With God All Things are Permitted
Dostoyevsky’s Faith in Faith
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is attributed to having once written, “Without God, all things are permitted.” Although the brilliant Russian novelist never put this exact statement to paper, the statement does summarize one of his strongest convictions and central themes of his masterful novels very well. Dostoyevsky lived in imperial Russia in the mid-1800s, during a period of ideological ferment, revolutionary spirit, and social flux. The Napoleonic wars still existed in the living memory of many of his contemporaries, and momentous events such as the emancipation of the serfs in Russia and the eruption of political uprisings in 1848 in Europe helped characterize the era as a time of both change and instability. These changes were accompanied by novel philosophical and ideological movements that were, in some cases, radically different than those held in previous times.
One such movement was the growth of secular rationalism and nihilism that began to pervade contemporary political and moral thought. As a staunchly religious man himself, Dostoyevsky believed that the removal of God from the European soul was a grave misstep, both in terms of the individual and society. This sentiment is the central point in some of his most distinguished novels, including Crime and Punishment, and Demons. Dostoyevsky believed that a religious anchor was a crucial safeguard against the pitfalls of unguided reason and moral nihilism. Therefore, in his view, if secular ideological currents continued to flow to their logical conclusions, Western society would plunge into a state of chaos and depravity. This conviction was reinforced by his perception of a rise in criminal activity and moral debauchery that coincided with the decline of religious influence in 19th-century Russia. This, along with the apparent failure of rationalist political and ethical theories and praxis to take the place of the waning influence of religion, led to Dostoevsky’s enthusiastic support of the revitalization of the Christian faith as an antidote against the dangers of secular thought trending in Europe at the time.
This is an example of the “belief in belief”, the assertion that religious belief is a necessary social adhesive and a bulwark against humanity’s succumbing to its base, anti-social impulses. The veracity of religion itself is not crucial for the health of the individual and society, but belief in the moral convictions they are predicated upon absolutely is. One mustn’t need to be religious to hold this to be a valid notion. I, myself believe that religion has historically proven itself to be an effective, albeit rather crude, social control mechanism. However, many mistakenly point to this maxim to demonstrate the superiority of religion over other ethical systems. Yet, when we subject this principle to historical and rational examination, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
In terms of pure ethics, religion, especially organized religions, provides only poor substitutes for a true moral system. This is because religion’s only true principle is obedience grounded on fantasies and obtained by empty promises. Religion hardly ever argues in support of the intrinsic truth of its moral codes. Rather, they are structured to exploit our capacity for illusion and play off humans’ selfish desires. Followers of all major faiths believe that their adherence to the associated dogmas is the only path toward righteousness, without which the human conscience would be driven solely by base self-interest. Because of their apparent selfless submission to a higher authority, they perceive themselves as holier, nobler, and better than non-believers. However, when we critically consider these faiths, devotion is always incentivized by some individual reward –such as heaven or nirvana— under the condition of submission to its system of belief and code of behavior. Religions, therefore, do not negate self-interest; they affirm it. Yet those who are ensnared by it seldom, if ever, seem to notice the true nature of their “belief”. Religion’s ability to effectively employ basic carrot-and-stick techniques so subversively, and without ever even needing to make good on any of its threats or promises, is its most impressive attribute. This exemplifies its true genius.
Dostoevsky’s Christianity perhaps conjures up the grandest illusion of all. Christianity markets itself as a religion of peace and salvation, and believers assert that its moral system is self-evidently true. “No one comes to the father, except through me.” Yet the very fabric of Christianity is really no more than a system of submission backed by high-stakes reinforcement mechanisms. Submit to the will of God, and you shall receive heaven. Refuse, and you shall burn in hell for all eternity.
This type of con-artistry manifests in some form or another in any major religion. What is most remarkable about Christianity in particular, though, is the ambiguous, inconsistent, and contradictory nature of its edicts. Many of the actions that God prohibits in one instance, are condoned or even commanded in another. Furthermore, as the supreme deity, he levies no limitations upon himself, especially in terms of smiting those who invoke his displeasure. Consider the kinds of alleged behavior historically carried out by God and that of his followers, all the way from Biblical times to the present. Examples in scriptural texts are rife with actions committed by God that make terrorists, tyrants, and murderers like Hitler and Osama Bin Laden look like amateurs. Against these wannabees, Yahweh stands supreme as the undisputed champion of all mass slaughterers. According to the Bible, he all but exterminated the entire human race in a worldwide flood (still not sure what the animals did wrong), destroyed entire cities and civilizations for going against his will, and even established draconian laws for his supposed “chosen people.” Such laws included the penalty of death by stoning for public enemies from Sabbath-breakers to unruly children. Imagine killing your neighbor for cleaning out his tent on “God’s special day”, or dragging your child to the outskirts of town and pelting him with rocks until he was dead because he was acting up. In one Biblical account of insatiable bloodlust, God sanctioned the (supposed) Israelite genocide of the Canaanites upon their arrival to the “Promised Land”. Later, he allowed those very same Israelites to be crushed by the Assyrian and the Babylonian Empires in retaliation for their disobedience. Even the New Testament has parts where God’s megalomaniacal thirst for servile obedience is glaring. Paul, for instance, asserts that, whether or not something is a true sin, if one commits an action that he believes is a sin, he is guilty of sin. Consider the pathologically totalitarian nature of that statement. Can anyone think of a more aggressively authoritarian policy for forcing obedience than punishing people for things that were perfectly legal, but were erroneously thought to be wrong? Christians are commonly convinced that the Bible is the unequivocal guide for moral living, and that the Bible is consistent, clear, and unchanging. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth, and one might question if these so-called followers of Christ actually bothered to pick up the Bible themselves. If they had, perhaps they would realize that the only consistent, clear, and unchanging moral principle in the Bible is submission. Everything else, from mayhem, pillage, murder, destruction, etc. is contingent upon the whims of Jehovah, who holds himself accountable to no moral principles.
This arbitrary criterion for justification survived well beyond Biblical times, where Christians continued to commit vicious acts of violence and injustice in the name of their supposedly merciful and benevolent God. During late antiquity, the newly established Christian Church of Rome flexed its holy muscles by not only continuing persecution of other Christians, but by intensifying it. This vicious process of purging Christian sects such as Arians and Gnostics, who diverged from the newly established Orthodox teaching of the Church, ironically occurred at the same time that Orthodox Christianity developed their own cult of martyrs killed under Pagan Roman rule. The hypocrisy is uncanny.[1]
Fast-forwarding to the Middle Ages, Christianity became the basis for centuries of war and persecution. The Papacy launched several Crusades against both heathens abroad and heretics within. At home, Inquisitors ruthlessly arrested, tortured, and killed an endless number of supposed blasphemers and heretics. European Jews were demonized and targeted while witch-hunts flared up throughout Christendom. This aggression progressed into wholesale political violence during the Reformation, which sparked centuries of sectarian persecution that culminated in the horror Thirty-Years War in Germany. This conflict, renowned for the merciless brutality of soldiers and mercenaries, was fueled, in large part, by the religious conflict between Roman Catholics, Calvinists, and Lutheran Protestants. The extreme violence against civilians and belligerents alike was justified by religious conviction. By the end of the war, it was estimated that 20% of the European population died during the conflict. In some areas, the numbers were as high as 60%.[2] Beyond that, radical Calvinists and extremist sects such as the 5th Monarchist emerged as agents of religiously motivated terrorism that predated the likes of Al Qaeda by nearly 400 years.[3] Throughout the history of the Christian faith, its believers put every effort into ensuring that the world they lived in was as God-awful as the blood-spattered pages of the Scripture itself. It is, in fact, largely due to religion’s appalling historical record that fueled trends toward secularization in the 18th century. The Faithful, however, far too often make up apologetic excuses for the past, if they don’t simply jettison it into their personal memory-holes.
Despite what Fyodor may have said, a historical examination seems to say that, in truth, “With God, all things are permitted”. Murder, rape, plunder, and destruction, there is nothing intrinsically wrong about any of this. All you need is his divine signature. Or at least dupe everyone into thinking you have it. And they’ll believe you because faith is a virtue and questioning God is heresy. In any case, what would happen without religion? According to Dostoevsky, we’d all just be raping, killing plundering, and destroying, without permission! How terrible would that be?
Ultimately, Christianity offers a crude paradigm of social enforcement that befits only the credulous, vicious, and infantile. It’s commonly wondered by the faithful how anyone could be moral without being Christian, yet historical analysis leads one to marvel at religion’s capacity to allow for some of the most egregiously heinous transgressions to have ever occurred on Earth. Religious belief serves just as much to inspire violence and exploitation as docile subservience to the social order it endorses. As the American theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg once stated, “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” So despite what quote so often misattributed to Dostoyevsky says, it seems the reverse is true. “With God, all things are permitted”.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/martyrs.html
[2] https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2017/05/23/thirty-years-war-first-modern-war/#:~:text=The%20Thirty%20Years'%20War%20is,by%20as%20much%20as%2060%25.