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“Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.”
This quote by Father Zosima in Chapter 3 of Book 6 establishes Zosima as the figurehead for faith in the novel. This quote argues that faith, unlike doubt, offers the believer strength and courage in ways that doubt does not. Doubt offers the believer or nonbeliever nothing in exchange. Because the novel largely spends more time supporting the importance of faith over doubt, this quote adds to the argument that there is more value to be found for an individual in the practice of faith than the practice of doubt. This quote’s stance of faith’s superiority over doubt is supported by the novel’s outcomes, as believers such as Alyosha continuously fare better than nonbelievers like Ivan.
“I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there—that is living.”
In the fourth chapter of Book 11, Dmitri finally comes to confess faith in God. This change in character, which is portrayed as the ideal outcome for a prisoner of any caliber, further supports the notion that the novel sees faith as superior to doubt. Dmitri’s future begins to possess positive potential after this confession, suggesting that those who believe in God are better equipped for success than those who don’t. The quote encourages absolute belief, regardless of the tangible presence of the object of one’s belief. Dmitri has absolute faith in God because he has witnessed the God’s impact, even if he cannot see God himself. This is similar to the way one believes in the sun even when one cannot see it—the effects of the sun’s existence are all around.
“The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact.”
This quote from the fifth chapter of the first book negatively portrays a certain quality of atheists and nonbelievers, which is that those who lack faith will always perform mental stretches in order to maintain their disbelief even in the presence of indisputable proof. This quote can also be reversely applied to believers, however, as miraculous events that can be explained by logic, in the eyes of individuals of faith, will always be perceived as an act of God. The novel does not suggest that believers and nonbelievers alike cannot be swayed into a change of faith, as we see Dmitri do just that. However, this quote represents the difficulty of this transformation, as most individuals hold tightly to their beliefs.
