War and Peace: An Exposé of Human Transience by Kayla

War and Peace: An Exposé of Human Transience

By

Kayla 

November 12, 2009

When Darius, King of Persia first invaded Greece in 490 B.C., he expected to totally annihilate the Greeks, with good reason. He outnumbered them two to one and had a united, strong, fresh army ready to macerate the little Greeks. He arrived at Marathon, Greece, arrogant, but woefully unprepared for the task ahead. Unfortunately for Persia he forgot to take into account the resilience of the Greek soldiers.  Few Athenians perished during the now-famous Battle of Marathon, but many Persians were slaughtered. A small, inexperienced military force had pulverized Darius’ once-strong army.

While some might point to Greece’s unity as the reason for her success, Greece prevailed only because of Darius’ pride. His belief in his own apparent invincibility was his greatest downfall. Most difficulties in life today come from our heightened estimation of ourselves. Instead of having a healthy view of our own weaknesses, we often value pride, calling it self-esteem rather than arrogance. From Ancient Greece to Modern America, pride has always been the Achilles Heel of civilization. This attitude shows itself in the books and writings of cultures past and present.

When he wrote War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy did not ignore human weaknesses like some have done. His frank and complete description of several different flaws in human nature endears him to the reader and helps them to examine their own lives. Each of his characters has a particular flaw common to the human race, and he does not shirk from depicting them for what they really are. One of his critics remoarked about the tome,

“There are unendurable things in it and there are wonderful things in it, and the wonderful things—they predominate—are so magnificently good that no one has ever written better and it is doubtful if anything as good has ever been written before” (Chute 56).

Such an enduring novel should be read and carefully considered by the students and adults of today’s world.

            Tolstoy’s descriptions of defects in humans are accurate and needed in literature. Students and Christians should read War and Peace and use it as a tool for introspection.

            Brilliantly, Leo Tolstoy exposes different defects in War in Peace, the first of which is lack of self-control. Secondly, he depicts the pitfalls of infidelity, followed by the enormous consequences of a life of selfishness. Fourthly, he shows the dangers of cynicism, and concludes with portraying the result of hatred toward others.

            Pierre Bezukhov, the rich, illegitimate only child of the wealthy Count Bezukhov, never understands the meaning of moderation. Whenever he learns of a new philosophy, he pursues it relentlessly. Fascination with a beautiful woman consumes him to the point he can barely think. When he first meets her he,

“lowered his eyes, raised them again, and wanted to see her once more as a distant, alien beauty, the way he had seen her every day before then; but he could no longer do that. Could not, just as a man who once looked at a stalk of tall grass in the mist and saw it as a tree, can look at the stalk of grass itself and once more see it as a tree. She was terribly close to him. She already had power over him. And there were no longer any obstructions between them, except for the obstruction of his own will” (War and Peace, 206).

Pierre has no self-control. Once he desires Hélène, nothing stands in the way of his desires. He pursues her blunderingly and lustfully. Due to her own lack of self-control, Hélène accepts his advances and encourages them flirtatiously. Interestingly, Pierre is so enticed by her beauty that he cannot remember how to say “I love you” in French.  Food entices him temptingly. In fact, Pierre “was clumsy. Fat, unusually tall, broad, with enormous hands” (War and Peace, 22).  He was known amongst his friends for his gluttony for food and wine.

Interestingly, Tolstoy does not attempt to idealize Pierre’s appearance, like so many other authors have done with their main characters. His struggle with restraint shows itself in his obesity. Fat and unattractive, Pierre in his gluttony presents an unsightly picture. The Bible also eschews gluttony. Solomon writes in Proverbs 23:20-21, “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.” Clearly, Christians are not called to a life of intemperance; however, many fall into this common trap. In Proverbs 25:28, Solomon observes,  “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” Apparently, God looks down upon those who live immoderately. In fact, one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control in all things. This does not mean abstaining from food, wine, love, etc altogether. Rather, it means to enjoy all things in moderation., Tolstoy does not shrink from exposing such a grave human error by examining it in the character of Pierre.

            Very few Americans remain physically faithful to their spouse during their marriages. The majority of marriages today end in divorce. Sadly, most do not value fidelity in marriage like they should. Hebrews 13:4 calls Christians to, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” In a time where teenagers are encouraged to promiscuity, parents should hardly expect them to embrace ‘undefilement’ once married. Clearly, there is nothing new under the sun.

Most of Tolstoy’s married characters are unfaithful to their spouses. Hélène Bezukhov only marries her husband Pierre because of his wealth. Then, she ruins her marriage by callously flirting with every young man in sight, moves out, and accuses Pierre of adultery in order to gain an annulment from the church. Notoriously, Tolstoy himself misused and emotionally abused his wife. He forced her to write out and edit his enormous novel, even while she was pregnant. Indeed, he died after contracting pneumonia from leaving his wife in the dead of winter at age 82 (Yenne 47). Surely, Tolstoy must have based his realistic view of marriage on his own.

Natasha Rostov begins an emotional affair with an immoral gambler named Anatole Kuragin. Tolstoy uses her persona to juxtapose true love and physical attraction. Contrastingly to her relationship with her fiancé, her relationship with Anatole is merely lust. When he first meets her, Anatole, “

“Never took his smiling eyes from Natasha’s face, neck, and bared arms. Natasha knew beyond doubt that he admired her. She enjoyed that, but for some reason his presence made her feel constrained, hot, and op pressed. When she was not looking at him, she felt that he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily intercepted his glance, preferring that he look into her eyes. But, looking into his eyes, she felt with fear that between him and her that barrier of modesty, which she had always felt between herself and other men, was not there at all. Without knowing how herself, after five minutes she felt terribly close to this man. Whenever she turned away, she was afraid he might take her bare arm from behind or kiss her on the neck. They talked about the simplest things, and she felt that they were closer than she had ever been with any man…She kept feeling that she was doing something indecent in speaking with him” (War and Peace, 565).

Poignantly, Tolstoy shows what lust really looks like, and the dangerous path of infidelity it encourages. Today, television shows, romance novels, and explicit movies idealize and dramatize lust. They make lust seem necessary if one desires true love. “Following your heart” is the biggest stress of such media, even down to movies produced by Disney for small children. However, the Bible teaches us that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Rather than glorifying their actions, Tolstoy shows the ridiculousness but also the stark reality of lust.

Sadly, Natasha nearly elopes with Anatole, and ruins her engagement to Prince Andrei. One unfaithful move changed Natasha and Andrei’s life forever. Tolstoy’s graphic depiction of adultery is greatly needed. People today call adultery “affairs” instead of labeling them as sin. Tolstoy, father of twelve children, wrote a letter to his oldest son after his marriage. In it he encourages,

“To make marriage, union with one you live, the principal aim of life, displacing everything else, s a great mistake. And an obvious one, if you think about it. Object—marriage. Well, you marry, and what then? If you had no other purpose in life before marriage, it will be doubly hard, terribly hard, almost impossible to find one afterward” (Tolstoy, 210).

As in his letter Tolstoy uses his book to show what true marital fidelity looks like: a walking ‘hand in hand’ towards a common goal in a marriage. Rather than glamorizing so called ‘affairs’ Tolstoy shows their putrescence, as he should. Reading this clear, unappetizing description of such a common sin would greatly benefit our society.

However, unfaithfulness in marriage is not the only way people misconstrue fidelity. Children everywhere get away with ingratitude and disrespect, for parents brush it aside as, “It’s just a phase.” If that is the case, then all of humanity is in a phase, and a corrupt, immoral one at that. The popular modern television seriesSupernanny features a British psychologist nanny who comes and helps parents with disobedient and rebellions children. However, rather than addressing the sin issue of disrespect and unfaithfulness to parents, the nanny only really corrects the parents for employing the wrong technique necessary for their children’s particular phases. Certainly, today’s culture has a skewed view of filial obedience and faithfulness if it is taught only through behavior modification.

Yet again, Tolstoy does not shirk his duty by avoiding such a painful subject. Instead, he describes characters such as Nikolai Rostov, who plays cards and loses his family’s entire fortune. His one decision rooted in infidelity ruins his family’s well being. Tolstoy’s descriptions show the consequences of different manifestations of infidelity, and why it should be avoided at all costs.

To contrast, Princess Marya Bolkonsky has a completely different view of her father. She does not see him as a source of income, or someone to make fun of. Instead, she honors her grouchy old father with her thoughts, words and actions. For example when her father made fun of her for her seeming inability to do Geometry, Marya accepts his criticism humbly. She does not become angry at his harsh words about her stupidity, but becomes brokenhearted and seeks to do better. Also, though he treats her poorly, Prince Bolkonsky does not want Marya to marry when she receives her first proposal. Marya could have taken this opportunity to escape her rude father forever, but instead accepts his wishes. Even when he gives her the ability to choose for herself, Marya still declines, as she only wants to make her father happy. Thus she maintains an unusual companionship with her father, and becomes his sole comforter toward the end of his life. Here, Tolstoy gives an accurate picture of the rewards of fidelity, and his readers should seek to do the same in their own lives.

            In the end all human weakness comes down to pride and a false sense of self-worth. People kill because they do not value another person’s life as much as they treasure their own. Covetousness comes from a desire to be the best by having the best. Lying occurs when the liar considers himself above the truth, and thus more important. The list continues infinitely. Thankfully, Tolstoy does not forget to include his analysis of the most basic human flaw in his exposé. Hélène, the rich heiress who married the ugly but wealthy Pierre Bezukhov for his money, ruins the engagement of her friend Natasha Rostov by encouraging her to leave her loyal fiancé for Hélène’s worthless brother. Hélène’s chief interest was in herself. She felt her self-worth soar and loved the feeling of having an influence in another person’s life, be it good or evil influence. Interestingly, Hélène’s selfishly prideful act sparked a similar occurrence in Natasha’s life. Callously, Natasha left Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, her fiancé, in order to satisfy the whim suggested to her by Hélène. One selfish act encouraged another, and wrecked the hopes of key characters.

In an instance of selfishness, Nikolai Rostov, Natasha’s brother and the oldest of the Rostov children, gambles away his inheritance and his family’s financial well being in a single game of cards with a shady charlatan. Callously, he approaches his father after incurring the debt.

“Papa, I’ve come on business. I nearly forgot…I need money…I’ve lost a bit at cards, that is, a good deal, even a very great deal, forty-three thousand…I promised to pay tomorrow…No help for it! It happens to everybody,” his son said in a careless, brazen tone, while in his soul he considered himself a villain, a scoundrel, whose whole life would not be enough to redeem his crime. He would have liked to kiss his father’s hands, to go to his knees and ask for forgiveness, yet he said in a careless and even rude tone that it happened to everybody.(War and Peace, 343-344).

Nikolai’s response is unfaithful and quite rude. He ruined his family’s financial well-being, and cannot bring himself at first to apologize properly. His single act of egocentricity tainted the welfare of his family forever. Because they had no money left, Nikolai was forced to break off his engagement with his sweet, but unfortunately poor cousin Sonya. Additionally, his family lost their ancient home, and worried about money until Nikolai married an heiress. One sordid act of selfishness affected the lives of countless others

Sadly, pride and selfishness often have such gross and unfortunate consequences. This is why the Scriptures warn so strongly against it. Philippians 2:3-4 tells Christians to, “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” This leaves no room for excuses. If people would seek to do absolutely nothing for themselves, selfishness would be impossible. In another letter written to his son on the topic of life, Tolstoy instructs,

Life is a place for service, and in that service one sometimes has to endure much pain, but often experiences much joy. And that can be genuine only when people regard life as service, and have a purpose in life outside themselves and their personal happiness (Tolstoy 211).

Clearly, his beliefs show themselves in War and Peace and he does not seek to disguise the realities of selfishness. Tolstoy’s potent examples serve to warn against selfishness because of its dangerous and life-altering consequences.

War and Peace criticizes cynicism as well. Too often, Americans fall into this sin pattern in their daily lives. Today, people chalk up cynicism to “realism.” They feel they must expect the worst in order to escape disappointment of any kind. Sadly, cynics miss much of the beauty in God’s world. They miss the excitement of anticipating something wonderful, because they do not believe something wonderful can happen. On the flip side cynics are never surprised by trials, for they expected trouble in the first place.

Clearly, Tolstoy does not appreciate or condone cynicism. In War and Peace Tolstoy treats cynics with disdain. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, widower and father of one, looks at the world with a pessimistic view. He never takes delight in life’s small pleasures. He is known in his clubs for a “peevish expression and manner” (War and Peace, 99).  In fact he completely ignored his wife and her love, and she died without knowing his true feelings for her.. He allows his fiancée to attempt to run away with another man, for his pessimism tells him that in essence, he knew it would happen all along. Distant towards his fiancée, he causes her to ask herself,

Am I lost for Prince Andrei’s love or not?…What a fool I am to  be asking that! What happened to me? Nothing. I did nothing. I didn’t provoke it in any way. No one will know if it, and I will never see him again…So it’s clear that nothing happened, that there’s nothing to repent of, that Prince Andrei can love me like this. But what’s this like this? Ah, my God, my God! Why isn’t he here? (War and Peace, 566).

Andrei’s pessimism ultimately ruins his engagement, for Natasha, his fiancée, doubts his love because of his increasing lack of interest and affection while they are apart. Tolstoy shows that being continually in the doldrums never pays in the end.

Undoubtedly, Christ understood this tendency while giving the Sermon on the Mount. There he stated, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25). L.M. Montgomery holds that, “You only feel like you are doing something when you worry” (Think Exist). Christians should follow this more and work on their reactions to trials of any kind. Christians should not spend their short lives on earth worrying and being pessimistic about what is to come. Rather, they should learn the lesson from teachers like Tolstoy, who show that cynicism rarely produces something worthwhile.

Often, parents teach their children that hatred is all right, as long as they control their anger and do not lash out. Once, on a popular television show angry children were told to hit pillows, or scream to themselves when frustrated, just as long as they do not do it to or in front of other people. However, Christians should avoid hatred at all costs. Christ himself bore no hatred against the very men who beat him and nailed him to the cross. Amazingly, he kept their hearts pumping and their lungs breathing as they were torturing him. His wondrous love puts Christian hatred to shame. Oftentimes, Christians bear malice towards someone for saying something they did not like. Instead, they should consider Christ’s example, and realize that if he could love those who killed him, we should also love those who sin against us. Solomon informs in Proverbs, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses” (Proverbs 10:12). Unfortunately, many fail to follow this excellent exhortation. Such actions have severe and often permanent repercussions.

Again, Tolstoy presents potent examples of consequences of sin in War and Peace. Dolokhov, a handsome gambler and seducer, enjoys stealing the affections of the rich wives of wealthy and influential men. Foolishly, he initiates an affair with Hélène Bezukhov, Count Pierre Bezukhov’s beautiful and flirtatious wife. Rashly, Pierre’s hatred rises up when he finds out about Dolokhov’s schemes and immediately challenges him to a duel. When she hears of it, the enraged Hélène exclaims,

“What a brave fellow we’ve got here! Well, answer, what is this duel? What did you want to prove by it? What, I ask you…since you don’t answer, I’ll tell you…you believe everything you’re told. You were told…that Dolokhov is my lover…and you believed it! But what did you prove by it? What did you prove by this duel? That you’re a fool, that you’re a fool; everybody knew that anyway. What will it lead to? That I will become the laughing-stock of all Moscow; that everyone will say that you, in a drunken state, forgetting yourself, challenged to a duel a man of whom you were groundlessly jealous…and who is better than you in all respects…We’ll part if you please, but only if you give me a fortune” (War and Peace, 320).

Pierre’s hatred encouraged his wife’s loathing. His attempted killing of Dolokhov only makes matters worth and ends up finishing off their relationship. He further alienates his wife, and ruins all hope of repairing their marriage in the future. Pierre allowed hatred rule his life and it ruins his marriage.

Contrastingly, Tolstoy shows an example of how to stifle one’s hatred. Marya Bolkonsky, the plain but wealthy daughter of a rich prince, puts up with a lot of difficulty from her father. Continually, he abuses her emotionally, and constantly comments on her plain appearance and apparently stupid attempts at schoolwork. Day after day he degrades and discourages her. Surprisingly, Marya does not retaliate. Instead, she responds with Christian love. Daily she prays for strength and guidance from the Lord saying, “My God, how can I suppress these devil’s thoughts in my heart? How can I renounce evil imaginings forever, so as peacefully to do Thy will?” (War and Peace, 221). Her sweet response to adversity angers her brother, who believes she should stand up for herself saying “He’s always been tough, but now I think he’s becoming difficult” (War and Peace, 106). Marya ignores this statement and continues to unconditionally love her father, despite his callously rude attitude toward her.

Finally, at the end of his life Marya’s father finally takes notice of his loving daughter. He apologizes for his cruel actions, and shows her love in the end. If Marya had responded in like kind to her father’s rudeness, she might have ruined all chance of him showing his love to her. Her kindness and patience were rewarded in the end, and Christians should take notice of this. If Christians would seek to emulate Marya’s example and avoid becoming like Pierre, they would improve their relationships with God and others by avoiding hatred at all costs.

Many object to a true picture of human weakness in literature. They present weak arguments for their position. First, they argue that pride is all right, because God surely does not call Christians to have low self-esteem. When they argue this, they forget that we are to boast in Christ’s greatness instead of our own, and to understand our own weakness. Christians are called to boast in Christ alone. Paul encouraged the Corinthians,

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’ ” (1 Corinthians 1:27-31).

Christian’s only true confidence comes from Him; anything coming above that is sinful. Princess Marya boasted in her Savior. Her quiet confidence, rather than high self-esteem, helped her through many trials in the book. Christians should reexamine their own attitude toward pride, and understand its sinfulness more fully.

Christians also object to a negative portrayal of cynicism. They often can be heard saying, “Its not cynicism, its just realism.” However, constantly doubting the goodness of God’s will for Christian’s lives is selfishness, and only results in doubt and fear. 1Thessalonians tells Christians, “Rejoice always…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16,18). Christ sends difficult circumstances to sanctify his children. Christians should look to Christ and rejoice in difficult circumstances, rather than becoming embittered.

Finally, it is often argued that people have to be at least a little selfish to get anywhere in life. These people argue that if one is constantly doing something for others, he or she will never succeed. Rather than avoiding doing something for themselves, Christians should seek to do things for other before doing things for themselves. James holds, “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16).

Christians can do things for themselves, as long as they keep others before them. They can work toward their goals as long as they do not hurt others in the process. Christ, the Lord of all Creation, put others before himself. This is not to say he did not bathe and sleep, it just means he ministered to others before he did something for himself. Having the correct balance is key in understanding selflessness.

            Today, obesity in America is at an all-time high. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Movies and literature encourage children and adults alike to ‘follow their hearts’ and dreams at all costs, rather than looking to the interests of others. Cynics have their own talk shows and are looked up to because of their ‘realistic’ view of life. Hatred is not scorned, for it is seen as a perfectly natural part of life. Clearly, American students and adults could should ‘take a page’ out of Tolstoy’s book. His potent scrutiny of individuals and their sin patterns would be useful in a world where people often ignore their own finite humanity. If Christians only read the books of their time, they would miss the many valuable lessons and observations presented by Tolstoy in his sweeping epic.  War and Peace is as applicable now as it was when Tolstoy wrote it, 150 years ago.

During his 33 years in earth Christ did not ignore the blatant flaws in human nature. He lived perfectly in his humanity, but taught others the errors of their ways. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, but sought to encourage them unto righteousness. Humbly, he took the offering of a prostitute, but did not by any means condone her immorality. Having this attitude enabled him to love others more, for he understood their weaknesses and knew how to help them. Tolstoy acts the same way towards his characters. He sees people’s humanity accurately, just as Christ did. Tolstoy wrote in a letter to his son,

In order to love people and be loved by them, one must learn humility, gentleness, and the art of bearing with disagreeable people and situations, the art of always behaving in a way that will not hurt anyone…And this is the hardest work of all, work that never ceases, from the moment you wake up in the morning till you go to sleep at night. But it is the most joyful work, because day by day you can rejoice in your growing success and receive the added reward, unnoticed at first but very gratifying, of being loved (Tolstoy, 212).

Tolstoy’s Christ-like lessons would only bring good to the reader’s life. Understanding how Christians fail every day would help the reader to know how to make changes in his or her life. Nothing bad can come of an increased desire to love and honor God. An increased belief in human transience would point the culture to a Savior who bore their limitations to bring them to a Heaven that knows no such bounds.

Works Cited:

Tolstoy, Ilya. Tolstoy, My Father: Reminiscences. 1st American Ed. Chicago, IL: Cowles Book Company, Inc., 1971. Print.

Tolstoy, Leo, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky. War and Peace. 1st Ed. New York City, NY: Knopf, 2007. Print.

Chute, Patricia. Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana. 1st ed. New York City, NY: Harpercollins, 1991. Print.

Unknown Author. "Lucy Maud Montgomery Quotes." Brainy Quote. Jan 01, 2009. Brainy Media, Web. 15 Dec 2009. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lucymaudmo388238.html>.

Yenne, Bill, and Christine Perkins. 100 Authors Who Shaped World History. 1st ed. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 1996. Print.

The Cause Is Within You by Matthew

Matthew 

December 17, 2009

Big Books and Big Papers

The Cause is Within You

Exordium

The sky was melting, the day of the Rostov hunt.  “The only movement in the air was the slow movement from above to below of descending drops of microscopic fog (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 493).  “Transparent drops” clung to the stark trees, dripping carelessly, falling on the carpet of leaves (Tolstoy 493).  The soil glistened; mist draped the air.  Everything was wet, and “the misty sky went on imperceptibly and evenly descending to earth” (Tolstoy 495).  A hunting call rang out, uniting in itself “the deepest bass and the highest tenor” (Tolstoy 493). Somehow “each dog knew its master and its name,” each hunter his “task, place, and purpose.” The horses pranced “as over a plush carpet,” splashing in the wetness of the morning (Tolstoy 495).  The sky went on meeting the damp earth.   

            A call; a wolf!  Nikolai, waiting, “addressed God with a plea that the wolf come out at him:” “What would it cost You?  Do it for me! I know You are great, and it’s a sin to ask it of You, but…make it so that the old wolf comes my way…”  Rostov feels that “such luck is not to be.” Then “something was running towards him across the empty field,” and old Karai brings down the wolf. “What was accomplished was his greatest happiness—and so simply, without noise, without splendor, without portent” (Tolstoy 500).  

            There are at least three scenes which are the thumbnails of War and Peace.  One thinks of War and Peace, and immediately these thumbnails present themselves to his mind.  One is the moonlit troika ride; the other is the starry window scene at Otradnoe; the last is the Rostov hunt.  These three scenes share curious similarities: In the first, the roofs gleam like precious stone (Tolstoy 528-529); in the second, the roofs are “glistening with dew” (Tolstoy 421); in the third, the soil glistens with dew.  And in each, the sky merits vivid description.  In the Rostov hunt, Tolstoy subtly draws attention to the way in which the sky meets the earth as if it were a signal. 

            What does the descending sky signal?  What is Tolstoy describing in the hunt scene?  Is it allegorical?  Tolstoy is too much of a realist for allegories.  Is it a tribute to Russian culture?  Tolstoy is too profound for niceties.  “Although we sense instinctively that the hunt scene is one of the high points of War and Peace,” Edward Wasiolek explains, “it is difficult to know why the hunt of the old grey wolf and its capture should be so moving…one recognizes that something universal is being communicated.  There can be no mistaking that this is one of Tolstoy’s sacramental scenes” (Tolstoy’s Major Fiction, 112).  Wasiolek also notices the presence of certain natural signals: “Tolstoy often signals such scenes by special images, such as the sky…the twigs are covered with glistening drops of dew, just as a dew illuminated the moonlight signaled the special experience of Andrey’s reaction to Natasha’s excited voice at Otradnoe” (Wasiolek 112-113).  

            What the meeting of earth and sky signals in the hunt scene is a meeting of freedom and necessity.  “What Tolstoy is attempting to describe,” Wasiolek explains, “is how it feels to be personally and intensely absorbed in an experience and yet to be part of a group.

Nikolai and others are doing what they want to do; yet what they want is what others want and what the circumstances necessitate.  Tolstoy is describing a free necessity, which is an at-oneness not only between the individual and others but also between the inside of the individual and the circumstances he finds himself in.  When this happens to Nikolai, he experiences one of the happiest moments of his life.  And it happens when he catches sight of the old wolf. (114)

What Nikolai experiences in the hunt scene is a state in which that which he wants is precisely what is predestined.  In this state, his individual free will is in perfect harmony with necessity.  His freedom is not hindered by necessity; necessity is not hindered by his freedom.  He wills that the wolf would come to him, and that is precisely what the wolf was going to do all along. For a moment, Nikolai is perfectly in control of his own destiny, because his will is in accord with that destiny.  Freedom and necessity are not at odds; they have merged seamlessly.  The sky represents the infinite predestination of necessity; the earth represents man’s free will.  In the moonlit troika scene, Tolstoy describes a melding of earth and sky: The stars are reflected in the icy earth.  Likewise in the Rostov hunt scene, the sky and the earth are no longer distinct: They have met. 

            The “confluence of freedom and necessity” which Tolstoy pictures in the hunt is the perfect, ideal form of his Theory of History (Wasiolek 113).  More specifically, it is a portrait of the life led by the one who embraces Tolstoy’s view of life itself, and of history.  Nikolai experiences this life for but a moment.  Natasha experiences it regularly. Andrei experiences it occasionally, and fully on his deathbed. Pierre does not experience it until his epiphany near the end.  Platon Karataev, whose appearance triggers the denouement of War and Peace, has always experienced it.  When the characters do experience the “confluence of freedom and necessity,” everything is magical; they are living history in what Tolstoy considers the only “real” fashion.  For the breadth of his novel, Tolstoy only portrays the outcome of this “real” fashion of viewing history or drops not-so-subtle hints along the way.  Only at the very end of War and Peace does Leo Tolstoy drum out his Theory of History. 

The Question of History

Tolstoy begins by laying down groundwork.  “The subject of history,” he states, “is the life of peoples and of mankind” (1179).  Tolstoy views history at two different levels throughout War & Peace: The strictly historical, and the individual.  The strict historian analyzes War and Peace by observing that

In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and expresses itself in a movement of peoples from west to east.  Several times this movement directed to the east comes into collision with a countermovement from east to west; in the year twelve it reaches its utmost limit—Moscow; and, with remarkable symmetry, the countermovement from east to west is accomplished; drawing with itself, as the first movement had done, the peoples of the center.  The countermovement reaches the point of departure in the west—Paris—and subsides. (Tolstoy 1180)

The individual analyzes War and Peace by observing that

Pierre married an evil woman, but loved Natasha.  Natasha loved Prince Andrei.  Natasha’s brother loved Prince Andrei’s sister.  Andrei lost Natasha’s love, and got it back. But Prince Andrei died.  Pierre’s wife also died.  This left Pierre free to marry Natasha, and her brother free to marry Marya. 

In either case, the question to be answered by history is “What force moves peoples?” (1182).  In the historical sense, the question which history must answer is “What force caused the French to invade Russia, to be repelled, and to straggle back?”  In the individual sense, the question which history must answer is “What force caused Pierre to marry Helene?” or “What force caused Prince Andrei to die?”

Modern History’s Answer to the Question of History

“Modern history,” says Tolstoy, “anxiously tells us that either Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or else that the writers so-and-so wrote such-and-such books” (1182). “Specialized biographical historians,” he continues, “understand this force as the force inherent in heroes and rulers.  In their descriptions, events are produced solely by the will of the Napoleons, the Alexanders, or generally of those persons the specialized historian is describing.” “For example,” Tolstoy explains, “the campaign of the year twelve [1812]—they describe it involuntarily as a product of power, saying outright that this campaign is the product of Napoleon’s will.” (1185)  In the individual sense, Modern history says that Pierre married Helene because he wanted to; that Andrei died because a Frenchman wanted to shoot him.  In either the individual or the strictly historical sense, the prevailing idea of Modern history is that history is caused by Napoleon’s genius, or through Alexander’s brilliance, or through Pierre’s infatuation, or through a Frenchman’s marksmanship.  In other words, events in history are caused by the free acts of mankind.  It is this Modern view of history that Tolstoy tirelessly tries to demolish throughout War and Peace. 

Tolstoy’s Answer to the Question of History

What is Tolstoy’s “correct” view of history?  “How,” he asks, “should the…life of peoples and of mankind be regarded—as a product of the free or unfree activity of men?” Modern history’s answer is “The free activity of men.” Tolstoy’s is “the unfree activity of men.”  Tolstoy bases his answer on his observation that “every human action appears to us not otherwise than as a certain conjunction of freedom and necessity” (1204, emphasis added).  Tolstoy finds a prime example of this “conjunction” in France’s decision to invade Russia. This decision, he says, was the result of Napoleon’s free will and of the free wills of every other soldier.  Napoleon’s will was not the prime mover—it was only one of the movers.  The countless other movers had collaboratively decided to invade Russia. In this sense, the decision to invade Russia was a “conjunction” of (a) Napoleon’s will, and (b) the necessity created by the army’s consensus.  Napoleon, therefore, was only partly free to invade Russia.  His freedom, like every other man’s, was limited by necessity.  In every act of man there is therefore a “certain portion of freedom and a certain portion of necessity.” It is a ratio.  “The more freedom we see in whatever action, the less necessity; and the more necessity, the less freedom” (Tolstoy 1204). 

            It is the failure of modern history to take into account the “necessities” which impinge upon every act, that Tolstoy finds so mistaken.  Tolstoy breaks these “necessities” into three categories, each of which must be taken into account in historical reckonings.  “All occasions without exception,” he theorizes, “in which our notion of freedom increases and decreases have only three bases: (1) The relation of the man committing the act to the external world, (2) to time, and (3) to the causes producing the act” (Tolstoy 1205). 

            Tolstoy gives several examples of each of these three categories of “necessity” which Modern history so neglects to consider.  Of the first:

A drowning man who clutches another and drowns him, or a hungry mother, exhausted from nursing her baby, who steals food, or a man accustomed to discipline who stands in a firing squad and kills a defenseless man on command, appears less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of necessity, to someone who knows the conditions these people were in, and more free to someone who does not know that the man was himself drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in a firing squad, and so on. (Tolstoy 1204-1205)

In other words, it is unrealistic for history to judge the drowning man, the mother, or the soldier because their acts were not completely free.  They were limited by necessity in that they were limited by the external world.  The drowning man was not completely free because he was drowning.  The mother was not completely free because she was starving.  The soldier was not completely free because he was accustomed to discipline.  Of the second category of necessity:

In the same way, a man who twenty years ago committed a murder, and after that lived peacefully and harmlessly in society, appears less guilty—his act more subject to the law of necessity—for someone who examines it after a lapse of twenty years, and more free to someone who examined it the day after it was committed. (Tolstoy 1205)

In other words, the longer an act has resided in time the harder it is judge it as free, because we can no longer imagine the world without it.  Of the third category of necessity:

And in the same way, every crazy, drunk, or greatly agitated man appears less free and more necessary to someone who knows the inner state of the one who commits the act, and more free and less necessary to someone who does not know it. (Tolstoy 1205)

In other words, it is unrealistic for history to judge a drunken man for his actions because he was not completely free.  He was limited by the necessities imposed upon his mind by the liquor. According to Tolstoy, Modern history errs in that it fails to account for the (1) external circumstances, (2) time, and (3) causes which impinge upon even the most free acts. 

But neither in the one case nor in the other, however we may change our point of view, however we may try to grasp what connection [a] man finds himself in with the external world, or however inaccessible it seems to us, however much we lengthen or shorten the period of time, however intelligible or unfathomable the causes are for us—we can never imagine either total freedom or total necessity. (Tolstoy 1208) 

Tolstoy’s Theory of History

Therefore: Tolstoy’s point in disputing the reigning historical philosophy of his day was to prove that it is futile to judge historical acts because those acts are never completely free.  There is always a ratio of necessity comprised of (1) a man’s relation to the external world, (2) to time, and (3) to causes.

The Practical Effect of Tolstoy’s Theory of History

Tolstoy’s Theory of History is different from most theories in that he expected it to have a practical effect upon man’s life—on two different levels.  The first level is the historical.  Since the historical figure is never completely free, it is futile to judge him.  To say that Napoleon should not have gotten involved in a land war in Asia is, to Tolstoy, simply naïve.  Historians can never comprehend the tapestry of causes which led to the invasion of Russia, of which Napoleon was only one thread.  It wasnecessary for the Russian army to invade Russia, and Napoleon’s will held no more sway than Captain Ramballe’s.  Napoleon was one cog in the vast timepiece of history.  He did what was necessary for him, as a cog, to do.  To say that a cog in a watch should have done something other than it did is to destroy the workings of the watch.  Only by seeing the cog as a part of the whole can one comprehend how the watch ticks.  “True,” explains Tolstoy, “we do not feel the movement of the earth…”

But by assuming its immobility we arrive at an absurdity; whereas, by assuming the movement which we do not feel, we arrive at laws…by assuming we are free, we arrive at an absurdity; whereas, by assuming our dependence on the external world, time, and causes, we arrive at laws. (Tolstoy 1214, emphasis added)

The practical effect of Tolstoy’s Theory of History at the individual level is more difficult to comprehend.  Most readers of War and Peace, in fact, never grasp it—just as they never understand the hunt scene.  Even Isaiah Berlin, author of the essay  “The Hedgehog and the Fox”—one of the foremost commentaries on Tolstoy—does not seem to comprehend Tolstoy’s theory at the individual level.  Wasiolek does, and goes to great measures to explain it:

In both theory and drama, life beats with real rhythm when it is not abstract…when it is not obscured by illusory freedom or illusory necessity, but when it is personal, immediate, and full.  Neither Natasha at the ball nor Pierre after prison nor Andrey before the oak command, predict, generalize, or anticipate life.  One is most free when one is most personal and most immediate…because it is only then that one has given up the wrong freedom of commanding life and has permitted the world in all its complexity to arise in one’s consciousness.  One possesses the world by giving it up.  By becoming oneself, the individual permits the world to be itself. (127, emphasis added)

The truly free human being, Tolstoy theorizes, is the one who simply is who he is.  He does not try to control his life, just as a cog does not try to control a watch.  The truly free man recognizes that he is only a cog, and devotes his life to simply being a cog. 

            Platon Karataev is the practical effect of Tolstoy’s Theory of History, just as the hunt scene is the perfect form of that theory in action.  Platon is unable to conceive of life as anything other than it is in the present moment. 

When Pierre, sometimes struck by the meaning of what he had said, asked him to repeat it, Platon could not remember what he had said the moment before…his life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life.  It had meaning only as a part of the whole, which he constantly sensed…He was unable to understand either the value or the meaning of a word or act taken separately. (Tolstoy 974)

Platon can hardly even conceive of other humans in the abstract: “Karataev would not have been upset for a moment to be parted from [Pierre]” (Tolstoy 974).  Platon Karataev’s is Tolstoy’s ideal life.  His is the life led by the one who embraces Tolstoy’s Theory of History.  “Tolstoy,” concludes Wasiolek, “believed…that his characters could live fully only when they gave up the freedom to choose what life should be and accepted the freedom to let life be what it is” (127, emphasis added). 

Tolstoy’s Theory of History, and the life it entails, has fared badly among the intelligentsia.  Wasiolek recounts how the French critic Courriere responded to War and Peace with “what was to be a characteristic comment:”

Why is it that the admiration one feels for something so beautiful must be ruined by the philosophical theories of the author?...Count Tolstoy has seen only a conjunction and series of accidental causes having nothing to do with human will…The author’s fatalism is argumentative and doctrinaire; it reduces all the great events of the age to its small measure. (Wasiolek 115)

Isaiah Berlin pityingly calls Tolstoy “a desperate old man, beyond human aid, wandering self-blinded at Colonus” (“The Hedgehog and the Fox,” 63).  Wasiolek alone understands that Tolstoy’s theory is not wholly fatalistic, but in defending that theory he arrives at a wrong conclusion.  Berlin and the others do not understand Tolstoy’s theory, but they arrive at the right conclusion.  No one has yet understood Tolstoy’s theory, and denied it for the right reasons.  Tolstoy claimed to be a Christian, and it is high time that a Christian condemned his thesis. 

Narratio

         Tolstoy’s Theory of History is a simple-hearted mistake. Man need not heed “necessity.” He may be pious and yet completely free to influence the world around him as best he can.

Divisio

         Tolstoy’s mistaken Theory of History is a purportedly Christian one, and is best denied on Christian grounds.  First: His theory does not hold up to philosophical and theological scrutiny.  Second: Jesus’ (a) parables and (b) life contradict Tolstoy’s theory.

Confirmatio

There is an awkward aspect to denying Tolstoy’s thesis.  It is that as Christians, we believe in an omniscient God Who foreknows everything, and through Whom everything has its existence.  As Christians, we cannot simply say that man is free to do whatever he chooses, because man cannot step outside of time like God. By stating this, Tolstoy already has an advantage over his Christian dissenters.  It is a short-lived advantage.  

            As Descartes observes, Christians look to “the Divine foreordination” (Objections and Replies, 141). Tolstoy also looks to the “Divine foreordination:” He feels that the innumerable forces which influence men’s decisions are the physical “manifestations” of that foreordination.  Tolstoy, for example, feels quite able to “raise or lower his hand.”  But if a child stands under that hand, he “cannot” lower it.  The child, he maintains, is one of those forces which restrict a man’s freedom: The child is a part of the foreordained universe.  He “cannot” buffet the child’s head.   It was God’s plan that the child stand beneath his poised hand, and he is therefore limited by a necessity(Tolstoy 1223).  Tolstoy is therefore less free, due to an external circumstance foreordained by God. 

            As Christians, we cannot deny Tolstoy’s point.  We cannot deny that everything in the universe is orchestrated by a God outside of time, on Whose plans we cannot exert any power.  So we concur with Tolstoy that “looking to the Divine foreordination [we] cannot conceive how that is compatible with liberty on our part.” Tolstoy ends the argument here: Man is never completely free, because he is always influenced by external circumstances that are immutable parts of history—parts which areforeordained by God.  Were we to end the argument here, we would be perfectly pious in doing so.  But we would not be responsible human beings. 

            As humans, we cannot “[fail] to experience the fact that to will and to be free are the same thing…”  Like Kant, “although we are unable to explain how it can exist—we feel ourselves authorized to admit, even in the midst of the natural course of events, a beginning, as regards causality, of different successions of phenomena, and at the same time to attribute to all substances a faculty of free action.” We may “rise from our chair.” (The Critique of Pure Reason, 142).  Like Boswell’s Johnson, we may lift our finger (Life of Johnson, 392).  Like Tolstoy, we may lower our hand.  We cannot understand how this is so: Our faith (and Tolstoy) tell us that we are limited by thosenecessities which God has foreordained.  But our immediate consciousness tells us that we have the power to initiate an event; it tells us that we can raise our hand if wewant to.  This is a dilemma: We have no wish to deny God’s providence, but we cannot reconcile ourselves to Tolstoy’s notion of freedom: A life in which the individual merely submits himself to his necessary role in history—a role in which he neither commands, predicts, generalizes, or anticipates life.  Tolstoy feels that his solution is most satisfactory, and that it is the only solution.  We cannot agree that it is most satisfactory—but we see no way of denying that it is the only solution without denying God’s foreordination. 

            Only Augustine sees a way out of this dilemma. “Let all these perplexing debatings and disputations of the philosophers go on as they may,” he says; “we, in order that we may confess the most high and true God Himself, do confess His will, supreme power, and prescience” (The City of God, 213). Tolstoy stops here; Augustine does not. “Neither” Augustine adds, “let us be afraid lest, after all, we do not do by will that which we do by will, because He, Whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that we would do it.” (Augustine 213)  Augustine, therefore, does not see Tolstoy’s dilemma as a dilemma at all.  Man can, he explains, affirm the “supreme power” of God as the force which ultimately moves history (as Tolstoy does).  But man need not affirm Tolstoy’s supposition that “therefore, man ought to submit himself to that which he perceives as ‘necessary.’” Man need not be afraid to will.  He may, in other words, do both—affirm God’s foreknowledge, and affirm his own absolute freedom. 

            Tolstoy sees one sphere of reality: The Divine sphere.  Man, he assumes, must live with his head in the Divine sphere, and his feet in the “illusory” human sphere.  Only by living with one’s head in the Divine sphere—which one does by submitting to that which is necessary—will one’s feet (in the human sphere) take the proper historical steps.   Augustine sees two spheres of reality: The Divine sphere and the Human sphere which is inside the Divine sphere as a bubble is inside a glass of water.  Man may live with his head and feet fully in the Human sphere, knowing that he is simultaneously in the Divine sphere.  Man may affirm both the power of God in history and his own power of choice in history, knowing that his choices are contained in the power of God—but that he must make them all the same.  He may remain pious and confess that Napoleon merely fulfilled God’s foreordination, while still maintaining that Napoleon should have exerted all his power to avoid a winter in Russia.  According to Augustine, man is completely free in his Human sphere because that sphere is no less “real” (for man) than the Divine sphere.  And because it is no less valid, man need not—should not—simply “let life be what it is” (Wasiolek 127). 

            Augustine sees two spheres of reality because Jesus Christ, the incarnated Man, saw two spheres of reality.  Tolstoy cannot have payed much attention to Christ’s parable in Luke 19.

"A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return. 13 "And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas and said to them, 'Do business with this until I come back.'… 15 "When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom he had given the money, be called to him so that he might know what business they had done. 16"The first appeared, saying, 'Master, your mina has made ten minas more.' 17 "And he said to him, 'Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.' 18"The second came, saying, 'Your mina, master, has made five minas.’ 19"And he said to him also, 'And you are to be over five cities.'20"Another came, saying, 'Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.' 22 "He said to him, 'By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? 23 'Then why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?'

The Master in this parable exhibits none of Tolstoy’s passive attitude toward the “necessities” which would have fettered the third slave’s freedom.  He observed a historical act—the miserliness of his third steward—without even considering (1) the relation of the man to the external world, (2) his relation to time, and (3) to the causes which produced his act.  The Master has no idea, Tolstoy would say, of the necessities which made the third man “less free.” Obviously, the man was fearful; he hid the mina out of his natural instinct for self preservation.  Probably, he had a wife and children to care for; conceivably, he was intellectually incapable of coping with 100 days wages.  Possibly, he was only a simple muzhik like Platon Karataev, to whom hiding the mina was the only thing to do.  It was, as Tolstoy would say, “necessary for him.” Is it not naïve of the Master to judge the historical act of the muzhik whose freedom was limited by the necessities imposed on him by his family, his instinct for self-preservation, and his intellectual inferiority? Apparently not, and who is Tolstoy to argue with the Master?        The Master cares not a whit for Tolstoy’s provisions of “necessity.” He makes no allowance for the relation of his muzhik to the external world, to time, and to various motives or causes.  He simply holds him fully responsiblefor his action.  One must therefore conclude that (a) in the Divine sphere the muzhik was destined to choose to hide the mina, but that (b) in the Human sphere he nevertheless chose wrongly.  One must conclude that the muzhik was influenced by the necessities surrounding him, but that his choice was no less free.  To Tolstoy, “the fact that a criminal was brought up among evil-doers already extenuates his guilt” (Tolstoy 1207). To the Master, nothing excuses irresponsibility. 

            The most profound proof of the historical freedom which man enjoys is found in the final hours of Jesus Christ.  These hours are the crucible of the historical saga upon which Tolstoy vainly attempts to philosophize.  It begins in the garden known as Gethsemane.  Here is a meeting of the two historical forces—free will and necessity—as perfect as even Tolstoy could wish.  Luke recounts how Jesus withdrew into the moon-cast shadows of the olive trees and prayed as he had never prayed before.  From a purely predestined standpoint, Jesus’ position in history was simple: He knew He was the Son of God, that His role was that of the sacrificial Lamb, that He had been sent for no other purpose than to die for the sins of mankind.  The orientation of Tolstoy’s “necessary” divine sphere was all too plain: He had to die.  

Yet strangely enough, Jesus exhibited none of the blissful, semi-nirvana state which Tolstoy praises in Platon Karataev.  For “being in agony He was praying very fervently; and his sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44).  He must have felt the convergence of history upon His person, must have felt the inevitable necessity of what He had to do—and yet He struggled to do it.  In one of His most human moments, Jesus realized His choice—and struggled to make it.  Here is none of the idiotic “Lord, lay me down like a stone, raise me up like a loaf” (Tolstoy 973) of Platon Karataev, whose life “had meaning only as a part of the whole” (Tolstoy 974). The Man kneeling in the moonlit garden had none of this pantheistic mindset: He was a Man, an individual, Who knew what He had to do and yet knew thatHe did not have to do it.

            Of course He did do it, but that is beside the point.  The point is that somehow, Jesus had a choice to perform that act which was predestined from the foundation of the world.  In this choice was none of the passive, inhuman serenity which characterizes Tolstoy’s view of the “ideal” historical figure; in this choice was an excruciating plea that “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me” (Luke 22:42).  And when He “breathed His last” (Luke 23:46), His was not the breath of the mere glimmering drop which subsides into the “living, wavering ball of no dimensions” (Tolstoy 1064).  His was the breath of a Man who had to grit out the words “not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).  His was the breath of a Man who, as an inhabitant of the Human sphere, had chosen what to do with His freedom. 

            Tolstoy includes a vital narrative towards the end of War & Peace, in which he recounts a significant event in the life of Count Rastopchin.  In the midst of the chaos which accompanies the desertion of Moscow, Rastopchin finds it necessary to bolster public patriotism by executing the Russian traitor Vereshchagin.  Whether Vereshchagin is actually guilty, Rastopchin finds irrelevant.  Public sentiment needs a scapegoat.  Standing at his balcony, Rastopchin pacifies the angry mob below:  “He has betrayed his tsar and his fatherland, he has gone over to Bonaparte, he alone of all Russians has disgraced the Russian name, and he has brought ruin on Moscow…Deal summarily with him! I hand him over to you!” (Tolstoy 889).  Vereschagin dies, crushed by a flood of Russian “patriotism.” To assuage the guilt which gnaws at him, Rastopchin reminds himself over and over that he “had to preserve the life and dignity of the commander in chief;” that he had to murder a man for “le bien publique.”  “I didn’t do it for myself, I had to act that way,” he tells himself (Tolstoy 891).  And that is all.  Tolstoy, while obviously disapproving, is merely resigned.  In concert with his own thesis, he is unable to say what Rastopchin should have done.  History simply is; it is immutable and indisputable.  Rastopchin did what public sentiment—the manifestation of predestination—demanded.  He played the vile part assigned to him, a part which history cannot dispute.

            That Tolstoy should respond thus is mildly surprising, for he obviously crafted Rastopchin’s balcony scene to imitate the mock trial of Jesus Christ.  After his inner crucible on the Mount of Olives, Jesus is arrested and dragged before Pontius Pilate—much as Vereshchagin is dragged before Rastopchin.  In the hours encompassing Jesus’ questioning and scourging, Pilate takes Jesus’ place as the focal point of history.  In the background is God’s will: Jesus had to die.  Surely Pilate sensed something important afoot in the Divine sphere; his wife, at least, did.  “Have nothing to do with that righteous Man,” she nervously informs Pilate, “for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him” (Matthew 27:19)  In addition, Pilate must cope with the piercing words of the eerily calm Man who stands before him: “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).  Like Nikolai, Pilate must have “felt in the depths of his soul” that he was “doing something very, very important, more important than anything he had ever done in his life” (Tolstoy 953).

            Intruding upon Pilate’s worried thoughts is the clamor of the mob outside, who “were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified.” (Luke 23:23).  The mob represents Tolstoy’s “external circumstances.” In Tolstoy’s analysis, we must pronounce Pilate “less free” because “the actions of a man [like Pilate] who is connected with family, work, enterprises, appear unquestionably less free and more subject to necessity than the actions of man who is single and solitary” (Tolstoy 1205).  When Pilate offers them Barabbas, the crowd will have none of it: “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” they cry (Matthew 27:25).  Poor Pilate is the “least free” man in the whole affair.  He has a conscience; that is plain.  He must have sensed the import of the decision before him, if only to a small degree.  And on top of that he has the populace—the ones who, in Tolstoy’s theory, are the ultimate movers of events—screaming their will in his face. And worst of all, Pilate is the great man that Tolstoy so scathingly condemns—the one who is least free of all men.  That Jesus should die could not have been more necessary if Tolstoy had arranged it himself.  In the end, Pilate hardly makes a decision: “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves” (Matthew 27:24).  He merely bows to what is obviously necessary. 

            Tolstoy must condemn those persons who attempt to judge Pilate for his decision just as he condemns those historians who attempt to judge Napoleon and Alexander for theirs. Pilate, he would say, had to condemn Jesus Christ.  That was Pilate’s role in history from the foundation of the world; the possibility that Pilate might have acted otherwise is ridiculous to contemplate.  Not only was Pilate’s act necessitated by “That mysterious force that makes people kill against their will…. (Tolstoy 1015); in addition, he had to contend with (1) his relation to the external world, (2) to time, and (3) to various motives and causes, each of which were at their highest peak of necessity.  And in the Divine Sphere, Tolstoy is utterly correct: Pilate was predestined to condemn Jesus Christ.  But no one, including Tolstoy, can deny that when Pilate stands face to face with God, God will say nothing but “Depart from Me. You crucified My one and only Son.”  This is problematic for Tolstoy, unless he desires to accuse God of injustice—which he presumably does not.  After all, (a) if Pilate’s act was as “necessary” as Tolstoy would say it was, then he cannot be punished by a just God for an act for which he was not responsible. (b) Pilate is being punished.  (c) Therefore, Pilate’s act cannot have been as “necessary” as Tolstoy would assume.  As Augustine realized, there is only one solution to this historical dilemma: Somehow, in some mysterious way, the choices which occur in the “human sphere” are as free as they are necessary in the “divine sphere.”  Tolstoy’s passively tolerant attitude toward Rastopchin is therefore unfounded: The “necessities” of the Divine Sphere do not cancel the personal responsibility of freedom in the human sphere.

Conclusio

Tolstoy’s theory of history is therefore wrong.  It is wrong because Jesus Christ’s life contradicts it.  Christ did not look on history as a “conjunction of freedom and  necessity” (Tolstoy 1204). Like the Master in His parable, He holds man fully responsible for his actions.  The logic behind this conclusion is simple.  Since God is a just God, he cannot hold man completely responsible for actions in which man was not completely free.  The presence of Hell demonstrates that God does hold man completely responsible for his actions. Therefore, man must be completely free.  In confirmation of this fact stands Jesus’ poignant choice in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Augustine reconciles the idea of this total freedom—which Tolstoy cannot bring himself to affirm—to the idea of an omnipotent, foreordaining God by affirming both that God is completely prescient, and that man is completely free.  Augustine solves Tolstoy’s dilemma between freedom and necessity by explaining that there are essentially two spheres of reality, in one of which man is mysteriously and inexplicably free. Tolstoy’s dilemma—which he tries so awkwardly to resolve—is no dilemma at all.

            Pierre is Tolstoy’s solution to the dilemma.  He solves the dilemma by becoming Tolstoy’s “ideal man:” A man who “permits the world to be itself,” bows to what is necessary, and lets life be what it is (Wasiolek 127).  Like Platon Karataev, Pierre becomes a “shimmering” drop which struggles no more to act independently of the watery orb he envisions.  But since the dilemma is false, so is Pierre’s solution.  The new Pierre, for example, learns that “when, by his own will, as it had seemed to him, he had married his wife, he had been no more free than now, when he was locked in a stable for the night” (Tolstoy 1060).  The enlightened Pierre does not regret his decision to marry Helene, because he understands that “all this had to be so and could not be otherwise” (Tolstoy 214).  He was not completely free: He was limited by the necessities of (1) the general expectation that he would marry Helene, (2) the fact that “It’s too late now, it’s all over” and that (3) his lust for Helene was overpowering (Tolstoy 214).  Pierre, in other words, understands that he was limited by (1) his relation to the external world, (2) to time, and (3) to various causes.  And Pierre, enlightened, a “shimmering drop” like Karataev, experiences peace.  He experiences the peace of the nothingness which is Nirvana.  Tolstoy may say what he likes.  One who, like Augustine and Christ, ascribes complete freedom to man, will always maintain that Pierre was completely free not to marry Helene.  One who, like Augustine and Christ, ascribes complete responsibility to man will further maintain that Pierre should not have married Helene.  The fact that various factors intruded on Pierre’s decision does not mean that he was any less free to refuse Helene; only that it would have been more difficult—the kind of difficulty which Jesus Christ encountered and surmounted in Gethsemane. 

G.K. Chesterton could see “the inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy…as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon” (Orthodoxy,75).  The “smash” is inevitable to Chesterton because he recognizes, as Augustine would, that “the wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void” (Chesterton 74).  Presumably refering to Tolstoy’s theory that true freedom is letting “life be what it is,” that the best will does notwill, Chesterton wryly explains that “the Tolstoyan’s will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil” (Chesterton 74). One can almost see his portly frame quaking with amusement at Tolstoy’s philosophical convolutions of history: Chesterton, at least, understands what Tolstoy cannot: That complete historical freedom does not contradict the notion of a foreordaining God. “Joan of Arc was not stuck at the crossroads,” says Chesterton, “either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche” (Chesterton 76).  Joan of Arc understood Augustine’s realization that the divine necessity of history does not precludefree choice as Tolstoy imagines.

She chose a path, and went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan…had in her all that was true in either Tolstoy or Nietzsche…I thought of all that is noble in Tolstoy, the pleasure of plain things, especially in plain pity, the actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of the bowed back.  Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, that she endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret…She beat [Tolstoy and Nietzsche] at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, more violent than the other.  Yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who do nothing.” (Chesterton, 76-77)

“Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Shaw,” he realizes, “they are all on the road to the emptiness of the asylum.  For madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness” (Chesterton 75).  Tolstoy, we are told, left Yasnaya Poliana and began walking. He died in a train station. 

In the end, only men like Augustine, Christ, and Chesterton—who trust in the mysterious fact that the acts of history are as free as they are predestined—comprehend the ludicracy of Tolstoy’s convoluted talk of “necessities” and of letting life and history simply be what they are.  Dante’s Virgil, trapped in hell for eternity, understood the mysterious relationship between freedom and necessity too late:

Brother, the world is blind, and thou truly comest from it. Ye who are living refer every cause upward to the heavens only, as though they moved all things with them of necessity.  If this were so, free will would be destroyed in you, and there would be no justice in having joy for good, and grief for evil…To a greater force, and to a better nature, ye, free, are subject…Therefore if the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought…” (Purgatory, 77, emphasis added)

Virgil realized what Christ, Augustine, and Chesterton realized, and what Tolstoy did not: That man is both completely necessitated and completely free; that man cannot live by refusing to be man and only another cog like Napoleon.  Would that Tolstoy had been as blessed in “masters” as Dante.  His defining Christian treatise was The Kingdom of God is Within You.  Would that it had been The Cause is Within You.

Though barely perceptible, there is a note of sadness in Chesterton’s description of Tolstoy’s “smash.”  It is the note of sadness which keens in the voice of everyone who has read what is still the greatest novel ever written: War and Peace.  It is the note of sadness which rings in the voice of anyone who thinks of “all that is noble in Tolstoy.” Surely no scene is nobler than that of the stirring hunt. The sky that day was melting.  For a moment, it touched the earth. Mist hung in the air, and drops laced every bough—the same drops that adorn three of the most beautiful scenes in literature.  Wasiolek catches the presence of these drops in several of the most poignant scenes in War & Peace, but fails to connect that presence with the drops in that “living, wavering ball of no dimensions” which so captivates Pierre’s imagination because it represents Tolstoy’s sadly mistaken view of life, and history (Tolstoy 1064).  If only Tolstoy had simply let the drops drip. 

Works Cited

Augustine. The City of God. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Berlin, Isaiah. “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library. Web.

     <http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/>

Boswell, James. Life of Johnson. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. New York: John Lane, 1909.

Dante. Purgatory. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Descartes, Renee. Objections and Replies. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.

New American Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 1977.

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. New York: Random House, 2007.

Wasiolek, Edward. Tolstoy’s Major Fiction. Chicago: 1978.

Christ, Not Cupid by Leah

Christ, Not Cupid

Leah 

Exordium

Wandering across the hills and dales of life, unhindered by vexations, a man treads blissfully along his appointed path.  Surrounded by sunshine and flowers, he revels in simplistic joy.  Little does he realize an armed warrior tracks his idyllic steps.  Closer, ever closer creeps this fate, hovering in a strategic position—a close view of the aorta.  Only three more steps, two, one . . . Bam!  Knocked down by the tremendous force of the blow, the writhing man clutches the protruding arrow.  Mission accomplished, the ironically innocent looking warrior grins smugly.  Relishing another victory, the cherub wings his way to another victim of fate.  Cupid wins again.

Ludicrous as this story sounds, does it not reflect the modern view of “falling in love”?  Considered a helpless abandonment to primal forces that overrun all better reason, emotion-driven love forces its host to behave in illogical (sometimes immoral) ways.  Holding power over a person’s mind, emotions, and soul, “love” is seen as an unavoidable circumstance of Fate, a pre-planned manipulation.  From the cheapest rhymes to the most soaring poetry, modern culture “tends to turn ‘being in love’ into a sort of religion” (Lewis, Four Loves 111).

For centuries the message of emotion-based love has bombarded the psyche of humanity.  “Another notion we get from novels and plays is that ‘falling in love’ is something quite irresistible; something that just happens to one, like measles” (Lewis, Mere Christianity 86).  Consider Shakespeare’s enormously influential Romeo and Juliet, which showcases the prototypical example of two lovers who fling away their reputations, family expectations, and very lives for the sake of a few hours’ emotions.  Although Romeo thinks he has not “[seen] true beauty ‘til this night” (Shakespeare 143), is he wise to make an impulsive decision to “close our hands in holy matrimony” with an acquaintance of a few hours (149)?  It is not only Elizabethan-era Shakespeare who lauds Cupid’s arrow.  Sages and popular figures of modern times condone this “follow your heart” rule of love as well.  “Listen to your heart / When he's calling for you // Listen to your heart / There's nothing else you can do,” blares the chorus of a popular song (Roxette).

Is there a discrepancy between these philosophies, with their visions of idealistic bliss, and reality?  What happens after the feelings of love wear off, as they always do?  As sapient Friar Laurence observes to Romeo and Juliet, “These violent delights have violent ends / and in their triumph die” (Shakespeare 149).  One has only to look into the homes of the Western world to see the ending of countless Romeos and Juliets.  “[Love], honored without reservation and obeyed unconditionally, becomes a demon” (Lewis, Four Loves 110).  Years into marriage, a husband or wife wakes up one morning to discover that the hormonal exhilaration of their relationship is gone.  Since he (or she) is deceived into thinking these feelings are love, instead of a byproduct of it, Romeo will decide to seek another, more attractive Juliet.  Is it any wonder that the 2009 divorce rate in the U.S. was half the marriage rate (National Center for Health Statistics)?  Marriages formed on “violent delights” alone are “like fire and powder / which, as they kiss, consume”(Shakespeare 149).  Falling out of love is as easy as falling in.

Does the existence of broken relationships mean that love is a myth, that a man and woman can never achieve a solid, life-long partnership?  A thousand times no!  Scripture assures that “love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8).  However, it is only in properly defining love that a couple can hope to achieve wedded bliss for a lifetime.  “The principle is love—not erotic or sentimental or sexual feeling, but love.  It is the way of charity” (Elliot 180).

Narratio

Love is a choice.

Divisio

Love is a sacrificial choice, not a selfish emotion, firstly because love honors the purity of others.  Secondly, love is faithful, holding fast to covenant commitments.  Thirdly, love forgives, bearing with the faults and annoyances of others.  Finally, love is humble, promoting the good of others above itself.

Confirmatio

Stories reflect life.  As English literature professor and theologian Peter J. Leithart says, “Literature abstracts from the complex events of life . . . and can reveal patterns that are like the patterns of events in the real world” (15).  What better way to learn the nature of true love than to drink up the wisdom (and follies) of one of the world’s greatest storytellers?  In his monumental War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy dissects several intriguing relationships, the most prominent of which keenly display love relationships in all their flaws and triumphs.  A master at portraying the human soul, Tolstoy allows his reader to glimpse the inner workings of his character’s hearts.  So well-drawn are these characters that the readers, peering into the thoughts and feelings of the sacrificing Marya, bewitching Natasha, and foreboding Prince Andrei, recognize reflections of themselves.  Though the title of this novel may be War and Peace, it follows the beat of the heart of humanity, containing many opportunities to study the nature of love.

Perhaps the most overlooked portion of the nature of love—purity, “the bringing of our unruly wills and affections into order”—has gone out of vogue in today’s culture (Elliot 34).  Purity’s inherent prerequisite of self-denial is not popular in modern society’s mindset of instant gratification.  From plastic surgery to microwave dinners, Americans are used to having their every whim granted when they want it, how they want it, and where they want it.  A pertinent website, tellingly titled “metime.com,” strenuously encourages women to “celebrate your courage in giving yourself permission to do what feels right for you.” (Clare).  When transposed into the arena of romantic relationships, this philosophy erupts in disastrous consequences, as Tolstoy illustrates through the ineffably vile Anatole Kuragin.

Blessed with good looks, money, and a naïve belief that “he was created by God so that he might. . . occupy a high position in society,” Anatole haphazardly lives out the instant gratification worldview (Tolstoy 567-568).  Uninhibited by that check on human licentiousness called conscience, Anatole lives for two things: “merrymaking and women - . . . and since he was unable to reflect on the consequences that the satisfaction of his tastes had for other people, at heart he considered himself an irreproachable man” (Tolstoy 568).  Irreproachable he may think himself, but when Anatole’s total disregard for the welfare of others comes to its logical end, more than purity is lost.

Because Anatole’s one thought is the satisfaction of his desires, he recklessly rejects morality and propriety, never stopping to consider how his actions might damage the wholesomeness of others.  Gazing upon the beautiful—and affianced—Natasha at an opera, Anatole “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  Despite the fact that he himself is already married, Anatole ravenously pursues the naïve Natasha, who “[feels] with fear that between her and him that barrier of modesty which she had always felt between herself and other men was not there at all” (Tolstoy 565).  Not only does Anatole’s lustful behavior strip away Natasha’s modesty, it deceives her into becoming a slave to his passions.  “I felt that he [Anatole] was my master and I was his slave, and that I couldn’t help loving him” (Tolstoy 577).  Selfish lions, in the name of love, slaughter the innocence of lambs.

Yet these lions are often self-deceived, thinking themselves innocent and natural, merely following the dictates of that overwhelming force which they call love.  “This is the way of [the adulterous]:  [they] eat and wipe [their] mouth, and say, ‘I have done no wickedness’” (Prov. 30:20).  Even Anatole considers himself spotless, “instinctively convinced with his whole being that . . . he had never in his life done anything bad” (Tolstoy 567).  Infected by a twisted view of love, Anatole—and all like him—thoughtlessly consume the lives of others, only to discard them like an unwanted pet when something more alluring catches their eye.  C.S. Lewis aptly phrases the true desire of men like Anatole:  “He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary apparatus” (Four Loves 94).  Concern for the beloved is as far as thoughts of self-denial from Anatole’s mind.  His actions center around one motive:  personal pleasure, which, “pushed to its extreme, shatters us like pain” (Lewis 102).  As Anatole Kuragin never learns, lust is not love, nor does the immediate indulgence of one’s selfish desires result in anything but ruin, despair, and broken hearts.

Yet there is one avenue in which “the way of a man with a virgin” can blossom:  the covenant of marriage (Prov. 30:19).  Although a defense of marriage is beyond the scope of this paper, let it suffice that it is the only lawfully established institution in which romantic love can fully flourish.  And though marriage dates back to the beginning of time, the bonds of wedlock are under assault today like never before.  “The marriage rate is also on a steady decline: a 50% drop since 1970” (Jayson).  Could these appalling facts be a result of a generation believing a twisted definition of love?  Picture this all too common scenario:  a young couple blissfully wandering through their first years of wedded life, only to discover one vexatious day that they have not married a perfect creature.  “The old self soon turns out to be not so dead as he pretended” (Lewis, Four Loves 114).  Relentlessly rubbed by the petty mannerisms and irritating idiosyncrasies of their mate, one (or both) of the formerly “perfect” couple decides he has had enough.  Call the lawyer.  Pull the plug.  Forget the vows.  Is this not perfectly acceptable?  After all, what is a marriage without love?

According to the Cupid’s arrow view of love, a relationship can and should only last until one is pierced by another random arrow of desire.  If love is merely feeling, then flitting from one blooming flower to the next is acceptable, even admirable behavior.  If love is based purely on emotion, there is indeed no reason for it to last beyond the dying of the flames of passion.  Decimating marriages, this misunderstanding of commitment is at the foundation of relational problems.  As pastor and author John Piper poignantly chastens, “[s]taying married . . . is not mainly about staying in love.  It is about keeping covenant” (25).  Without a concept of faithfulness, without commitment to covenant, marriage is destroyed as quickly as wooden Moscow is consumed by fire.

Raised without boundaries or discipline, Nikolai Rostov is a Russian Romeo, flirting from woman to woman, existing in his own world of momentary merriness.  “It had never occurred to him that the pastime he found so amusing might not be so for someone else” (Tolstoy 949).  Although he engages the affections of his cousin, Sonya, for eight years, Nikolai, whose “whole face expressed impetuousness” (Tolstoy 40), is not against instantly falling for Princess Marya when the occasion so presents itself.  To his credit, Nikolai remembers Sonya. “I love her, I’ve promised to marry her,” he states, but the next moment swiftly turns to dreams of “would the princess marry me?  Can there be any thought of it” (Tolstoy 949-950)?  When Nikolai follows his own impulsive heart, others’ are broken.

Perhaps such behavior runs in families, for Nikolai’s sister Natasha displays the same susceptibility to momentary emotions.  Blinded by the outward charm of Anatole Kuragin, she allows her mind and spirits to be turned from the promise of marriage she has made to the widower Prince Andrei.  “Why can’t it be both together?  Only then would I be perfectly happy, but now I must make a choice,” she thinks, hovering between faithfulness and feelings (Tolstoy 575).  As Natasha must learn, fidelity is not an ignorance of temptation, but an unwavering commitment to constancy.  In a near fatal episode, Natasha’s abandonment of this principle leads to years of heartbreak and turmoil.  Although her liason with Anatole never comes to fruition, Natasha’s indiscretions damage her relationship with the wounded Andrei.  What could have been a joyful and lasting marriage is shattered by a betrayal of the indispensableness of faithfulness.

Faithfulness is key not only to a lasting legal contract of marriage, but also to a lifetime bond of love.  Without immovable fidelity, without implicit trust, without constant steadfastness, how can any relationship flourish?  As William Shakespeare says, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds / . . . it is an ever-fixed mark / that looks on tempests and is never shaken” (“Sonnet 116”).  Love is a man and a woman, standing together against any that would assault their bonds, walking down the pathway of life hand-in-hand to the end of their days.  “[Love] never hesitates to say, ‘Better this than parting.  Better to be miserable with her than happy without her.  Let our hearts break provided they break together.’  If the voice within us does not say this, it is not the voice of [love]” (Lewis, Four Loves 107).  Is such a relationship always a rapturous stroll into the sunset?  Of course not—but the knowledge that the beloved is a steadfast anchor carries a man and wife through tempests which threaten to overturn their ship.

Faithfulness is indeed a pillar of good marriages, but more than simple commitment is needed to weather the grittiness of daily living.  When the annoyances and imperfections of one’s spouse seem enough to drive one mad, is there a reason to persevere?  When the flaws and faults of one’s mate agitate marital harmony, the balm of forgiveness is needed.  True love chooses to forgive the faults of the loved one, even when the beloved is behaving in a most unlovable manner.

Young, handsome, and wealthy Prince Andrei faces just such a situation in the opening pages of War and Peace.  Bound to a flighty society woman, aptly named the “little princess,” Andrei allows his understandable impatience with her faults to build into a full-blown despising of his wife.  Accompanying his spouse into society, Andrei stalks about with a sulking countenance.  Whenever she speaks, he “[winces], as if expecting something unpleasant” (Tolstoy 98), and assumes an “ironic and scornful expression” (105).  Clearly, Andrei’s “princess” does not make him feel like Prince Charming.

Faced with a situation like this, where circumstances are less than idyllic and all is not roses and rainbows, what is one to do?  Andrei’s story can so easily be seen in countless relationships today, whether the problems be as trivial as forgetting to replace the toothpaste cap or as serious as chronic addictions.  To answer this crucial question, husbands and wives must remember their vows, their promises to bear with each other no matter the circumstances—for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. . . .  It is not momentary feelings that ground a marriage, but a lasting commitment to have and to hold each other, bearing with flaws and faults.  This is not natural.  It does not feel good.  But it must be done.  “Love suffers long and is kind . . . does not behave rudely . . . bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4, 7).  If Prince Andrei were to treat his “princess” with the constant act of humble forgiveness, he may discover there is real royalty beneath her surface silliness after all.

Although not within a marital relationship, Andrei’s sister Princess Marya is a stellar example of forgiveness and forbearance.  With an almost supernatural grace, Marya serves her demanding, exacting, intolerant father.  “He insulted Princess Marya constantly and painfully, but his daughter did not even have to force herself to forgive him” (Tolstoy 482).  As his life wanes, the old prince waxes ever harsher towards his self-sacrificing daughter, yet “never had she felt so sorry for him, so frightened of losing him” (714).  Although thoughts of a life free from the obsessive control and frightening anger of her father do creep in, Marya “[drives] those thoughts away with loathing” (714).  Her love for her father, despite his cruel treatment, is a conscious choice, an ability that comes from a source beyond her human capabilities.  Guided by her devotion to her Heavenly Father, Marya is empowered to forgive the arrows of bitterness and wrath with which she is ceaselessly bombarded.  Marya lives this love, sipping from a cup of deeper joy than any merely temporal feeling could ever offer.

Forgiveness, forbearance, endurance—such words ring harsh on the ears of products of the “me first” generation.  Yet without this daily sacrifice, this hourly slaying of self, this constant putting of the beloved first even (especially) when she is most unlovely is what makes love - and consequently marriage - last a lifetime.  Without the gentle watering of forgiveness, the plant of love withers and dies.  Therefore, “live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive” (Bonhoeffer 31).  Why should one expend all the labor and toil of loving the unlovely?  Because “the hard, rugged work of enduring and forgiving is what makes it possible for affections to flourish when they seem to have died” (Piper 48).

In essence, the “rugged work” of forgiveness is humility, love choosing to “look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philip. 2:4).  Here is the crossroads at which the view of love as an emotion and love as a choice divorce.  Emotional love may agree that adultery and fornication are not pleasant things, it may admire faithfulness, it may look upon forgiveness as a helpful quality, but it is flummoxed by love that chooses to put others above itself.  “Charity says, ‘I grant you your rights.  I do not insist on mine.  I give myself to you; I do not insist that you give yourself to me’” (Elliot 183).  Humility, that laying down of reputation, of pride, of self is the essence of the greatest love.  “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Passing through fiery trials and suffering forces an understanding of this love.  Despite their previous faults of bitterness and unfaithfulness, Natasha and particularly Andrei learn to lay down their pride when Andrei is mortally wounded.  For Natasha, this calamity renews her formerly broken commitment to Andrei.  The girl who faithlessly abandoned her intended now cares for his wounds so tenderly that “the doctor had to admit that he had not expected from a young lady either such firmness or such skill” (Tolstoy 923).  Natasha’s tending of the sickbed is a visible manifestation of the faithful love she cultivates in her heart.  For Andrei, his wound—as all near fatal experiences do—awakens in him a new perspective on life and love.  Slaughtering his pride on the altar of forgiveness, Andrei’s former bitterness against Natasha is changed into a love that forgives not only her, but also her seducer.  Realizing he is granted a supernatural gift, Andrei muses, “You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with a divine love” (Tolstoy 921).  This powerful love grants Andrei the ability to see issues from Natasha’s perspective, “and he understood her feeling, her suffering, shame, repentance” (921).  Adorned with the “perfect love that casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), Andrei and Natasha reconcile in the following starkly beautiful scene:

“Forgive me!’ she said in a whisper, raising her head and glancing at him.  ‘Forgive me!’

‘I love you,’ said Prince Andrei.

‘Forgive . . . ’

‘Forgive what?’ asked Prince Andrei.

‘Forgive me for what I di . . . did,’ Natasha said . . .

‘I love you more, better, than before,’ said Prince Andrei.”

(922)

Washed in a baptism of pain, their love moves beyond the beginnings of fanciful flirtation to a richer, deeper, more complete knowledge and confidence in their beloved.  Faithlessness turns to faithfulness; bitterness to forgiveness.  In seeking the good of the beloved, they find their own.

Humility and sacrifice are not only operant in the realm of romantic love, indeed, this slaying of selfishness is what drives the greatest loves this world sees.  “Then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain.  The tortured’s love for the torturer.  This is God’s love.  It conquers the world” (Buechner, qtd. in Chan 132).  This is the kind of love that sees a Samaritan, an “untouchable,” and crosses over to the other side of the tracks to help his fellow man.  This is the kind of love that comforts the poor when no one is looking, that binds up the wounds of an enemy, that carries its cross to Golgatha.  This is the love that C.S. Lewis calls “Charity.”  “Divine Gift-Love, Love Himself working in a man—is wholly disinterested and desires what is simply best for the beloved” (Four Loves128).

Although this climax of love, the literal laying down of one’s life through daily actions of sacrifice, seems to be a state which no average man could reach, it is a goal to which all—married or not—must strive.  To those who expect the glorious heights of “being in love” to motivate actions for a lifetime, failure surely comes.  Grounded in the firm realization that they “must do the works of [love] when [love] is not present” (Lewis, Four Loves 115), however, a couple can hope for a mutually satisfying and fruitful marriage.  The strength to carry out this love does not come from a magical wishing well of emotion, nor even a desire to live in a fair and upright manner towards each other.  Its source is deeper.  “All good Christian lovers know that this programme [love by action] . . . will not be carried out except by humility, charity, and divine grace” (Lewis, Four Loves 115).  What is this love’s source?  It is Love Himself.

Confutatio

Is love, then, devoid of romance?  Is there no room in a relationship for physical attraction, happily ever after endings, and tender glances?  Is there no such thing as that state of “being in love”?

It would be not only untruthful, but inhumane to deny that there are special, exquisitely beautiful feelings that flow between a man and woman.  Delve into the flowing lyricism of the Scriptures to find poetic description of impassioned longings between the Beloved and his Love.  “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is better than wine . . . my beloved is mine, and I am his . . . how fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights” (Song of Solomon 1:2, 2:16, 7:6)!  It is part of the created nature of man and woman that they should be drawn towards one another, so strongly attracted that “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).  Negating the existence of such powerful feelings, necessary to a healthy marriage, is not only insensitive, but downright foolish.

The crucial problem comes not with embracing the state of “being in love”, but in basing a marriage on it.  This is where Tolstoy, as well as much of modern society, branches onto a doomed pathway.  Even in his moment of forgiveness to his enemies, Prince Andrei sees love as an experience, an occasion, not a choice.  “I experienced the feeling of love . . . I am experiencing that blissful feeling,” he sighs (Tolstoy 921).  Viewing love as an emotional state, a random burst of desire over which no control can be exerted, is a dangerous path to trod, for what happens when such feelings cease to be?  This is where the choice to act in love, even when the feeling of love is not present, comes into play.  “The promise . . . to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits one to being true even if I cease to be in love” (Lewis, Mere Christianity 83).

Thus, to allow feelings alone to dictate the treatment of one’s life partner is a rash decision.  Following one’s changeable, willful, and moody heart is like following a guide who knows nothing of the correct roads.  Cupid is blind for a reason.  As the Lord Himself warns, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it” (Jeremiah 17:9)?  “People get from books [movies, television, advertisements] the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on ‘being in love’ for ever.  As a result, when they find that they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one” (Lewis, Mere Christianity 85).

Enjoy “being in love.”  Revel in it, thrill to its call, savor its sweetness.  But by no means base a relationship upon it, for feelings change as often as the wind.  “It is on this love [love through action] that the engine of marriage is run:  being in love was the explosion that started it” (Lewis, Mere Christianity 85).  Establish the foundation of purity, faithfulness, forgiveness, and humility, for those are the qualities that will last when the glorious mists of emotion are swept away by the harsh gales of reality.

Conclusio

Like the unseen trellises that support an abundance of roses, so the choice to live in purity, faithfulness, forgiveness, and humble sacrifice upholds a lasting love.  Without the daily decision to live out love, the flower of a relationship withers and dies.  Watered by the actions of steadfast charity, a marriage will flourish, bearing the fruit of joy, fulfillment, and mutual affection.  Such love is not always marked by fireworks or grandiose promises, but produces an assuring strength of unwavering regard.  “A quieter love, but a long-lasting one, indeed, an eternal one” (Eliot 185).  True love can say, in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words, “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach . . . with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life” (Browning 50).  For it is the choice to love that brings forth the ripened pleasures of a life spent together, the choice of two souls to stride hand-in-hand through the trials and joys of a lifetime.  “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8).

How can one achieve this love?  Humanly, it is difficult and nigh impossible to consistently live out the virtues necessary for life-long love.  Encased in stubborn bodies of flesh, endowed with wayward hearts, and burdened with sinful natures, lovers attaining selfless love is like reaching for the stars—admirable, but not achievable.  Do spouses then sigh in hopelessness, abandoning the quest for truest love?  Praises be to the God of heaven, there is a way of love which supersedes these mortal bonds.  It is to follow Love Himself, to “take [His] yoke upon you and learn from [Him]” (Matthew 11:29), to “walk in love, as Christ also has loved us” (Eph. 5:2).  To love another, one must first love God.  “Walk in the Spirit . . . [for] the fruit of the Spirit is love” (Gal. 5:16, 22).  All true loves of this earth reflect that Love which is God.  By His grace, “natural love is taken up into, made the tuned and obedient instrument of, Love Himself” (Lewis, Four Loves 134).  For this choice of love is a choice to act as the Bridegroom does towards His beloved—“just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25).  Love is Christ, not Cupid.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

Works Cited

The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985. Print.

Boenhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. New York: Touchstone, 1997. Print.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "Sonnet XLIII." 100 Best-Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. New York: Dover, 1995. 7. Print.

Chan, Francis. Crazy Love. Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook Distributions, 2008. Print.

Clare, Gerianne. “Giving Yourself Permission to Do What Feels Right for You.” Me Time. 17 Dec. 2009. <http://metime.com/me-time-central/health-wellness/giving-yourself-permission-to-do-what-feels-right-for-you>. Web.

Elliot, Elisabeth. Passion and Purity. Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2008. Print.

Jayson, Sharon. “Divorce Declining, But So Is Marriage”. USATODAY.com, 18 Jul, 2005. Web. 17 Dec 2009.

Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves. Orlando: Hartcourt Inc., 1988. Print.

---. Mere Christianity. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1979. Print.

“Marriage and Divorce”. CDC/National Center for Health Statistics. 2 Apr. 2009. Web. 17 Dec. 2009. < http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm >

Piper, John. This Momentary Marriage. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009. Print.

Roxette. “Listen to Your Heart.” Look Sharp! EMI, 1988. CD.

Shakespeare, William. “Romeo and Juliet”. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Ed. Arthur Henry Bullen. London: CRW Publishing Limited, 2005. 139-160. Print.

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet CXVI." 100 Best-Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. New York: Dover, 1995. 7. Print.

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Vintage Classics, 2008. Print.

Book Review of The Man Who Was Thursday

The Man Who Was Thursday  by Jenna 

The Man Who Was Thursday, written by the famed British author Gilbert Keith Chesterton, was first published in 1908, yet it still creates an undeniable connection with the twenty-first century reader. C. S. Lewis called the novel, “a powerful picture of the loneliness and bewilderment which each of us encounters in his single-handed struggle with the universe.” Jonathan Lethem says that Chesterton’s “nutty agenda is really quite simple: to expose moral relativism and parlor nihilism for the devils he believes them to be. Although Chesterton himself subtitled the work ‘A Nightmare’, such a term may be a bit harsh. With an eerie mix of mystery and allegory, the book tells a story that certainly none of us has actually experienced, but that we all can relate to in some way.   

 

Gabriel Syme, the man who was Thursday, is the book’s chief character. First introduced as a “poet of law, a poet of order”, Syme goes through significant role transformations throughout the course of the book. Lucien Gregory, the anarchist poet of Saffron Park, is the first supporting character to come in contact with Syme. The additional supporting characters are the members of the Supreme Anarchist Council, five men “nicknamed” after the days of the week. Monday is the Council’s secretary, a man with a crooked smile and eyes that reveal a constant mental agony. Tuesday is a man named Gogol, a Pole with a ridiculous look about him. The Marquis de St. Eustache fills the place of Wednesday, a man carrying a rich atmosphere with him wherever he went. Syme himself was Thursday, elected to the position through a curious set of circumstances that cause a major shift and twist in the plot of the story. Professor de Worms fills the role of Friday, an old, worn man whose chair, the council believes, will soon be left empty by his death. Saturday is a young doctor called Bull, who seems perhaps the most harmless of the lot, except for the spectacles he wears that give him a frightening air of wickedness. Finally, the president of the council, known only as Sunday, is perhaps the most terrifying of all, carrying with him a constant air of darkening and dwarfing due to his size and countenance. The story begins in a suburb of London called Saffron Park. Syme and his companions progress through various locations in England in the course of their adventures, and Syme finally ends up back at Saffron Park at the close of the book. 

 

Throughout the book, Syme’s struggle against the other members of the Anarchist Council plays out as the main conflict. Unbeknownst to the council, Syme is in reality a police detective from Scotland Yard. Thrusting himself into the position of Thursday after promising Gregory that he would not betray the council to the police, Syme can only watch the movements of the council without the help of his colleagues. Over the course of the book, Syme has several frightening encounters with the anarchists, including a duel with Wednesday in which his sword is of no avail against his seemingly supernatural opponent. Ultimately, Syme is fighting to stop an anarchist plot, but he must do it alone, by his own brains and wit, while surrounded by unearthly companions. The plot shifts and twists many times throughout the book, with several significant surprises for the reader. Characters reverse roles as Syme’s struggle against anarchy plays out. 

 

Piece by piece, the conflict resolves as Syme discovers that each of the other men on the “anarchist” council is in fact a detective like himself. All have been employed by the same “man in the dark” to overcome an anarchist plot that, it turns out, does not exist. Syme chases after the various members, only to find that each is merely disguised as an anarchist. Even Sunday is revealed as a character (apparently allegorical) utterly different from what Syme first believed him to be. Sunday is, in fact, “the man in the dark” who commissioned the members of the council to their inexplicable mission in the first place. In the end, Lucien Gregory is the one true anarchist, the one who still wants a struggle: “Yes, I am the real anarchist…You are right. I am a destroyer. I would destroy the world if I could.” (Chesterton 180) Finally, the story ends as Syme “comes to”, it seems, and finds himself walking quite naturally with Gregory. Has it all been a dream? Syme never remembers what exactly had happened – all he knows is that there is “an unnatural buoyancy in his body and a crystal simplicity in his mind that seemed to be superior to everything that he said or did. He felt he was is possession of some impossible good news, which made every other thing a triviality, but an adorable triviality.” (Chesterton 182)  

 

In conclusion, The Man Who Was Thursday proves a fascinating read. G.K. Chesterton’s phenomenal writing draws the reader in from the first page. His gripping, engrossing style adds to his succinct and powerful mode of expression. The action does not stop for a moment throughout the entirety of the book. But beyond that, the story has a deeper, seemingly allegorical meaning. As an allegory, the characters each seem to represent ideas – it is obvious that they do, but difficult to pick out what each represents. At one point Chesterton seems to reveal the allegory somewhat just before Syme engages the Marquis in the fateful swordfight. There Syme realizes that the “fear of the Professor had been the fear of the tyrannic accidents of nightmare, and [that] the fear of the Doctor had been the fear of the airless vacuum of science. The first was the old fear that any miracle might happen, the second the more hopeless modern fear that no miracle can ever happen.” (Chesterton 114) This alludes to the conclusion that the characters represent certain ideas. Sunday especially is revealed as an obviously allegorical character when he declares himself to be “the Sabbath. I am the peace of God.” (Chesterton 178) This reveals the irony of Syme’s perceptions from the start of the story in that he feared as the most evil person the one who was truly good. It would seem, in fact, that nearly all of Syme’s perceptions had been wrong from the beginning of the adventure. But once he realizes the truth, and once Sunday reveals his true identity, Syme seems grateful for the whole episode in view of the lessons he has learned. He realizes that there is more to the world than he thought, and that realization is worth the struggles he has gone through. In the same way, sometimes we encounter struggles that seem absolutely pointless at the time – but we see later that they have taught us something invaluable. G. K. Chesterton’s fascinating novel, though difficult to decipher, is certainly worth reading. 

Was Brutus an Honorable Man?

Conrad

Was Brutus an Honorable Man?

People must make moral decisions all throughout their life and one such decision might be the question of whether a person is honorable or not. You must decide it for yourself via your own value system. That same variable conception stays true for Brutus' character in the play Julius Caesar. Was Brutus honorable?

According to some, Brutus was a honorable man, but to others, he is despicable, he is untrustworthy, and he is deceptive. Some people would find him deceptive due to his pretending to serve and love Caesar, while plotting against him behind his back. Brutus continues living in the house of Ceasar and still hastens to do his bidding, seemingly happily, while his soul is in a turmoil of hate and rebellion which causes him to endeavor the destruction of Ceasar. Therefore, one can deem thinking him mendacious as quite reasonable; as is thinking him untrustworthy for the same reason.

To the contrary, there is also a logical side to finding Brutus honorable, for he plotted against, killed, and dishonored Caesar, not only for himself and for his own profit, but for the good of the people. One may think that the good outweighs the bad here. It all depends on personal opinion and an individual's integrity. Cassius, for instance, would most likely crown Brutus with a halo of honorability since he himself is in the same position, and it profits him the same as Brutus. Artemidorus, on the other hand, would deem him disgraceful for his successful attempt at murder.

Looking at it from a biblical perspective, one will again find Brutus dishonorable. He lied, he prevaricated where his duties layed, and he commited murder. "Thou shalt not kill . . . thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour . . . " (Bible). And as one can very well see, all three directly cross the Bible's teachings and commandments.

Although with possibly honorable intentions, after consulting the Bible and current laws, we have found Brutus guilty of murder, and therefore, dishonorable, condemning his life to deep, humiliating shame. One should also hope that this same conclusion would be reasoned in later times and that our country will not lose it's moral pride, itegrity, and biblicality; its foundation.