Christ or Truth: Dostoevsky vs Weil – Bradley Jersak

With Brian Zahnd a decade ago!

In 1854, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote a private letter to Natalya Fonvizina, the woman who gave him a New Testament before he was sent to prison in Siberia. In that letter, he claims,

If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Complete Letters, 1868-1871

Eight decades later, during the last year of her life (1942-43), Simone Weil wrote a series of letters to a priest, including her “Spiritual Autobiography.” In that particular letter, she seems to respond to Dostoevsky:

Yet I still half refused, not my love, but my intelligence. For it seemed certain, and I believe it still today, that we can never wrestle God too much if we do so out of pure concern for the truth.

Christ loves that we prefer the truth to him, because before being the Christ, he is the Truth. If someone takes a detour from him to go towards the truth, they will not go a long way without falling into his arms.

—Simone Weil, Awaiting God: A New Translation of Attente de Dieu and Lettre à un Religieux. Trans. Bradley Jersak. Fresh Wind Press, 2012, p. 142.

Dostoevsky or Weil? To riff off a common Rowan Williams line, “I don’t have to vote.” But perhaps some commentary on each angle will interest readers. Brian Zahnd and I were happy to do so over a decade ago in the Summer 2015 issue of CWR magazine.

I figured Brian and my readers might enjoy revisiting how we presented Dostoevsky and Weil’s seemingly competing claims (below). I especially loved how Brian introduced the aspect of Beauty, recalling that wonderful Dostoevskian phrase, “Beauty will save the world.

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