Sometimes Dostoyevsky’s surname name is spelled with a y by translators into English from Russian. Other translators sometimes omit the first y. It does not really matter for my purposes here. I just wanted to acknowledge that issue of spelling.

I’m on a Dostoyevsky kick again. When I fell in love with reading as a boy, it was largley through the great 19th century British masters like Dickens and Hardy. But I also discovered Dostoyevsky and the other Russian masters. They wrote long books, sometimes near a 1,000 pages. But they’re more than worth the investment of time required to plumb their depths.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky wrote (among countless other gems): “They [the progressives/atheists/humanists] think to order all things wisely; but having rejected Christ they will end by drenching the world with blood.”

In other words, it’s Christ or chaos–always. Man will either worship the truth or an idol. If there’s no god above the government, government is your god. If there’s no god above the state, statism is your religion. If man is the measure of all things, it’ll come down to brute power of which man will rule. Again, it’s Christ or chaos.

That’s why Dostoyevsky’s line is so packed with wisdom. The secularists spout emotive bromides about progress, brotherhood, and human rights, yet the murders continue unabated. Ask the Christians in Nigeria how tolerant other worldviews are towards them. So much for tolerance.

We can kick against reality, but reality does not disappear just because we don’t like it. It’s there. Folks can and will hate the truth of Christianity, and yet it endures because its King walked out of the grave after three days, despite added Roman guards at the tomb of a corpse.

Folks can mock, deride, and slander–but the truth endures. Why? Because it’s Christ or chaos.

Again, listen to Dostoyevsky: “They [the progressives/atheists/humanists] think to order all things wisely; but having rejected Christ they will end by drenching the world with blood.”