Alyosha Karamazov suffers tormenting doubt because the miracle he expected does not occur. But when he finds himself engaged in active love in consoling Grushenka, he discovers a faith that is compatible with uncertainty. That is the lesson Father Zossima meant him to learn. Now Alyosha realizes: This is why Zossima sent him from the monastery into “the world,” where he is bound to encounter many troubling tests of his faith. If true faith is the striving for faith, it could be no other way. Alyosha realizes that whatever doubts may assail him, they can be part of, rather than undermining, his newly understood faith. And so “Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all.” He does not need to know why. “Within three days, he left the monastery in accordance with the words of his elder, who had bidden him ‘sojourn in the world.’”
Even in the throes of doubt Dostoevsky knew that, for us transitional beings, real faith always dwells in uncertainty. Like happiness, it consists in the striving for it. The goal is in the quest. “Comfort yourself,” wrote Pascal. “You would not seek me if you had not found me.”
–Gary Saul Morson, Dostoevsky’s Credo, in First Things, 2.12.2025
