The New Inquiry: Death is Not the End

A review of Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief

By Emily Smith

The recent publication of Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief (in a new translation by Dustin Condren) calls for a renewed investigation of the political, intellectual and religious milieu of 19th century Russia. Since our natural…

Based on this review, it might make sense to think of Tolstoy as one of Kierkegaard’s “pagans”: someone who prays to an idol with “passionate inwardness,” but doesn’t actually attain faith, because faith is only possible if one’s passionate inwardness is directed toward the ultimate paradox: the Incarnation of the eternal in the temporal. That is, for Kierkegaard, faith is only really faith if its subject is Jesus—moreover, if Jesus is understood to be simultaneously an actual, mortal human and the divine, atemporal creator-god. The paradoxical identity of these two (Jesus/divine) is the basic prerequisite of true faith. So…like Tolstoy.

[Edit: Published this, re-read it, and realized it’s painfully obvious that I wrote a paper on this topic as an undergrad. Sorry.]

(Source: thenewinquiry)