The Background:
- “The Grand Inquisitor” chapter is the most famous from The Brothers Karamazov because of its intriguing story. Ivan (the intellectual atheist) tells this story to Alyosha (the kindhearted theist) at a restaurant during the middle of the novel.
The Story:
- Christ has returned as He once promised and walks the streets of the common people in silence and elegance while the whole town square population cheers until the Grand Inquisitor notices the commotion and commands his guards to cease Christ and take him to jail.
- Later that night, the Grand Inquisitor enters Christ’s cell and berates him for returning, for He must be trying to get in their way. The Grand Inquisitor claims the credit of religious “freedom” to himself and the Church as opposed to Christ’s teachings giving it to people. The church has given people happiness because they have made them believe that they are “free.”
- The Grand Inquisitor then remarks that Christ had not managed to see the real miracle of His time, the miracle of Satan presenting Him the three temptations in the desert. For those questions hold the greatest significance toward humankind: freedom of choice.
- If Christ had only turned the stones into bread, humankind would have run toward His teachings in awe, but Christ does not want people to love him because of His miracles, but out of true love that one has the freedom to choose. The Grand Inquisitor believes that the common people cannot handle their freedom and need to follow strict obedience, which the church provides. For if the people had freedom, they would not know what to do with it, they must have someone who can “feed them bread.” Humans will kill, betray, steal, and deprive one another unless some order is in place (some morality or pressure for morality). The Grand Inquisitor thinks that Christ was wrong to preach for freedom and should have taken power in order to keep the people in line as without a meaning to follow, the people will turn to debauchery.
- “We shall tell them that every sin can be redeemed as long as it is committed with our leave; we are allowing them to sin because we love them, and as for the punishment for those sins, very well, we shall take it upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves; and they will worship us as benefactors who have assumed responsibility for their sins before God” says the Grand Inquisitor (Dostoevsky, 298).
- “I do not want your love, because I myself do not love you… we are not with you, but with [Satan], there is our secret!” says the Grand Inquisitor triumphantly (Dostoevsky, 295). So it is the Church who gave into Satan’s temptations. The Church gave in and took his offer to gain the kingdoms of the world so that they could rule over the people with the guise of pure and loving religious teachings. The Grand Inquisitor believes that Christ could have easily made a united kingdom, but his rejection of “miracle, mystery, and authority” made room for the Church to step in and take over everyone’s freedoms instead.
“The Grand Inquisitor” Argument:
P1: Jesus Christ resisted three temptations that Satan offered Him in the desert:
a. To turn stones into loaves of bread in order to satisfy His hunger after fasting for many days.
b. To jump from a high tower in order to prove that God would send angels to save Him from certain death.
c. To bow down to Satan in order to claim control and authority over the kingdoms of the world.
P2: The Church uses miracles to gain the favor of religious followers by exciting them with implausible possibility and closeness to God.
P3: The Church uses mystery to gain excitement and zealously of religious followers over a common belief.
P4: The Church uses authority to form political and societal ambition which controls religious followers with a sense of security and order, giving the people an escape from the responsibilities of their actions.
P5: Christ rejects the use of miracles by not turning the stones into bread for His own self-interest because it would not serve God’s will and plan for salvation.
P6: Christ rejects the use of mystery by not jumping off the building, which would leave bystanders in awe and wonder, but would not prove a meaningful love and devotion to God.
P7: Christ rejects the use of authority by denying Satan’s offer to bow down to him in order to rule the kingdoms of the world. Accepting would have prevented Christ’s future suffering and death, but He would then rule the people in sin rather than with love.
P8: The Church uses miracles, mystery, and authority to rule over their religious followers.
C: The Church has accepted the three temptations of Satan for their own lust for power and ambitious desire for restricting free will, meaning they are valuing the complete opposite of what Christ represents and follow Satan instead.
So now we see the conflict. Christ wants everyone to have their own free will, but also hopes that they follow His example of a virtuous and morally-sound life. We have learned, however, that for a religion to be effective (and not just be a spiritual belief) there must be some community or group organization. With this organization comes an eventual hierarchy with leaders and followers. Is it not then the job of the leaders of the community to use their power and authority to help ensure the rules are being followed as well as expanding the community? How can Christ expect us to have free will and there not be chaos? As free will allows anyone to do whatever they want. The Grand Inquisitor sees this issue and knows that for the religion to prosper, there must be authority through a leadership hierarchy, miracles to bring new followers in, and mystery to keep the people interested in the “story.”
This is what gives religion it’s power: social cohesion of a common mindset. It is a group attempt to connect to the sacred. Now the question is: With this power that religion brings from groups, is it being used for peace or violence? We can see through the Inquisition that Ivan begins the story with, that Catholicism is being used for violence, so he is arguing that the Church is wrong to have this power since it is being used for evil, i.e. his reasoning for making the Grand Inquisitor say that they follow Satan.
R. Scott Appleby brings in a counterargument to this claim in The Ambivalence of the Sacred by saying how religious power by itself is morally good if one follows the Law, but once other ideologies of groups get applied to religion (such as ethnicity, nationalism, and politics) then that is where violence comes in. At the start of chapter one, Appleby brings in the example of a Palestinian suicide bomber who decides to incite violence onto the Israeli people. “Hamas extremists, dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in Palestine, adopted nationalist rhetoric and symbolism in an attempt to compete with the PLO for the loyalty of disgruntled Palestinians,” says Appleby (Appleby, 55). This shows that it is not strictly a Muslim vs. Jewish conflict that is occurring, but also a Palestinian vs. Israeli conflict. Though there are differences in the ideologies of someone who is Muslim vs. someone who is Jewish, the motivation of each only reaches a level of violence once each side applies another ideological group mindset that alters the thinking of what someone of purely religious thought would follow through the Law. Continuing this sentiment, Appleby states that “in this sense there is no ‘Islam,’ no ‘Christianity,’ no ‘Buddhism’—only Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists living in specific contingent contexts, possessed of multiple and mixed motives, each of which might contribute to a particular action or decision taken” (Appleby, 56). To be human is to be involved in multiple groups at once, where each one has its own goals, biases, alliances, enemies, and rules. It is not religion that hurts people, but religion’s goals can be attained using other ideologies’ methods, resulting in violence.
So is this true of the Grand Inquisitor? Is he burning these non-believers and restricting the freedom of believers with a solely religious incentive? No. He said it himself: “I do not want your love, because I myself do not love you… we are not with you, but with [Satan], there is our secret!” (Dostoevsky, 295). The Grand Inquisitor is not a real Christian and he is using his power and influence as a prestigious religious figure to inflict his own ideological perspective onto others. Christianity is from the word of Christ, and fittingly, Christ says nothing in the whole story. At the end, He simply kisses the Grand Inquisitor on the lips, showing him that the true path to any conflict is not violence or argument, but kindness. Christ does not speak at all because any more words would alter the canon of Christianity, and to Christ, there are no more words to add, only more love to give.
Works Cited:
Appleby, R. Scott. The Ambivalence of the Sacred. Carnegie Corporation, 2000.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, and Constance Garnett. The Brothers Karamazov. Modern Library, Wildside Press, 2005.