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Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

#94: Mar. - May 2011 (Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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The Grand Inquisitor is a 40 page prose poem in the middle of The Brothers Karamazov, and the most famous passage in the book for the pitch it presents on the conflict between religion and atheism. Ivan Karamazov, the rational atheist, tells the story to his brother Alyosha, the Christian monk.

The story is that Christ returns to earth during the Spanish Inquisition and performs miracles. The Grand Inquisitor locks Christ in a dungeon, and condemns him to burn at the stake. The Inquisitor then visits Jesus to explain why the church rejected Christ in favor of Satan. The Inquisitor does all the talking. He explains that when Jesus met the devil in the wilderness, He had three chances to save the world but failed on all three. The first was the failure to miraculously turn stones to bread, the second was the refusal to tempt God by jumping off the mountain, and the third was the refusal to take worldly power in alliance with Satan. The emphasis of worldly religion is miracle, mystery and authority, but Christ has subverted all these by his rash and naïve attitudes towards Satan.

The Inquisitor says that Christ’s basic mistake was a too high estimation of humanity. Jesus offered freedom, when people need servitude. His refusal to perform miracles when requested to do so by the devil was a failure of his responsibility to confuse people through mystery. The Church understood the need for stability, so instead of the Christian message of freedom and dignity it preached obedience to authority as the path to happiness for the stupid masses. The most important Satanic command was to take temporal power, which the church had done in Christendom. In taking this step, the church demonstrated its secret atheism. Its contempt for human capacity stood in contrast to Christ’s sense of pride in freedom, so the church had suppressed the message of the gospels.

This is a deeply ironic and jarring story. Told by an atheist, it invites sympathy for Christ against the church. Dostoyevsky is saying that truth was the saving message of Christ, but truth has been banished from the world by the church who instead give priority to their social position. The sacrificial willingness of Jesus to lose his life for the sake of all has to be controlled by the church as a dangerous sedition. People who take that attitude will never get anywhere. The secret atheism of the church consists in its focus on its material interests and its hypocrisy about the eternal message of Christ. All its claims about belief are just pretence, a cover for a purely political agenda.

Dostoyevsky puts a different spin on atheism here. He suggests that calculated deceit by religious charlatans is a form of atheism, a cynical emptiness masquerading as faith. He sees the church as faithless, and implies that the true faith of Christ does not involve any miracles or mystery, which are primarily Satanic devices of church power.

Full Text of Brothers Karamazov
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Re: Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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I just finished reading The Grand Inquisitor. This conversation, mostly a one sided explanation of things, reminded me of the book The Dialogue in Hell. It's an attempt to show gradual and therefore nearly imperceptible changes that are occurring counter to a desired goal. Once these changes begin they are usually not made clear to the layman until it's far too late. It also sheds light on the true nature of people: how there are those who seek power, those who find a place within that hierarchy and protect/perpetuate it, and those who seek to be under that protective shield of power by trading in their very freedom. It shows how evil is present in everyone and needs very little to grow while virtuous behavior must be taught and sacrificed for.

The talk about freedom was what I call evil. Leading is not evil if it's by example and still allows people to make a choice without coercion.

This whole one sided dialogue was meant to demonstrate how greedy and power hungry the Church is - with special emphasis on Roman Catholicism. This isn't something groundbreaking... it's just one of those things that everyone knows but the masses refuse to believe and become indignant about enough to put an end to it.

Christ walks out free at the end, though. He didn't die a second time? He abandons the flock? Kisses the man, forgives him, and leaves?
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Re: Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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For those who attend church, today's common lectionary reading for the first Sunday in Lent is the temptation of Christ by Satan - Matthew 4:1-11.

The Grand Inquisitor is an extended commentary on this passage. Dostoyevsky presents the church as arguing that Satan was correct and Christ was wrong. Jesus is saying freedom is the basis of salvation, miracles are crap, and the church should not take temporal power. Satan regards these ideas of Christ as quite absurd.
Matthew 4 (KJV)
1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
“You wrote a poem?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t write it,” laughed Ivan, “and I’ve never written two lines of poetry in my life. But I made up this poem in prose and I remembered it. I was carried away when I made it up. You will be my first reader—that is listener. Why should an author forego even one listener?” smiled Ivan. “Shall I tell it to you?”

“I am all attention,” said Alyosha.

“My poem is called ‘The Grand Inquisitor’; it’s a ridiculous thing, but I want to tell it to you.”

Chapter V. The Grand Inquisitor
(highlights)

it was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. Not to speak of Dante, in France, clerks, as well as the monks in the monasteries, used to give regular performances in which the Madonna, the saints, the angels, Christ, and God himself were brought on the stage.

There is, for instance, one such poem (of course, from the Greek), _The Wanderings of Our Lady through Hell_, with descriptions as bold as Dante’s. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel Michael leads her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their punishment. There she sees among others one noteworthy set of sinners in a burning lake; some of them sink to the bottom of the lake so that they can’t swim out, and ‘these God forgets’—an expression of extraordinary depth and force.

(Ivan, laughing, “if you are so corrupted by modern realism and can’t stand anything fantastic. If you like it to be a case of mistaken identity, let it be so.)

“He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, every one recognized Him.

the cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light.

the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead Him away.

In the pitch darkness the iron door of the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face. At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks.

I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics.

now, to-day, people are more persuaded than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing.

He claims it as a merit for himself and his Church that at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy.

how can rebels be happy?

“ ‘The wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-existence,’ the old man goes on, ‘the great spirit talked with Thee in the wilderness, and we are told in the books that he “tempted” Thee. Is that so? And could anything truer be said than what he revealed to Thee in three questions and what Thou didst reject,

dost Thou believe that all the wisdom of the earth united could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three questions which were actually put to Thee then by the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness? From those questions alone, from the miracle of their statement, we can see that we have here to do not with the fleeting human intelligence, but with the absolute and eternal. For in those three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it were, brought together into one whole, and foretold, and in them are united all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature.

Thou didst reply that man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, “Who can compare with this beast?

“Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!” that’s what they’ll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple.

No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together

There are three powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happiness—those forces are miracle, mystery and authority. Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing so.

When the wise and dread spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple

Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak, unruly race of men, are they gods?

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 agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart?

when man rejects miracle he rejects God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself

man is weaker and baser by nature than Thou hast believed him!

We have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon _miracle_, _mystery_ and _authority_. And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift that had brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts.

we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Cæsar, and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth, though hitherto we have not been able to complete our work. But whose fault is that? Oh, the work is only beginning, but it has begun. It has long to await completion and the earth has yet much to suffer, but we shall triumph and shall be Cæsars, and then we shall plan the universal happiness of man. But Thou mightest have taken even then the sword of Cæsar. Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Hadst Thou accepted that last counsel of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earth—that is, some one to worship, some one to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant-heap, for the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universal state. There have been many great nations with great histories, but the more highly they were developed the more unhappy they were, for they felt more acutely than other people the craving for world-wide union.

we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written, “Mystery.” But then, and only then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men.

they will remember the horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them. Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits

They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever, that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions.

they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves.

(Alyosha had listened in silence; towards the end he was greatly moved and seemed several times on the point of interrupting, but restrained himself. Now his words came with a rush. “But ... that’s absurd!” he cried, flushing. “Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him—as you meant it to be. And who will believe you about freedom? Is that the way to understand it? That’s not the idea of it in the Orthodox Church.... That’s Rome, and not even the whole of Rome, it’s false—those are the worst of the Catholics, the Inquisitors, the Jesuits!... what clever people?” cried Alyosha, completely carried away. “They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries and secrets.... Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that’s all their secret. Your Inquisitor does not believe in God, that’s his secret!”

“What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It’s perfectly true, it’s true that that’s the whole secret)

(the Inquisitor continues) he must follow the counsel of the wise spirit, the dread spirit of death and destruction, and therefore accept lying and deception, and lead men consciously to death and destruction, and yet deceive them all the way so that they may not notice where they are being led, that the poor blind creatures may at least on the way think themselves happy. And note, the deception is in the name of Him in Whose ideal the old man had so fervently believed all his life long. Is not that tragic?

When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all His answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him: ‘Go, and come no more ... come not at all, never, never!’ And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away.”

“There is a strength to endure everything,” Ivan said with a cold smile.
“What strength?”
“The strength of the Karamazovs—the strength of the Karamazov baseness.”
“To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes?”
“Possibly even that ... only perhaps till I am thirty I shall escape it, and then—”
“How will you escape it? By what will you escape it? That’s impossible with your ideas.”
“In the Karamazov way, again.”
“ ‘Everything is lawful,’ you mean? Everything is lawful, is that it?”
Ivan scowled, and all at once turned strangely pale.
Alyosha looked at him in silence.
“I thought that going away from here I have you at least,” Ivan said suddenly, with unexpected feeling; “but now I see that there is no place for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula, ‘all is lawful,’ I won’t renounce—will you renounce me for that, yes?”
Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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Robert Tulip wrote: Dostoyevsky puts a different spin on atheism here. He suggests that calculated deceit by religious charlatans is a form of atheism, a cynical emptiness masquerading as faith. He sees the church as faithless, and implies that the true faith of Christ does not involve any miracles or mystery, which are primarily Satanic devices of church power.

Full Text of Brothers Karamazov
Dostoyevsky is an unabashed Christian apologist in asserting that evil that is committed in the name of God, it's actually done by atheists to gain wealth and/or power. This may be true to some extent, but why discount those religious leaders that genuinely believe their own lies ? As my favorite quote by Robert Hanlon goes: " Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity" And Bible including New Testament it's such an amorphous collection that it's perfectly compatible with oppressing masses in the name of the God.
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Re: Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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Hello Mammal, thank you for commenting on Dostoyevsky. Our discussion has been rather quiet, perhaps because D is a bit serious.

I find your phrase "unabashed Christian apologist" rather surprising, when D is castigating the church for its concealed atheism. I don't agree that the Bible is "perfectly compatible with oppressing masses". Oppression requires hypocrisy, claiming to read the Bible while actually ignoring it.
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Re: Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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Robert Tulip wrote: I find your phrase "unabashed Christian apologist" rather surprising, when D is castigating the church for its concealed atheism. I don't agree that the Bible is "perfectly compatible with oppressing masses". Oppression requires hypocrisy, claiming to read the Bible while actually ignoring it.
Well D is not a Church apologist, but that of the Christian religion/faith

Hypocrisy requires clarity, Bible is anything but clear. So how can you ignore an extremely ambigious and/or paradoxal text ?
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Re: Brothers Karamazov - The Grand Inquisitor

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Good one,
Its a long book, but it is so worth it in the end .It is one of the greatest books in all literature and one of my favorites. I first read it in High School and found it a hard and somewhat boring read, although there were some great scenes. i have completed a essays on ivan karamazov. I re-read it in my 30's and absolutely loved it, realizing how much I missed the first time. It is one of those books that require some life experience to truly appreciate. Each brother represents a different way of experiencing and living life: Dmitri (sensual, feeling,passionate), Ivan (intellectual, dispassionate,reasoning) and Alyosha (spiritual, connected and empathetic). It is a book about character and psychological insight more than a "good plot". Give it a try...if it doesn't intrigue you within the first 100 pages...set it aside and try it later.
Have a good day :)
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