Personal Blogs

Joseph, who was renamed Barnabas by the apostles which meant son of comfort— Acts 4:3.

Image Courtesy of https://unsplash.com/@kimberlyfarmer

A friend once asked me, "Who is your favourite character in literature, Jim?"

"Oh dear, that’s like  choosing a favourite child. But let me see, there's Bruno from Striped Pyjamas, Aslan from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and Joe from Great Expectations..."

     "Your absolute favourite, Jim?"

     "Okay, it has to be Prince Myshkin."

     "Prince who?"

     "Prince Myshkin, from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot."

     "Why him?"

     "He was simply too good for this world."

All my life, I’ve been drawn to stories that feature inherently kind characters—perhaps because they possess qualities I aspire to, despite many personal failings. This is why I cherish the word 'Tattimbet' from the Kazakh language. It signifies not just being a decent person but being a source of comfort to others. There’s no equivalent word in English that carries the same depth.

Reflect on the books I mentioned; all their protagonists exemplify this quality. And we could list many more: Beth from Little Women, Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, Miss Honey from Matilda, Jean Valjean from Les Misérables, Ma Joad from The Grapes of Wrath, and, of course, Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables.

Isn’t it peculiar that in a universe seemingly devoid of purpose, we find ourselves drawn to kindness? Kindness, love, and self-sacrifice seem out of place in a purely evolutionary world, yet, contrary to popular belief, the arc of the universe does bend towards goodness.

‘I am a child of this age, the child of disbelief and doubt, until now and even to the grave. What a terrible torment this thirst for faith has taught me, and now cost me, which is stronger in my soul, the more in me the arguments to the contrary.’ ----  Dostoevsky 

Image courtesy of https://unsplash.com/@vivom

A profile of Dostoevsky reveals a man who experienced considerable injustices in life.  Diagnosed with Grand Mal Epilepsy as a teenager, a last-minute reprieve from a firing squad, exiled to Siberia, death of his second wife whom he loved, death of his child from an epileptic convulsion and the distress of raising a troubled teenager.

Scholars recognise the Karamazov book mirrors Dostoevsky’s life. That being the case, it was the existential angst that troubled Dostoevsky’s later years. Mourning the repeated inhumanity of Russian society, he inevitably turned to thoughts of Divine justice. A question that is as relevant today as it was two centuries ago.

When he was exiled to Siberia, an old widow supplied him and his fellow prisoners some hospitality. She signalled out Dostoevsky and gifted him with a Bible. He later wrote:

‘I am a child of this age, the child of disbelief and doubt, until now and even to the grave. What a terrible torment this thirst for faith has taught me, and now cost me, which is stronger in my soul, the more in me the arguments to the contrary.’ Letters XXV111/1, P.176, 

The Bible, she gave him, was still in his possession at his death.

Fascinating that The Brothers Karamazov was, despite careful reading, I never found that attributed phrase where Alisha said to his atheist brother, ‘If there is no God, then all things are permissible.’ The problem lies in the translation it seems. Nonetheless, the aphorism stands as a valuable argument for objective morality and the personal God. Why does something exist rather than not exist? Why are humans who are apparent chemicals that have come about in the big cosmic game of chance directed by this virtue called justice? Are all the evil and good deeds carried out by humans all for nothing? Are the acts carried out by Pol Pot, Putin, Stalin, and others, permissible? Will there not be a great judgement? If we are alone in this dark universe, then anything and everything goes. But the lived experience reveals otherwise.

We are governed by an invisible force that bends towards justice. We feel it in our lives daily. I say bends because we are free moral agents on a level playing field where goodness and wickedness meet. There’s too much wickedness for God to exist some might say. But isn’t the reverse also true? There’s considerable goodness. Why would any virtue exist in a universe that just happened? I see medical staff going to war-torn countries and risking life to provide care for those who are not their kin. What about Ignacio Echeverría, the 39-year-old Spanish lawyer who confronted the terrorists in the 2017 London Bridge attacks and sacrificing his athletic future and life in the process? There’s the stranger who sacrifices a kidney for the person he will never meet. The millions of charitable givers who make life more endurable for orphans in Brazil, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and other parts of the world. These acts defy the theory of reciprocity allogrooming. They describe altruism in the true sense. Just pure, unconditional love. And history is filled with such.

Back in 1979, just like Dostoevsky, I had many vexing theological questions I wrestled with. One Sunday morning, a man who looked dressed for a funeral, knocked my door and asked, ‘If you had an audience with God, what would you ask him?’

Between a blink and a wink, I asked, ‘Why so much injustice in the world?’ I was expecting this tall thin man with heavy black glasses to ferret away in view of my difficult question. But no. He read me the following:

‘We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time … For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay…’

Why would God create a beautiful planet then subject it to futility? I have thought of this most of my adult life. Here’s what I think. Are we not free moral agents? Then it’s back to that level playing field scenario. How will humans conduct themselves in the absence of a creator? The presence of injustice is a factor caused by man. This gives the illusion that there’s no God. But are humans not like the child who behaves in the parents’ presence and disobeys in their absence? Is there a place for the child who always conducts himself unselfishly, metaphorically speaking? I say that God has us in this seemingly futile situation to test our worth. Not knowing if he is there for sure, reinforces our true selves. What we value most.

C.S. Lewis wrote, ‘If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world will satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we are made for another world.’

All the books I read as a child was about a craving. The hero’s striving for something. I could not put my finger on it at the time. But it was the human impulse for justice. Something books will never satisfy. I found that hope in the further words the man read to me that day as he stood at my door:

‘He (God) will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, the old order of things has passed away.’

 Revelation 21: 4.

I shed many a tear as a child. I shed some now. But to embrace a hope where a universe will prevail and justice being at its centrepiece, I wipe my eyes. The dark and stormy night looks brighter in the end.