Exploring Evil in Two Fields of Orthodox Theology and the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The problem of evil is one of the confusing issues of man that shakes his relationship with Almighty God, the All-Knowing and the Pure Benevolent, in practice and directly or indirectly overshadows the relationship of human beings with each other. The purpose of selecting the novel as part of theological research was to adopt an exclusive interdisciplinary method so that with the literary approach, dimensions of meaning can be seen at different levels. In this article, the nature, instance, and function of evil, the relation of man with evil, the relation between evil and original sin, and the church's confrontation with evil, based on the views of old and new orthodox theologians have been investigated as well as the theological concepts of the novel, the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Contrary to the views of Catholic and Protestant theology, original sin has little to do with orthodox theology. Dostoevsky's belief in the purity of children from original sin is also in line with the Orthodox tradition, but in spite of the different orthodox positions, the author seeks the forgiveness of all sinners in the mentioned novel. Furthermore, in orthodox theology, one of the functions of evil is the knowledge of good and bad, but in the novel, such knowledge is not valuable. The influence of orthodox theology on Dostoevsky's novel, the Karamazov Brothers, and on the other hand the intermingling, dependence, and complementarity of good and evil are among the results of this study.