Contrary to the gods presented in Things Fall Apart, God was presented in Dostoevsky’s novel as the all powerful and omnipresent God of love and forgiveness, much like God’s image that Christians know of. He sacrificed his only son, Jesus, who had died at the cross for humanity’s salvation. He is regarded as the absolute truth and whoever accepts Him will join Him in His kingdom where there is no more suffering and only joy. Father Zossima once spoke about the infinite love that God has while healing and blessing the peasants. He said that God’s love is too great for a human mind to comprehend. He talked about how there is no sin greater than God’s love and that He should not be feared for as long as they repent their sins, they will be forgiven:
“…If only your penitence fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God? Think only of repentance, continual repentance, but dismiss fear altogether. Believe that God loves you as you cannot conceive; that He loves you with your sin, in your sin. It has been said of old that over one
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Ivan raises the point if there is no God, then people would have invented Him anyway. He also raises the question on whether God created man or man created God as “the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man.” This relates to the idea of a higher power that would rule over them and carry the burden of their freedom as stated in the parable of the Grand Inquisitor. Even Kolya agreed, “ God is only a hypothesis, but... I admit that He is needed... for the order of the universe and all that... and that if there were no God He would have to be invented.” (Dostoevsky