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Introduction xxiGod gives eternal life, God sets us free from the bondage ofsin. Along with it is the testimony of St. John in the fourthchapter of his first letter: “God is love…There is no roomfor fear in love; perfect love banishes fear…We love becauseHe loved us first.” Dostoyevsky’s love of the gospel is thusclearly evident in his writings, and Alyosha reflects his ownpilgrimage to the city of God, the kingdom which is not ofthis world.Dostoyevsky’s hosanna of faith was hammered out on the anvil ofdoubt. Doubt does not imply ignorance, nor denial of the gospel,but rather the testing of the truth of the gospel. He tells in his Diaryof a Writer that he was brought up in a pious Russian family. Hereceived instruction in the gospel “almost from the cradle.” Suchan upbringing was unusual among the Russian intellectuals ofthat time. Their interest was not in the church and the tradition itrepresented but in the apparently new and exciting philosophiesof the Enlightenment. The theories of rationalism, romanticism,positivism, agnosticism, humanism, nihilism, anarchism, andcommunism were standard fare at the dinner tables of the aristocraticintellectuals. It is sometimes affirmed that the tragedyof Russia is that it never enjoyed the civilizing influence of theRenaissance. I do not think this is true. From the time of Peterthe Great on, the intellectual climate of Russia was influenced bythe ideas spawned in the post-Renaissance period of the West.Those of the nineteenth century expressed the rejection of Christianityand its moral principles, which had contributed to thedevelopment of Western democracy. Such was the intellectualatmosphere that involved Dostoyevsky in the struggle of faith.His writings reveal that he remembered a great deal of his earlyChristian education. The book of Job made a lasting impressionupon him. It is the story of the righteous man who suffered and