The Grand Inquisitor

          In The Brothers Karamazov, the poem of “The Grand Inquisitor” helps illustrate both Ivan’s philosophy in the first half of the novel, and also one of Dostoevsky’s greatest fears about the direction of the Russian people and mankind as a whole. For most of the novel, Ivan promotes a philosophy in which he believes in God’s existence, but rejects his creation: the earth and mankind. His main reason for this is the suffering of innocent children, which he feels no just God would allow to exist. “The Grand Inquisitor” also demonstrates Ivan’s views on the nature of freedom. He claims that Christ betrayed mankind by resisting Satan’s three temptations. These temptations, Ivan says, would have provided man with food and security, but instead Christ resisted, giving man freedom, which he does not desire as much as comfort and security. Indeed, Dmitri echoes these words, saying, “man is broad, even too broad, I would narrow him down” (108).
           Instead of freedom, Ivan and the Grand Inquisitor wish to rid the idea of God from mankind, in order that Ivan’s conception of the man-god may arise. During the devil’s meeting with the delirious Ivan, he voices Ivan’s former thoughts: “Once mankind has renounced God, one and all… Man will be exalted with the spirit of divine, titanic pride, and the man-god will appear” (648-9). This view is in complete opposition of Dostoevsky’s own vision of man and his future, but he proposes it through Ivan in order to strengthen his own beliefs by revealing the catastrophic consequences of such a worldview. Dostoevsky saw the idea of a man-god as a result of socialism and atheism, which to him went hand in hand. To him, socialism was a rejection of immortality, and an attempt to create Heaven on earth. Dostoevsky saw all of these ideas coming out of the west, whose science he thought had attempted to rationally analyze everything heavenly and reduce it to its material (earthly) components.
           Dostoevsky’s response to Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor is the life of Father Zosima, which is told in the book directly after Ivan’s conversation with Alyosha. Dostoevsky offers no direct refutation of Ivan’s claims, but refutes it in an indirect, but equally convincing, way through his presentation of the life of the elder monk. A characteristic of the Russian faith is the belief that somewhere in the world a completely good and holy man exists. Even Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov recognizes this, as he exclaims, “So you still suppose that those two, the kind that can move mountains [with their faith], really exist? Ivan, cut a notch, write it down: here you have the whole Russian man!” (130-1). Father Zosima serves as Dostoevsky’s proof that a truly holy man can exist on earth. Father Zosima spreads messages of the value and power of human love to do good in this life. Although Zosima certainly believed in the afterlife, he often spoke of the effects of Christ-like love for mankind here on earth, as when he states, “Fathers and teachers, I ask myself: ‘what is hell?’ And I answer thus: ‘The suffering of being no longer able to love’” (322). Zosima describes hell as existing here on earth among unfortunate souls who are unable to love.
           Though here in the west, surrounded by science and technology, Ivan’s worldview may be an attractive one, Dostoevsky’s novel ultimately rejects it. Ivan’s teaching of the principle that ‘everything is lawful’ to Smerdyakov leads him to commit murder. When Ivan realizes that it was his philosophy that resulted in this death, he feels as guilty as though the blood were on his hands. His moral pangs cause him to save a freezing peasant that he had pushed down into the snow, confess in court to the guilt he feels, and eventually drive him to brain fever. Although he is unconscious at the novel’s close, one gets the feeling that in Dostoevsky’s next volume, Ivan would be unable to see the world like the Grand Inquisitor did.