The Grand Inquisitor

About a month ago, I finished The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. This book has consumed my daily thoughts and touches on some of the biggest philosophical and existential questions of God, morality, reason, and free will. It is truly rare that I finish a book and still find myself thinking about it weeks later. Despite the entire book’s depth and wit, one chapter in particular kept me awake upon the night of reading it and was so masterfully written, I truly questioned if a man of this earth was capable of creating something so profound: The Grand Inquisitor.

In this chapter, the atheist intellectual brother Ivan delivers a poem about the flaws of Christ and religion to his religious and saintly brother, Alyosha, a boy of faith and monastic lifestyle.

In this poem, Christ is reborn onto earth in a Spanish town in the 16th century. As he walks through the streets, he performs miracles such as healing the sick and garners a massive following of onlookers and spectators. A powerful cardinal immediately orders his guards to arrest Christ. Late that night, this cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, visits Christ’s cell and explains to him his reasoning for taking him prisoner and why Christ must not continue his works. Throughout this lecture, Christ listens in attentive silence.

The Grand Inquisitor explains to Christ why he cannot allow him to do his work on earth because it is at odds with the work of the church. According to the bible, Christ was presented with three temptations by the devil and by rejecting these temptations, he guaranteed that humans would have free will. However, according to the Grand Inquisitor, free will is too much of a burden for humans given that Christ gave them the choice of whether to follow him, but that humans lack the strength to be faithful. Instead, Christ should have given people no choice and instead taken the power and given people security instead of freedom.

The first temptation that Christ rejected was bread. After his forty days of fasting, Christ was confronted by Satan in the desert who told him that if he were really the son of god, he would turn some stone into bread. Christ refused stating that man should not live by bread, but instead by the word of God. The Grand Inquisitor remarks that most are too weak to live by the word of God when hungry and Christ should have offered the people freedom from hunger instead of freedom of choice; first give the people bread and then they can speak of virtue, but if they go without bread, they will pillage one another and turn into savages and beasts.

“In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, make us your slaves, but feed us.”

The second temptation was to perform a miracle. Satan placed Christ upon a pinnacle in Jerusalem and told him to prove he was the Messiah by throwing himself off it. If he were truly the son of god, the angels would bear him up and not allow his death. Christ also refused. The Grand Inquisitor said this was another flaw on Christ’s part because most people need to see the miraculous in order to be content in their religious faith. Man needs a supernatural being to worship and Christ refused to appear as one.

The third and final temptation was power. Satan showed Christ all the kingdoms across the world and offered him control over them. Christ of course refused. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that because he did not accept, the church now must take it in his name in order to convince men to give up their free will in favor of their security.

Ultimately, the Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that it was Satan, and not Christ, who was in the right during this exchange. He states that ever since the Church took over the Roman Empire, it has secretly been performing the work of Satan, not because its evil, but because it seeks the best and most secure order for mankind. Therefore, the church has been taking away man’s freedom and replacing it with security to correct Christ’s mistake.

“In place of the clear and rigid ancient law, You [oh Lord] made man decide about good and evil for himself, with no other guidance than Your example. But did it never occur to You that man would disregard Your example, even question it, as well as Your truth, when he was subjected to so fearful a burden as freedom of choice?”

As the Grand Inquisitor concludes his indictment of Christ, Christ walks up to the old cardinal and gently kisses him on the lips proving that love prevails over all that intellectual and moral justification.

Reflection

Ivan is truly at conflict within himself about meaning, purpose, morality, and religion and The Grand Inquisitor poem is such a powerful reflection of this inner conflict.

At the heart of the Inquisitor’s argument, the story of Christ rejecting Satan’s 3 temptations is meant to be a symbolic representation for how the rest of mankind should act and behave. According to the Inquisitor, mankind should reject certain comforts such as bread, power, superstition, and safety, but ultimately believes that Christ’s example is an impossible burden for mankind due to its weakness and inability to attain salvation and enlightenment.

Upon, first reading this chapter, I was initially taken back and nearly succumbed to Ivan’s story and arguments. But on further analysis and reflection, you truly begin to see the sadness and misguidance that haunts Ivan’s perception of the world. To Ivan, the Grand Inquisitor, as an ally of Satan, is still an honorable man because he acts in the best interest of mankind. To him, God does not act in man’s best interest. Ivan’s skepticism makes it impossible for him to see anything but the bad side of human nature. Throughout his childhood, he was surrounded by terrible role models and his upbringing is far from stable, so his proposed solution of succumbing to the powers of Satan is truly a dramatic response to the question of free will, but only natural for someone such as himself with such a tumultuous and bleak upbringing. Despite his severe and inherent pessimism, his intellectual nature makes for a compelling argument for both the reader and Alyosha alike.

In the end, Alyosha is unable to combat his brother’s story of The Grand Inquisitor, and like Christ, proceeds to give his brother a gentle kiss on the lips. This is a true representation and manifestation of love, kindness, and good faith over rational skepticism and can only be expressed wordlessly through actions.

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”