Paper 1

The Roll of Free Will in the Christian Evolution from Nihilism to Existentialism in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the protagonist Raskolnikov commits a murder of two women and is punished for his crime by the deterioration of his own psyche. Infused with several Christian themes, Crime and Punishment, is heavily influenced by Dostoevsky’s views as a Christian Existentialist. This paper thus explores the Christian perspective of free will as it relates to the novel’s protagonist. Ultimately, this paper argues that Raskolnikov’s transition from a nihilist to an existentialist is motivated by his desire to obtain free will that he failed to access without faith in God. In essence, Raskolnikov’s recognition of his own free will is crucial to his purification and Christian evolution.

In the beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov is a skeptical academic motivated by logic. Influenced by nihilistic ideas, he believes his environment is responsible for his poverty, boredom, and isolation. A mere pawn of his environment, he believes he has no free will and is therefore unable to access it. In order to free himself from the limit imposed by his environment, Raskolnikov conceives of a crime of a pawnbroker that will help him define his own autonomy separate from a that of a law-abiding citizen and an agent of moral society. This takes the form in his psyche of desiring extraordinary status or seeing himself as God so he may be freed from his environment by becoming superior to it. He partly plans a murder, but not so meticulously as to leave some up to chance, demonstrating that he does place some faith in the force of fate; but primarily, he believes that by assuming the role of a Napoleonic extraordinary man through his illegal and immoral act, he frees himself of the model supposedly forced upon him by society. This attempt at obtaining free will by making himself God fails, but leads him to access his own free will by recognizing it through adoption of existentialism and surrendering himself to God.

Ironically, in the process of becoming a pseudo-Napoleon, Raskolnikov forfeits his rationality, upon which free will relies, and completely surrenders his free will to his environment as he recognizes the role of coincidence. Before committing his murder, he walks home one night and overhears the pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, and her sister, Lizaveta, converse. He learns that Lizaveta will be away from her house the next evening. Raskolnikov sees this opportunity as so ideal, that he has no choice but to go through with his crime while the pawnbroker’s sister is absent. Feeling once again like a pawn of his environment, Raskolnikov loses his ability to reason and feels “with his whole being that he no longer [has] any freedom either of mind or of will, and that everything has been suddenly and finally decided” (62). This statement is ironic, as it reveals that Raskolnikov has become subject to the same position from which he was trying to release himself through committing a crime. Thus, Raskolnikov begins his journey from a man who searches for freedom in rationality and logic to one whose free will is founded in the decision to choose God. As suggested by Dostoevsky, the former relationship is suggestive of nihilism and limits one’s personal freedom, while the latter relationship is ideally existentialist and the only true reflection of freedom.  

In addition to the coincidence of the pawnbroker’s conversation with her sister, Raskolnikov discovers several coincidences, such as a conversation at the tavern in which “exactly the same thoughts” that he just conceived were repeated (65). He attributed this coincidence to something out of his control and ‘predestined’ by God (66). Throughout the novel, instances to which he ascribes to fate severely threaten his ego, but a greater threat to his “extraordinary” self takes form in his belief in the Biblical story of Jesus and Lazarus. After committing his crime, Raskolnikov and his friend, Razumikhin, visit Porfiry Petrovich, who suspects that Raskolnikov is guilty and investigates him by asking several questions to gain access to the criminal’s psyche. Porfiry asks if Raskolnikov believes in the raising of Lazarus. Raskolnikov then responds hesitantly, “I be-believe,” to which Porfiry presses “You believe literally?” (261). Raskolnikov confirms. This response reveals to Porfiry the complexity of Raskolnikov’s character – a nihilistic murderer who admits the literal power of God. But, to the reader, Raskolnikov’s hesitation allows deeper access to the protagonist’s psychology. It reveals that Raskolnikov is in spiritual transition, and, although he was introduced to the Biblical story before in school, his belief in Lazarus is fairly new (324). Raskolnikov later begs Sonya to read him the story of how Jesus resurrected Lazarus (327). It is clear Raskolnikov is fascinated by the idea of rebirth after death. While it may appear that this fascination stems from his internal suffering of guilt from his crime, it is more likely that Raskolnikov discovers he was spiritually ‘dead’ before committing a murder. Therefore, as a nihilist could never believe in the miracles of God, Raskolnikov’s belief and increasing interest in the story of Lazarus reveals his transition from a dead man, a man without spiritual freedom, to a man awakened by God.

This transition is almost complete when Raskolnikov confesses his crime to Sonya (418). He gives no excuses, even though Sonya provides many reasons as to why he would have committed his murders ranging from his poverty to his mental state. Yet, Raskolnikov rejects Sonya’s attempt at humanizing Raskolnikov as “Nonsense” as he affirms:

I simply killed—killed for myself, for myself alone—and whether I would later become anyone’s benefactor, or would spend my life like a spider, catching everyone in my web and sucking the life-sap out of everyone, should at that moment have made no difference to me!…And it was not money above all that I wanted when I killed, Sonya; not money so much as something else…I know all this now… (418).

By admitting his choice made my his own free will, Raskolnikov finally recognizes how separate he had always been from his environment—no longer a mere pawn but rather a freely thinking agent with free will. This awareness is necessary for Raskolnikov to take responsibility for his actions and ready himself for spiritual awakening. His confession also reveals how he sees himself, no longer a Napoleon but a ‘louse.’ The conclusion of his Napoleonic idea signals the resolution of his nihilistic philosophy and makes room for his adoption of existentialist ideas which require admittance of free will.

In the novel’s epilogue, Raskolnikov’s transition enters its final stage. Like Lazarus, he falls sick and is ‘awakened’ at Easter, hinting that Raskolnikov is ‘reborn’ and will achieve salvation from God (506). This rebirth is the effect of his free choice to surrender to God rather than feed his Napoleonic ego, and thus is caused by Raskolnikov’s attainment of existentialist thought. He recognizes his free will and is thereby able to access it.

Through the spiritual awakening of his main character, Dostoevsky reveals the power of Christian existentialism, that is, the believe that “consciousness is radically free” through God (Crowell). Free will changes meaning for Raskolnikov from being founded in “acting rationally” to being founded in “existential terms, as choice and transcendence” (Crowell). This transcendence is foreshadowed by the character’s name, whose root, raskol, means ‘schism,’ as noted by Dostoevsky’s translator, and begs to be whole by appealing to the supernatural (Kindle Location 270). Dostoevsky suggests that through nihilism, one may not obtain the meaning of life, a focus of Russian thought that took form in the question “What is to be done?” And, like Raskolnikov influenced by Western philosophy, it may lead to internal suffering because, without some “rational goal whose content cannot be merely this empirical life itself,” one is unable to live a life of meaning (Frank Location 512). Discovering this meaning of life through faith in God is central to making one whole.

In addition to unveiling the personal motivation for adopting Christian existentialism, Dostoevsky also inserts a motivation for the reader to recognize his own free will by rejecting the Russian tendency to villainize the environment, as Raskolnikov had for most of his life. In A Writer’s Diary, he warns that blaming the environment is dangerous to the development of the community and opposes Christianity which, “fully recognizing the pressure of the environment . . . , still places a moral duty on the individual to struggle with the environment and marks the line where the environment ends and duty begins” (Dostoevsky, A Writer’s Diary 136). Raskolnikov throughout the majority of Crime and Punishment, struggles with his environment all the while assigning responsibility to it. It is not until he—himself—can assume full “moral duty” that he is considered saved by Christianity. Thus, his beginning state as a nihilist who is not Christian according to Dostoevsky in A Writer’s Diary directly opposes his final state as an existentialist who has full Christian faith in God’s power. His spiritual evolution motivated by his need to feel free is obtained by his recognition of his own free will, as both an existentialist who believes his consciousness is free and a Christian who sees himself as an autonomous moral agent.

Works Cited