Tolstoy’s display of encyclopeadic knowledge in Anna Karenina is simply breath taking. Forestry, Horse Racing and Breeding, Farming, Philosophy, Theology, Suffering, Child Birth, Political Economy are some of the topics he covered in depth. How did one man accumulate such knowledge across disparate fields?
In this brief post, I share his musings on his faith in the very last pages of the book, in the voice of one of his characters, Levin.
First, a perplexing question:
While I agree that the questions highlighted in red are difficult ones, questions that anybody who grew up in religiously/spritually diverse society like South Western Nigeria would have pondered on, Tolstoy’s resolution to give up reason and hold on to “a knowledge beyond all doubt” is very much like Soren Kierkegaard’s conclusion: a leap of faith. Soren Kierkegaard’s leap of faith made him the father of “Existentialism” both the atheistic ( Satre) and the theological ones (liberal theologians).
The second passage of interest is this one:
I like how Tolstoy retreated from the existential position (higlighted in green in the first image) in the sentences in red border in the second image. He did not give himself permisson to depart from reason : “..so would my conclusions be vain and uncertain if not founded on that conception of right, which has been and will be always alike for all men”. This is a clear use of his reasoning faculties and those reasons are also based on revelation. Tolstoy accepted that he wasn’t well placed to answer the question, a very honest thing to do as people of faith. When we don’t know, we have to accept we don’t know.
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