In Dostoevsky's literary oeuvre, no theological argumentation or theoretical opinions on Christianity can be found. Dostoevsky is no preacher or teacher of Christian values. He is creator and commentator of his own religious universe, and it is in this artistic universe that Christianity plays a formative role. Christianity appears not in an abstract form but as faith expressed in life, in the life of fictional people. The realism of the portrayed faith lies in the reader's recognition and in the feeling of being challenged to form an opinion of one's own, to take position in the religious conflicts described. The reader becomes a conversation partner of the author and his heroes. Here the dialogical nature of the Dostoevskian novel becomes manifest.

This faith is realistic because it is mixed with doubt, something every critical believer has. Its context is also realistic: it is faith that clashes with its surroundings, in which evil, suffering or crime rules. It is no religious schöngeisterei or ritually aestheticized belief.

It is also realistic because faith is continually allied to its ethical consequences, or ‘the active love’ (Zosima) that forms the practical side of Christian faith. Finally, it is realistic in the sense in which Dostoevsky uses the word ‘realism’ as opposed to mysticism, for Alyosha. It is not faith connected with miracles or feats of saints, but with deeds of lay people (Sonya, Myshkin, Makar, Sofya, Markel) and unconventional monks.