouf’s ‘The Conversations at Curlow Creek’

Coolabah ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 32-42
Author(s):  
Chinmaya Lal Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
New South ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Representation ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
South Wales ◽  
The World ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Historical Accounts

The present paper reads David Malouf’s 1996 novel The Conversations at Curlow Creek as portraying a vivid and realistic picture of events relating to crime and punishment in colonial Australia in the early nineteenth century. The depiction of death penalty accorded to the bushranger Daniel Carney under the supervision of the Irish sheriff Michael Adair in New South Wales thus resonates with numerous historical accounts of incidents that actually happened. The novel, however, does more than only provide accurate historical representation as it also presents Adair as having undergone a rather dramatic transformation in the process of conversing with Carney before the latter’s execution. The paper, drawing on the views of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, argues that a realization of inevitable mortality, of facing certain death characterizes this change in Adair’s nature and worldview. It concludes by suggesting that Adair’s acceptance of his finitude intimates of a way of being in the world that not only subverts procedures of administering punishment to convicts in colonial Australia but also indicates the limits of polarized identity politics that shapes the country in the present times.

scholarly journals Между историей и философией. Поэтика романа „Чапаев и Пустота” Виктора Пелевина

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-28
Author(s):  
Anna Chudzińska-Parkosadze
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Category ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Ideal

The article focuses on the concept of a dualistic model of the world perception in the novel Chapayev and Void by Victor Pelevin. The model represents the contrast to the notion of alchemic union that stands for the ideal pattern, which cannot be realized in Russian reality. So dualism meant as a division and separation between heroes, who cannot understand each other, concerns also the division between East and West in the historical, philosophical and cultural perspective. However, the main division, which is superior upon the others, is the dualism of reality and consciousness that in the novel transforms to the universal category. The only possible escape from this dysfunctional realm is spiritual illumination.

scholarly journals “CENTOCHIESE”: A HUNDRED CHURCHES IN ROME. AN ARCHIVAL PHOTOGRAMMETRIC PROJECT

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W15 ◽  
pp. 457-463
Author(s):  
G. Fangi ◽  
C. Nardinocchi ◽  
G. Rubeca
Keyword(s):  
Significant Part ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Religious Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The City ◽  
Christian Nation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Rome is the city where two different cultures have found their greatest architectural achievement, the Latin civilization and the Christian civilization. It is for this reason that in Rome there is the greatest concentration in the world of Roman buildings, monuments and Christian buildings and churches. Rome is the seat of the papacy; say the head of the Christian Church. Every religious order, every Christian nation has created its own headquarters in Rome, the most representative possible, as beautiful, magnificent as possible. The best artists, painters, sculptors, architects, have been called to Rome to create their masterpieces.This study describes the photogrammetric documentation of selected noteworthy churches in Rome. Spherical Photogrammetry is the technique used. The survey is limited to the facades only, being a very significant part of the monument and since no permission is necessary. In certain cases, also the church interior was documented. A total of 170 Churches were surveyed. The statistics that one can derive from such a large number is particularly meaningful. Rome is the ideal place to collect the largest possible number of such cases. This study was motivated by the desire to provide technicians, architects, engineers and students with a technique that is easy to use and accessible and to show the great potential of the used photogrammetric technique. This article is a prelude to a book where all the panoramas obtained will be presented and made available to a larger public. Guidelines and tools to plot the facades will also be made available.</p>

scholarly journals “Crime and Punishment”: A Mystical Novel about Saving the World through the Love of Jesus Christ and Sophia

2020 ◽  
pp. 136-150
Author(s):  
I.I. Evlampiev
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Natural Explanation ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
The World ◽  
Material Power

This article is a continuation of the interpretation of F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”. A detailed analysis of the central episode of the novel, Raskolnikov's visit to Sonya Marmeladova, Is here offered, and, as a result, many hidden allusions to the story of Jesus Christ are revealed. Attention is drawn to the dual meaning of Raskolnikov's statements about the need to gain power over the world: this is either material power, based on the laws of the evil world (in imitation of Napoleon), or spiritual power, canceling the laws of the world (in imitation of Christ), which includes serving people and accepting suffering for everyone. It is proved that all the mysterious and incomprehensible details of the narration receive a natural explanation when the Gnostic myth of the salvation of the world through the love union (sizigiya) of Jesus Christ and Sophia is put at the basis of the symbolic plan of the novel. This connection takes place in the epilogue of the novel, where the symbolic plan completely prevails over the realistic, which allows to explain the change in the style of the narrative, which was paid attention to by many researchers.

scholarly journals Christian Unity, or the Kingdom of Heaven

1892 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Thomas Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
Christian Unity ◽  
The Church ◽  
Better Than

No one can doubt that, if the Christian Church were one in spirit, and one in organization for work, she would fulfil her appointed mission better than she does. Indeed, since the establishment of brotherly love is a chief part of that mission, so long as that love is wanting, so long she fails in her mission. It may be safely said that no single cause so effectually obstructs Christianity within the Church, and none so prevents its acceptance outside, as the schisms and enmities whereby she is divided against herself. While she thus offers a ready text to her critics, detractors, and opponents, how can she hope to conquer the world for brotherly love?Whatever weighty reasons there may have been in days gone by for rending to pieces the Christian body; whatever advantages may have seemed likely to spring therefrom, that rending, being an absolute belying of the Christian spirit, was, in itself, an unmixed evil. The Church that had so far lost the spirit of Christian love, as not to be ready to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things, rather than fall to pieces, was not the Church of Christ. No corruption or abuse, however glaring, could ever constitute a sufficient excuse for schism or revolt. Schism may be allowable in every other institution: in the Church of Christ it is forever forbidden; for the reason that her very essence is the unity of brotherly love, and where that fails, she fails. As St. Ignatius says: “If any one followeth one that maketh a schism, he doth not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Philad., iii.)

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