Revisit three themes from the Apology:
1. Time
2. Death
3. Uncertainty
Day by day, Ivan Ilyich was gradually drawn toward death. In his worst moments, it seemed as if even time would not end his suffering:
"For all three days, in the course of which there was no time for him, ... [h]e struggled as one condemned to death struggles in the executioner's hands...and with every moment he felt that, despite all his efforts to struggle, he was coming closer and closer to what terrified him" (p. 90*).
Death was not only an unknown for Ivan Ilyich, it was a terrifying unknown. When doubt left him, suffering left as well:
"When the priest came and confessed him, he softened, felt a sort of relief from his doubts and consequently from his sufferings, and a moment of hope came over him..." (p. 89).
Most of these moments of hope were short lived. However, in the end, Ivan Ilyich says the following:
'"Take him away...sorry...for you, too..." He also wanted to say "Forgive," but said "Forgo," and, no longer able to correct himself, waved his hand, knowing that the one who had to would understand' (p. 90).
Tolstoy's word for "forgive" is "прости," a word which grammatically implies the pronoun me. A more accurate translation would be "Forgive me."** With forgiveness, death and pain are overcome:
"He sought his old habitual fear of death and could not find it. Where was it? What death? There was no more fear because there was no more death (p. 91)."
"Instead of death there was light...For him all this happened in an instant and the significance of that instant never changed (p. 91)."
Here is a different experience of time. Instead of moving toward death moment by moment, day by day, Ivan Ilyich overcame death and his victory over death "never changed". His illusory fears and doubts were both shattered by an enlightening revelation. Thus, his life ends in clarity, not uncertainty. In the end, death is overcome, time is overcome, and doubt is overcome.
"Death is terrible as the hardest and most painful fact of life. Passing through the experience of death appears to us like passing through the torments of hell. Hell is continual dying, the last agony which never ends" (p. 280†).
This is how death appears to some, but "the last agony" does, in reality, end. Agony is temporal, not eternal.
Berdyaev's main argument can be outlined as follows:
1. If God is loving and merciful, he will save all of us, including the wicked.
2. If God saves us, He saves us from endless suffering.
3. God is loving and merciful.
Therefore, endless suffering — i.e., hell as an "eternal doom" — does not exist.
Q.E.D.
In short, God saves, he does not punish. Berdyaev argues that the belief in endless suffering (e.g., as proposed by Dante and St. Thomas Aquinas) is nonsensical because it assumes that God is vengeful. While it is certainly the case that people are vengeful‡, this is not the case with God. People like Dante and Aquinas are projecting human desire for vengeance into their concept of hell. This is a mistake.
Q: If God is loving and merciful, why does he allow suffering at all? This is the problem of evil, a problem that is addressed in the field of theodicy.
* Unless otherwise stated, page numbers refer to: The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy (Translators: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky); Vintage; First Vintage edition (October 5, 2010).
** However, it is worth nothing that the context allows for the possibility of his forgiving his family as well, and there may be an allusion here to Forgiveness Sunday, a holy day in which people of the Orthodox Church practice the Rite of Forgiveness.
† Source: The Destiny of Man by Nikolai Berdyaev. 4th ed. Translated from the Russian by Natalie Duddington. London: G. Bles, 1954.
‡ It is worth noting that there are important exceptions such as St. Maria Goretti.