# XVI explained — A Confession

> Chapter companion for A Confession by Leo Tolstoy.

## What happens

The narrator resolves to investigate the religious teachings and scriptures, acknowledging both truth and falsehood within them, and commits to disentangling the two through careful study.

## Themes in this chapter

### Faith and Doubt

The narrator moves from doubt to a conviction that truth exists in religion, yet acknowledges falsehood, prompting a critical examination.

### Reason vs. Faith

The narrator seeks to understand religious knowledge within the limits of reason, not demanding full explanation but recognizing the inexplicable.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

Resolves to study theology and scriptures to separate truth from falsehood in religious doctrine.

## Key lines

> I ceased to doubt, and became fully convinced that not all was true in the religion I had joined.

I stopped doubting and realized that the religion I had adopted contained both truth and falsehood.

_The narrator acknowledges the mixed nature of religious belief._

> I wish to understand in such a way that everything that is inexplicable shall present itself to me as being necessarily inexplicable, and not as being something I am under an arbitrary obligation to believe.

I want to accept the inexplicable as inherently beyond explanation, not as something I must blindly accept.

_The narrator seeks a rational approach to faith, respecting the limits of reason._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_confession_se/chapters/xvi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_confession_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_confession_se/chapters