The God of Alexander Zinoviev

Abstract

The novel “Go to Golgotha” by A.A. Zinoviev occupies a special place in the literary heritage of the thinker. It is not just a “sociological” novel written in the genre invented by the author himself, but also a novel in the traditional – psychological genre. For a philosopher and logician, an extremely rational and fundamentally atheistic person to create such a novel about the spiritual world of a man is an extraordinary choice. And a novel where the theme of God is touched upon may be viewed as exceptional. Even though Zinoviev called himself a “believing atheist”. Nevertheless, this paradoxical novel fully complies with the general context of Zinoviev’s thought that allowed the existence of mutually exclusive assertions. For example, such as: “God exists” and “God does not exist”. The paradox consists in the fact that logic can penetrate into the most irrational states of human soul, – if only it’s real logic. And “Go to Golgotha” novel serves as brilliant proof to this theory.