The Grand Inquisitor: A response

The Grand Inquisitor: A response
Fyodor Dostoevsky had a way of delving into the most despicable, rotten places in all of humanity, taking seriously the ideas held therein, and emerging on the other side seemingly unscathed. He was an Orthodox Christian, and yet he felt no qualms about voicing the most alarming and persuasive arguments against God ever articulated. Dostoevsky wrote Rebellion and The Grand inquisitor.
 These two chapters within the pages of his famous book, “The Brothers Karamazov”, have been published separately, effectively ripped from their context, because of how poignant the arguments are. These two chapters are essentially expressions of the atheism of Ivan Karamazov, the Brother of Alyosha Karamazov. Additionally, it is interesting to note that Dostoevsky in no way agreed with these chapters, and gives solutions to the problems raised therein. This ripping from the context of the story in which they were written does not do Dostoevsky’s work justice. It does not give him any chance to respond.
The Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor are tactfully and flawlessly woven together. One chapter would not make sense without the other, and vice-versa. Rebellion exists if and only if The Grand Inquisitor exists. Where these two chapters connect and reach their peak persuasiveness is not always readily apparent. In the next few pages, I will write a detailed summation of the two chapters, and then show in what way they are connected. Then I will present a solution Dostoevsky offers in response to these chapters later in the book.
Rebellion
Rebellion begins with Ivan making a declaration that it is impossible to love individual people. It is impossible to look at someone face to face and love them. “One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible.” (Page 220) It is easy to love humanity as a whole, but loving individuals is almost impossible. This distinction is essential to understanding Ivan’s conclusion at the end of The Grand Inquisitor. Ivan then quickly proceeds to tell a series of heart wrenching stories about the injustices committed by mankind to children; the most horrible of these being the torture and brutal murder of a young servant boy by his master.
“One day a serf-boy, a little child of eight, threw a stone in play and hurt the paw of the general's favorite hound.’Why is my favorite dog lame?' He is told that the boy threw a stone that hurt the dog's paw. 'So you did it.' The general looked the child up and down. 'Take him.' He was taken -- taken from his mother and kept shut up all night. Early that morning the general comes out on horseback… in full hunting parade. The servants are summoned for their edification, and in front of them all stands the mother of the child. The child is brought from the lock-up… The general orders the child to be undressed; the child is stripped naked. He shivers, numb with terror, not daring to cry.... 'Make him run,' commands the general. 'Run! run!' shout the dog-boys. The boy runs.... 'At him!' yells the general, and he sets the whole pack of hounds on the child. The hounds catch him, and tear him to pieces before his mother's eyes!... I believe the general was afterwards declared incapable of administering his estates. Well -- what did he deserve? To be shot? To be shot for the satisfaction of our moral feelings? Speak, Alyosha!

"To be shot," murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale, twisted smile.”
Ivan then proceeds to tell Alyosha that he understands nothing. He doesn’t want to understand anything anymore. He refuses to acknowledge, accept, or come up with a theory that would allow for this injustice against children to take place. “I must have justice, or I will destroy myself.” He wants to see those people who participated in the brutality against children brought to justice. He wants to see justice that cannot be met for the children. But then again, he does not understand, nor want to understand, why children must go through such tragedy. Even if the one who tortures the child is subject to eternal grief, it still would not change the fact that the child was tortured first.
“What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering... I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it.”
Ivan does not end this manifesto of the problem of evil with a disbelief in God, only with a rejection of God’s form of justice. Ivan does not want to forgive, and believes that forgiveness is in itself an injustice to the children. “It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket." God’s form of justice is lacking. God’s justice is void of real ethical satisfaction. How can someone forgive these despicable oppressors for the cruelty that they enacted? Alyosha is asked to imagine that he is the one who has been charged with manufacturing the destiny of all Mankind with the final intention of bringing them eternal “peace and rest”, but the happiness hinges on one condition: that one child should be tortured to death; that the little boy be ripped apart by the dogs. He asks if Alyosha could ever be the creator of such a scenario. Alyosha replies, "No, I wouldn't consent,"
Then Ivan asks if the one child is worth the price of men’s happiness, and asks if the men for whom this destiny was created should accept such a sacrifice such as the child for happiness. Alyosha replies with an indignant denial of this. At this point Alyosha brings up Christ. He says that there is one who can forgive, and has the right to forgive. Christ, who died on behalf of all, for all. The connection between the Grand inquisitor and rebellion is made clear in this: Ivan makes his treatise about the injustice of God letting bad men go unpunished. In “rejecting the Ticket” and rejecting God’s Justice/forgiveness, Ivan must also account for Christ. Christ himself and his solutions to the problem of evil are the main focus of Ivan’s, The Grand Inquisitor.
The Grand Inquisitor
Ivan chooses for the setting of his “Poem” the height of the Spanish inquisition in the 16th Century. The fires the inquisition used to burn dissenters to death are constantly lit. No one dares to challenge the power of the inquisition in Spain. The people live in constant fear and near complete submission to their overlords. And out from among the people comes a ragged figure dressed as a beggar. The man is Christ, and for some reason, everyone recognizes him as such. He performs a few overt miracles and works other less noticeable miracles in the hearts of those he comes into contact with. At the steps of a Cathedral there lay a body of a young girl in her open casket. Surrounded by a great crowd awestruck and amazed, he raises the girl from the dead. Yet at that very moment, a hush falls over the crowd. Suddenly an opening forms straight through the crowd, and emerging from the midst of the people is the Grand Inquisitor. The Inquisitor orders Christ to be arrested, and thrown into the prison of the inquisition.
The grand inquisitor comes into the cell that Christ is in and begins to talk at him, over the next few hours he proceeds to tell him that the church no longer needs him. He says he will burn Christ at the stake in the morning. The monologue that ensues (Christ does not say a word the whole time) details an argument against Christ that can essentially be split into 3 different parts: those parts are the three temptations Christ overcame when fasting for 40 days in the desert. Those temptations are A) To turn Rocks into Bread, B) To perform an objective miracle, and C) To have power over all the nations. The Inquisitor insists that Christ was wrong on all three counts, and that the devil was actually Correct. His arguments are As Follows:
The first Temptation
“… but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alone- the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.”
The first temptation the devil subjected Christ to was a suggestion for Christ turn rocks into bread, thereby satisfying his desire for food. Christ’s response to the “Dread Spirit” is that “man does not live by bread alone, but everything that proceeds from the mouth of the lord .” The Grand Inquisitor extrapolates the meaning of the passage beyond Christ’s personal needs to the needs of all people collectively. He states that Christ’s object in refusing to turn rocks into bread was also a declaration of Christ’s will to preserve all people’s freedom of choice. Christ wanted to preserve humanity’s freedom to choose him willingly. The Inquisitor states that it would have been better for humanity if Christ were to have turned rocks into bread. Then the choice would have been made for him. The one who controls the bread controls the hearts and minds of the people. Christ could have made the hungry dependent on him by controlling their food. The bread of heaven is too hard to attain. It requires work, and that is something the “weak” are not willing to work for. The Grand Inquisitor effectively says that humanity will hand over their freedom for the sake of earthly bread, for comfort, and shelter. “Choosing "bread," Thou wouldst have satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanity- to find someone to worship.”He goes on to say that as long as man is free, his greatest desire, and most ardent pursuit is to find someone to worship. . “But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it.” He says that the striving for one object of worship for all people, a universal community, is what man truly wants. Give men bread and they will fall at your feet.
By not turning rocks into bread, Christ kept Man’s freedom to choose to believe or not. He gave them freedom of Conscience. If only Christ would have denied men this freedom, he would have been worshipped by all. But that worship would not be one that gives life to the soul, only satisfaction to the appetite.
What the Grand inquisitor offers instead is this very bread that Christ denied. In doing so, the Inquisitor takes their freedom away, thereby satisfying their needs. The man will return every time to the one that feeds him, as long as the one holds the man’s conscience in his hands.
The Second Temptation
“Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be recorded in books, would be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and Thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a miracle. But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous… Thou wouldst not enslave man by a miracle, and dist crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. Thou didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before the might that has overawed him forever.”
The second temptation the “Dread Spirit” tempted Christ with was to jump off the top of the temple over the rocks below, and call upon God for a miracle to save him. To this, Christ replied, “'You shall not put the lord your God to the test.'” Again the Inquisitor interprets this second temptation as Christ allowing men to come to him freely. Instead the Grand inquisitor offers a correction of Christ’s work. He says that if Christ truly loved humanity, he would have expected less of them. Free love is too difficult, and a miracle like that would have brought people to their knees. “We have corrected thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery, and authority.”The miracle is that one can live without conscience, giving the burden of their conscience to the priest. Their sin is absolved, and expiated without requiring any personal change. No love is required, and any hint of conscience is held in contempt.
The Third Temptation
“Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earth—that is, someone to worship, someone to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant-heap, for the craving of universal unity is the third and last anguish of men.” The third and final temptation of Christ was the treatise for Universal Unity. The “dread spirit” tells him that he would give to Christ all the nations of the earth, if only Christ would bow down and worship him. In response, Christ replies “Go Satan. For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” If Christ would have only said yes to the spirit, the world would have been united under one banner. He did not, but the inquisitor said yes to this. “Just eight centuries ago, we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn.” These three things account for all the inquisitor needs to secure his control over all of humanity. Someone to worship provides the Inquisitor with control over man’s freedom. A clear conscience in the midst of great personal sin provides each person a false sense of salvation. Finally, universal unity provides the final link in the chain.
“We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviours who have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully.”


Linking the two Chapters Together
The inquisitor’s assessment of the temptations leads up to the final conclusion of the two chapters, the Rebellion and the Grand inquisitor. This conclusion makes sense of the connection between the problem of evil, and the inquisitor’s solution for it. All of man’s guilt has been appeased, and their conscience is clear, all men are one in unity, and man’s hunger is satisfied. And because of all these things, the children are spared. “There will be thousands of millions of happy babes…”, and it is for the sake of these children that the Grand inquisitor rejected Christ. He rejected Christ’s answer for the sake of the children. For love of humanity, he did this. Rebellion cannot exist without the Grand Inquisitor. The argument put forth in rebellion about the injustice of a system of thought that allows for such evil to occur is really what both chapters boil down to. The babies who die no longer die in Ivan’s humanitarian utopia. People are satisfied with bread, mystery, and world peace. The great mystery is the fact that the Grand Inquisitor himself is an Atheist.
Dostoevsky’s Solutions
Articulating the solution provided by Dostoevsky is somewhat difficult, because it is not a straightforward intellectual answer, such as is provided in Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor. Instead of providing a point by point rebuttal of every issue raised by Ivan, his response is personal love: more specifically, the love of God to every individual person. Earlier in this paper, I quoted a passage from rebellion, in which Ivan says that it is impossible to love individual people face to face. "I could never understand how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors, to my mind, that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance.” Instead, Ivan opts for an impersonal form of love, in which one cares for the fate of humanity as a whole. This impersonal love can be juxtaposed with the infinitely personal love portrayed by the life of Father Zossima. One could even go so far as saying that this impersonal form of love truly is not a love at all, since it can allow for one to commit such horrible atrocities for the sake of humanity as a whole (The Spanish Inquisition). Instead of drumming up a point by point rebuttal of Ivan’s Atheist manifesto, I will attempt to re-write the important points of Father Zossima’s life, highlighting the times when this life of personal sacrificial love is made most evident. Just as Alyosha’s only answer to Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor is a Kiss, so also Dostoevsky’s answer is love. Father Zossima is an old Orthodox monk, and Alyosha’s spiritual Elder. The chapters that detail the information surrounding his life are written in the form of a story Zossima tells to his dearest friends.
An Excerpt from Life of Father Zossima
(A paraphrase)
In his early twenties, Zossima was an officer in the military. He was a cordial, yet cruel young man. He and the other officers treated the soldiers like trash, and spent their time on drunkenness and easy living. Everyone liked him because he had recently come into his inheritance, and had a small fortune to his name. He soon became fond of a woman who was betrothed, although he did not know it at the time. When he returned from duty, and found the woman married, he became enraged, and challenged her husband to a duel. After the even tempered man had been thoroughly egged on, he accepted the challenge. The duel was set for the next morning, so Zossima went home to prepare himself. “…and then something happened that in very truth was the turning point of my life.” When he got home, he brutally beat his orderly, Afanasy, in the face until the poor man was covered in blood. Then he went to sleep, and woke up a few hours later and watched the sun rise. He saw the beauty of the world around him, and asked himself, “What is the meaning of it?” And in this moment all he felt was something appalling and shameful within him. He asked himself what it was, and then he realized that it was because he had beat Afanasy the night before. Afanasy had taken the beating without raising a finger in defense. He was sick, and was disgusted at what he had become.
“It was as though a sharp dagger had pierced me right through. I stood as if I were struck dumb, while the sun was shining, the leaves were rejoicing and the birds were trilling the praise of God.... I hid my face in my hands, fell on my bed and broke into a storm of tears. And then I remembered by brother Markel and what he said on his death-bed to his servants: "My dear ones, why do you wait on me, why do you love me, am I worth your waiting on me?"
He asked himself if he was worth another human being serving him. He understood that his mastership over his servant was nothing more than a farce. He felt within him the weight of responsibility not only for his horrible deed, but also for daring to think that his life was worth more than Afanasy’s. Then, all of a sudden, everything became clear. He could not end the life of a man, and deprive “…his wife of happiness for the rest of her life.” That man was an infinitely better and more important man than himself.
Then he got up, and went to Afanasy where he was sleeping and said he was wrong. He looked Afanasy straight in the face and asked for his forgiveness. “He started as though he were frightened, and looked at me; and I saw that it was not enough, and on the spot, in my full officer's uniform, I dropped at his feet and bowed my head to the ground.”
"Forgive me," I said.” Afanasy replied, “Your honor... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it?"
Something happened in Father Zossima’s heart that day. Only after this moment did he understand what love really is. He understood his responsibility to his neighbor, and his burden for all people. This is Dostoevsky’s positive response to Ivan’s statement that it is impossible to love one’s neighbor. Only after one has been pierced through the heart, and has love for each individual person (not humanity as a whole), can one truly know that it is indeed possible to love one’s neighbor. It isn’t easy, and takes much hard work, but it is possible. And unlike the Inquisitor, who is full of hatred for individuals, and who bears the burden of his secret with much sorrow, the one who loves as God loves Rejoices.


Zossima Speaks Out
“If, after your kiss, he goes away untouched, mocking at you, do not let that be a stumbling-block to you. It shows his time has not yet come, but it will come in due course. And if it come not, no Matter; if not he, then another in his place will understand and suffer, and judge and condemn himself, and the truth will be fulfilled. Believe that, believe it without doubt; for in that lies all the hope and faith of the saints.”
Alyosha’s answer to Ivan’s atheism is a kiss. A kiss that represents a love that can only be attained when one has love for all people and each one individually. That kiss: the expression of love toward that individual person will illuminate the truth in the person’s life. And if not in that person’s life, then in the next person that one offers that love to. Love all people, not only rationally, but from the heart. One must continually love everything and everyone. Zossima goes on to speak of hell as the suffering of being unable to love. This maps perfectly with the personality of the Atheist characters portrayed in the book. Ivan portrays a great passion and love towards humanity as a whole, and yet seems to disdain every person he comes into contact with. Even the one he loves he hates. Smerdyakov, the one who murders the Father of the Karamazov Brothers is no better. Aside from declaring that “All is lawful”, he also holds all people in contempt, and ends up committing suicide in his despair. Hell really is the suffering of being unable to love, for how can one disdain his neighbor, and not be in a state of despair himself? These men that hold the “great mystery” spoken of in the Grand Inquisitor have no true love for others. It is nothing more than a façade. It seems that the more one loves humanity as a whole, the less one loves each man individually. The more one holds to universal unity without God, the less capable they are of bringing it to pass. Besides, what good is a hundred million children if none of them know love? What good is shelter and bread if they don’t know the loving embrace of their mother? What good is a world of peaceful servitude if one does not have the freedom to love all?
Conclusion

“Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child’s game, with children’s songs and innocent dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviors who have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully.”
The truth of the matter is that the Grand Inquisitor’s beliefs underlie all of society today. The humanitarian message put forth in the Grand inquisitor can tactfully be re- applied today in the form of Technology. Only a select few people are scientists, and they truly hold all the power. People are awed by their ability to turn rocks into bread (mass production), and subdue the masses (computers, video games, TV). Men are content to do just as the Grand Inquisitor says: go to work, and in our leisure hours they make our lives like a child’s Game. Personal morality is worthless when we can expiate our desires onto graphic sexual or violent video games. Today, we can have anything we want, as long as it does not directly affect anyone else ethically. The truth is that we are living in the time where every day the Grand Inquisitor’s vision of a willfully enslaved mankind increases and increases. In our world, all is lawful, the children are safe and happy, world “peace” is attained, and no-one is free. Is that the world we want for ourselves? In a world where the Grand Inquisitor's vision is more true every day, we each must ask ourselves if this is the world we want. If it is not, then we should seriously consider Dostoevsky’s solution. Is this vision of love more compelling and fulfilling?