6. Spiritual Healing. Unbelief and Weak Faith.

In our academy lectures on pastoral theology, we gave instructions about how to give

edifying advice at confession to people with various dispositions and from various walks

of life. Of course, even then we could make no claim to enumerate all the varied

conditions of inner life and external situations of Christians, conditions which are

endlessly variable. Here, where we are living at present, far from the short summaries

which we made for delivering the lectures, we can manage only to set forth what little we

remember of what we borrowed from the writings of the Fathers and from our own

spiritual experience.

To begin with, let us consider the most acute cases. The person confessing

declares that he does not believe. Nowadays such a person would probably not even

come to confession, but then (I was teaching until the last years of the 19th century, until

the spring of 1900), he would explain that he came because of the requirement of civil

law for officers and civil servants, or the requirements of a school for its pupils, or

finally, at the insistence of his parents or wife, or in order to observe family customs. But

I am still convinced that at the present time of triumphant nihilism such people must

appear not infrequently at the confessional. First of all, one must ask if they seriously and

sincerely want to talk to the priest, or if they have only come to make mock of him; in the

latter event they should simply he sent away. It is essential that your question be

affectionate and full of sympathy. If he answers that he would like to be convinced of the

truths of faith, or at least re-examine his convictions, then of course it is better to offer to

have a preliminary talk with him in another place before confession, especially if he is an

adult and an educated person. If you notice that his unbelief is only imaginary or passing,

and feel that he can be brought to his senses in a few minutes, then ask him why he lost

his faith. Was it from reading books, and if so, which ones? Or from various soul-shaking

events — disillusionment, misfortune, prayers unanswered by God (this happens

especially often with women) or for other reasons? If he names Tolstoyviii or Renanix or

other writers as being responsible for his loss of faith, then say “Of course, these books

strive to kill faith in people, but it cannot be that they are a sufficient reason for you not

to believe. You probably did not take the trouble to read a single book in defence of the

faith, or even one book devoted to refuting the thinkers you mentioned. Admit that you

started reading these hooks with a desire to be delivered from faith; and if this is not so,

then still, before reading them you must have found religion burdensome, since if this

were not so you would not have come to part with it so easily, but, sick at heart, you

would have sought a person or another book which could have dispersed your doubts. On

the contrary, did you not seek out those books and companions who could destroy even

what remained of your faith? Why did you begin to find it burdensome, and when?

Wasn’t it when you lost your chastity or wished to lose it, but faith and your conscience

prevented you, and you began to hate them just as a mischievous schoolboy hates the

person in authority over him? It is not reason, but unchastity which is the enemy of faith,

as the Lord said: ‘Whoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and

sinful generation,’ and so on (Mk. 9:38). He did not say: ‘in this lazy or self-interested

generation,’ but ‘adulterous generation,’ for He knew where and whence enmity against

God begins. Many people have read your Tolstoy and Renan and not lost their faith, and

others have compiled detailed refutations, both of these writers and of Darwin, Marx and

so on. I will give you the refutations I know, and those which I do not know I will find

out for you from people who do, if you really want to study these questions deeply, and

are not simply covering up your immorality by naming books and philosophers.

“Thus you have admitted that it was not a book, but your evil will which took you

away from God. Repent before Him, but if you are very far from Him, then admit to

yourself your heavy guilt against truth and your conscience, and then you will receive the

desire to ask God for the remission of your sin, your renunciation of your Redeemer. If

you are already full of such repentant feelings, then let us pray; I will say the prayer of

absolution over you. But as to approaching the Holy Mysteries, think about it first. If the

Lord returns faith and hope to your heart, then receive Communion; but if the spirit of

unbelief remains in your heart, then wait a while: but do not put off thinking about and

investigating this, which is the most important thing on earth, and which is all that

remains when we part from the earth. You said that you accept only facts, but death is an

indubitable fact. Tell me, is there any sense in our life, if it comes to an end here just as

the soul has been brought to fulfillment by maturity and thirst for understanding? Is there

any sense in all that is good and great, if there is no God? For then, you see, there is no

difference left between good and evil; all those who deny God have been compelled to

admit this, the latest of them being the famous Spencer.x Believe me, no sincere and

thoughtful person can deny God and accept these conclusions about good and evil and the

senselessness of life; when people talk of denying Him, they are just boasting and

wanting to escape their pangs of conscience.”

A man can be brought to his senses by such words, or similar ones, provided they

come from heartfelt sympathy and compassion, and often such a person who imagined he

was an atheist will there and then admit how grievously he was in error and ask for

absolution. But if this does not happen straightaway, even so he will bow his head and

become thoughtful, and will not refuse to continue his talk with the priest outside the

church, or go to see someone who in your opinion can disperse his doubts. Of course, I

am far from thinking that such a talk can bring about a conversion in the soul of every

person who declares that he does not believe. It is necessary to speak to one person one

way and to another person, differently. But I am giving an example of how the voice of

pastoral love and the conditions of confession enable you to talk about faith and unbelief

on a completely different plane from the usual one; usually people start talking about a

book or attack, perhaps correctly, the unbelieving author named by the person they are

talking to. The latter then starts employing subtle arguments to defend his teacher. But

here you are calling upon the person to place himself under judgement and admit those

sinful desires which drew his attention and sympathy to the enemies of God, and so tore

him away from God.

If the unbeliever to whom you are speaking is stubborn and does not yield or even

becomes angry and starts quarreling, however gentle you are, then still do all you can to

ensure that he does not consider this talk as final, but remains willing to come and see

you again or to go to some other better informed teacher to whom you can direct him.

You know, in one of Gogol’s fantasies, the soul of a sleeping girl is separated from her

and says, I think to some magician or other, “Marusya” (I probably have the name

wrong) “doesn’t know a tenth of what her soul knows.” If someone who considers

himself an unbeliever has come to a priest, that means that in his soul, unknown to

himself, there remains a considerable desire to get his faith back, although he also has the

opposing desire to avoid it. Keep your pastoral eye on such a person and know that the

more sharply and angrily he speaks to you, the more strongly his soul is struggling within

him, his conscience struggling with the demon of unbelief and opposition to God.

Unbelievers are converted to living faith in various ways, but rarely as the fruit of a

gradual refutation of all the pseudo-scientific arguments against the existence of God or

the immortality of the soul which they had accepted. Usually, after an inner struggle, at

once both intellectual and moral, the turning point conies suddenly, and the person is no

longer even interested in refuting his former arguments, but discards these theories as

useless husks, as empty sophisms. It becomes clear that they only propped up his

unbelief, which came from embitterment or insubmissiveness. Now, softened by a word

of pastoral love, the soul has itself found a way out of its gloomy dungeon into the light,

and soared to God in prayer. Of course, it would do no harm if the penitent thoroughly

studied everything that has been said or written for and against his former atheistic ideas.

But only a few will agree to this — they more readily start carefully reading the word of

God, listening attentively to the Church prayers and devoting themselves to works of

love. O, how blessed you are, minister of God, if you have found the key that enables you

to enter into the soul and heart of such a person and open up for him a truthful outlook on

himself. This is what the Lord brought about in the soul of Zaccheus, who himself

understood what was necessary for him to begin living in God: “Behold, the half of my

goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation,

I restore him fourfold’’ (Lk. 19:8).

It is considerably easier for a priest to overcome partial unbelief, or weak faith, on

the part of a penitent. Many people confess that they cannot convince themselves that

Holy Communion is really the Body and Blood of Christ, or of various miracles

performed by the saints, of the necessity of the fasts, of the existence of the devil, and so

on. This sort of unbelief is nearly always based on thoughtlessness and the habit of

credulously repeating things that are constantly to be heard in the worldly conversations

of stupid people. The priest should ask the doubtful person what he does believe in

particularly strongly: in the Gospel? In the words of Christ? — Yes! — and all these

questions which he finds doubtful have been clearly and definitely answered by the

Saviour Himself, in words which he has either forgotten, or to which he has never paid

attention. “Either deny belief in God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ and His words, or

believe as He taught us. No kind of geography or ethnography or zoology can tell you

whether the devil exists or not; lead a religious life and you will find out for yourself the

difference between temptations from the devil and those from your own evil will, and

until you believe your Saviour, do not believe those deceivers and idiots either, who

assert that those possessed by demons were just epileptics: did the Lord drive epilepsy

into a herd of pigs? Did He not distinguish demonic temptations from those temptations

due to faint-heartedness and passions, as in the parable of the sower?”

About the fasts, are not these His words?: “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint

thine bead, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father

which is in secret: and thy Father Which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Mt.

6:17-18); “They will fast when the bridegroom is taken away from them”; “This kind are

not expelled except by prayer and fasting.” Besides this, without fail direct the doubting

person’s attention to the words spoken by Christ in His parting talk with His disciples

after the Mystic Supper: “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do he shall do also;

and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto My Father” (In. 14:12). If you

believe in Christ’s miracles, and do not consider Him a dishonorable fraud, then you must

also believe these words of His, which He confirmed before His Ascension: “These signs

shall follow them that believe . . .” (Mk. 16:17), and so on. The irrational Protestants

believe in the miracles performed by the Apostles which are reported in the hook of Acts,

hut they do not believe in those which are set forth in their “Lives.” Why? Was one of

Christ’s promises not to be fulfilled? “If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt

them” (Mk. 16:18). You see, there is no information about any such miracle in Holy

Scripture, but there is in the life of the Apostle John (the Theologian). A vain attempt was

made to put him to death by poisoning, but the poison did not harm the Apostle in the

least. To those in doubt about the reality of Communion, repeat not only Christ’s words

at the Mystic Supper, but also His words about the bread which comes down from

Heaven (Jn. 6), which they probably do not know. Besides this, obtain and give to people

to read the short but very convincing pamphlet by St. Dimitry of Rostov, “To Those in

Doubt about the Reality of the Transformation of Bread and Wine into the Body and

Blood of Christ.” Here the usual doubts about the Holy Mysteries are dispersed

remarkably simply and clearly.