Phil 101
Philosophy 101
Ivan Karamazov and “The Grand Inquisitor”
Introduction
In understanding “The Grand Inquisitor” and chapters taken from The Brothers Karamazov, the heart of Ivan’s search is a philosophical question: if God is almighty, why would God allow people to suffer? While this line of questioning can be seen as attacking faith by asking why God punishes people, it opens the door to understanding that faith requires willingness. Ivan Karamazov’s rejection of secular and Westernized faith can also be seen as the failed struggle of trying to find a God he can believe in. Ivan says he wants to get to know his estranged brother Alyosha (Dostoevsky, 1993, p. 1), but Ivan is lost and faithless, primarily because Ivan is unwilling to believe in God when he sees so much suffering in the world. Aloysha cuts to the heart of the estrangement between the two of them when he asks Ivan how he can love without having God in his heart (Dostoevsky, 1993, pp. 36-37). This sense of Ivan’s lack of faith, therefore, explains the balance between the Roman Catholic sense of happiness and well-being and the Protestant sense of individual freedom and dignity: Ivan is trying to find a truth that he is willing to accept. He is trying to come to believe and his struggle is between faith and doubt. The clearest way to understand Ivan’s doubt is to see that he is using logic to examine the evidence of God, but he is doing it in a despairing and skeptical fashion that rejects God because it rejects crimes that are perpetrated by humans. Dostoevsky, clearly, is using Ivan to represent the dismissal of religion and God, especially in terms of how Ivan does not believe that faith can be reasonable or logical. In many ways Ivan’s story feels like it is preaching or a type of parable. Ivan is putting forth his own principles and beliefs and the only reason that it is not a one-sided argument is because Alyosha is present for the conversation and occasionally interjects. What Ivan presents
Ivan Karamazov and “The Grand Inquisitor”
Introduction
In understanding “The Grand Inquisitor” and chapters taken from The Brothers Karamazov, the heart of Ivan’s search is a philosophical question: if God is almighty, why would God allow people to suffer? While this line of questioning can be seen as attacking faith by asking why God punishes people, it opens the door to understanding that faith requires willingness. Ivan Karamazov’s rejection of secular and Westernized faith can also be seen as the failed struggle of trying to find a God he can believe in. Ivan says he wants to get to know his estranged brother Alyosha (Dostoevsky, 1993, p. 1), but Ivan is lost and faithless, primarily because Ivan is unwilling to believe in God when he sees so much suffering in the world. Aloysha cuts to the heart of the estrangement between the two of them when he asks Ivan how he can love without having God in his heart (Dostoevsky, 1993, pp. 36-37). This sense of Ivan’s lack of faith, therefore, explains the balance between the Roman Catholic sense of happiness and well-being and the Protestant sense of individual freedom and dignity: Ivan is trying to find a truth that he is willing to accept. He is trying to come to believe and his struggle is between faith and doubt. The clearest way to understand Ivan’s doubt is to see that he is using logic to examine the evidence of God, but he is doing it in a despairing and skeptical fashion that rejects God because it rejects crimes that are perpetrated by humans. Dostoevsky, clearly, is using Ivan to represent the dismissal of religion and God, especially in terms of how Ivan does not believe that faith can be reasonable or logical. In many ways Ivan’s story feels like it is preaching or a type of parable. Ivan is putting forth his own principles and beliefs and the only reason that it is not a one-sided argument is because Alyosha is present for the conversation and occasionally interjects. What Ivan presents