Dostoevsky

As a writer and prophet Dostoevsky was no academic theologian, yet his writings are deeply theological: his life, beliefs, even his epilepsy, all had a role in generating histheology and eschatology. Dostoevsky''s novels are riven with paradoxes, aredeeply dialectical, and represent a criticism of religion, offered in the service of the gospel. In this task he presented a profound understanding and portrait of humanity. Dostoevsky''s novels chart the movement of the human into death: either the movement through paradox and Christlikeness into Christ''s cross (a soteriology often characterized by the apophatic negation and self-denial; what we may term ''the Mark of Abel'') leading to salvation and resurrection; or, conversely, the movement of those who refuse Christ''s invitation to be redeemed, and continue to fall into a self-willed death and a selfgenerated hell (''the Mark of Cain''). This eschatology becomes a theological axiom which he unceasingly warned people of in his mature works. Startlingly original, stripped of all religious pretence, Dostoevsky as a prophet forewarned of the politicized humanistic delusions of the twentieth century: a prophet crying out through the wilderness.