“[N]othing has ever been more insufferable for man than
freedom!”
The Grand Inquisitor
A Prose Poem Given by Ivan to Alyosha
from
The Brothers Karamazov
Existentialism
This is a philosophical movement in which
individual human beings are understood as
having full responsibility for creating the
meanings of their own lives. It is a reaction
against more traditional philosophies, such as
rationalism and empiricism, which sought to
discover an ultimate order in metaphysical
principles or in the structure of the observed
world. The movement had its origins in the 19th
century thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
and was prevalent in Continental philosophy in
the 20th century.
Setting in the Novel
• The “poem” is given while Ivan and Alyosha are dinning
• Earlier Ivan’s dinner conversation with Alyosha adds a new
level of complexity to the novel’s exploration of religion and
spirituality.
• The novel does not simplistically suggest that belief in God
brings unmitigated happiness while doubt brings unmitigated
suffering, and the brothers’ dinner conversation provides the
rationale behind the idea that not believing in God is more
reasonable and compassionate than believing in him.
• Through his description of the unjust suffering of children and
of the general misery of mankind’s situation on Earth, Ivan
presents the strongest case against religion in the novel.
• Ivan’s dilemma mirrors the biblical dilemma of Job, who
asked how a loving God could allow mankind to endure
injustice and misery for no apparent reason.
Listen: if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray
tell me what have children got to do with it? It’s quite incomprehensible why they should
have to suffer, and why they should buy harmony with their suffering.
• Ivan cannot understand why young children would be made to
suffer under a loving God.
• In rejecting outright the explanation that God’s ways are too
mysterious for mankind to comprehend, Ivan illustrates the
depth of his commitment to rational coherence.
• He can only believe in a God who is rational like the human
beings he created, and he thinks that a truly loving God would
have made the universe comprehensible to mankind.
• As such, Ivan’s religious doubt is slightly different from
atheism, because Ivan says that if God does indeed exist, he is
not good or just. “Oh I still believe in God; the question is
what kind of God?” (Lewis A Grief Observed)
• The problem is not resolvable.
– Either no God exists, or a God exists who is the equivalent of a
torturer. This problem is the ultimate source of Ivan’s despair.
Ivan’s understanding of the world means that mankind is alone in
the universe and that Fyodor Pavlovich’s revolting attitude toward
life is acceptable and even logical. If this is not the case, then God
himself must be a heartless tyrant.
Setting of the Story
• Ivan explains his prose poem, “The Grand
Inquisitor.” In a town in Spain, in the sixteenth
century, Christ arrives, apparently reborn on Earth.
• As he walks through the streets, the people gather
about him, staring. He begins to heal the sick, but his
ministrations are interrupted by the arrival of a
powerful cardinal who orders his guards to arrest
Christ.
• Late that night, this cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor,
visits Christ’s cell and explains why he has taken him
prisoner and why he cannot allow Christ to perform
his works. Throughout the Grand Inquisitor’s lecture,
Christ listens silently.
The Frame of the Argument
• The Inquisitor frames his denunciation of Jesus
around the three questions Satan asked Jesus during
the temptation of Christ in the desert.
• In Mathew 4: 1-11 and Luke 4: 1-14 these three
temptations are. . .
– the temptation to turn stones into bread,
– the temptation to cast Himself from the Temple and be
saved by the angels, and
– the temptation to rule over all the kingdoms of the world.
• The Grand Inquisitor says that by rejecting these
three temptations, Christ had guaranteed that human
beings would have free will. However, free will is a
devastating, impossible burden for mankind.
The bread
• The first temptation Christ rejected was bread.
Hungry after his forty days of fasting, Christ was
confronted by Satan, who told him that if he were
really the son of God, he could turn a stone to bread
and satisfy his hunger. Christ refused, replying that
man should not live by bread, but by the word of
God.
• The Grand Inquisitor says that most people are too
weak to live by the word of God when they are
hungry. Christ should have taken the bread and
offered mankind freedom from hunger instead of
freedom of choice.
Demonstrate through Miracles
• The second temptation was to perform a miracle.
Satan placed Christ upon a pinnacle in Jerusalem and
told him to prove that he was the messiah by
throwing himself off it. If Christ were really God’s
son, the angels would bear him up and not allow him
to die. Christ refused, telling Satan that he could not
tempt God. Beaten, Satan departed.
• But the Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have
given people a miracle, for 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.
Earthly Power
• The third temptation was power. Satan showed Christ
all the kingdoms in the world, and offered him
control of them all. Christ refused.
• The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have
taken the power, but since he did not, the Church has
now has to take it in his name, in order to convince
men to give up their free will in favor of their
security.
The Role of Institutionalized Faith
• The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that it was
Satan, and not Christ, who was in the right
during this exchange. He says that ever since
the Church took over the Roman Empire, it has
been secretly performing the work of Satan,
not because it is evil, but because it seeks the
best and most secure order for mankind.
• Ivan indicates that the Inquisitor is an atheist. After a lifetime
of pursuing God, he has given up in frustration.
• He is nevertheless left with his love of humanity and desire to
see humanity not suffer.
• Despite declaring the Inquisitor to be an atheist, Ivan also
implies that the Inquisitor and the Church follow "the wise
spirit, the dread spirit of death and destruction," i.e. the Devil,
Satan, for he, through compulsion, provided the tools to end
all human suffering and unite under the banner of the Church.
• The multitude then is guided through the Church by the few
who are strong enough to take on the burden of freedom.
• The Inquisitor says that under him, all mankind will live and
die happily in ignorance.
• Though he leads them only to "death and destruction," they
will be happy along the way. The Inquisitor will be a selfmartyr, spending his life to keep choice from humanity. He
states that "Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can
take his freedom away from him."
“The Kiss”
• The segment ends when Christ, who has been silent
throughout, kisses the Inquisitor on his "bloodless, aged
lips" (22) instead of answering him.
• On this, the Inquisitor releases Christ but tells him never
to return. Christ, still silent, leaves into "the dark alleys of
the city."
• Not only is the kiss ambiguous, but its effect on the
Inquisitor is as well. Ivan concludes, "The kiss glows in
his heart, but the old man adheres to his ideas."
• The kiss that Christ plants on the lips of the Grand
Inquisitor is the equal of Christ's whispered words to
Judas (John 13.27) "that thou doest, do quickly." Just as
Jesus in no way condones Judas' betrayal, so Christ's
kiss does not excuse the Grand Inquisitor.
• Just as Alyosha is unable to offer a satisfactory response to
Ivan’s critique of God, Christ says nothing during the
Inquisitor’s critique of him, one of several parallels between
Alyosha and Christ during this chapter.
• But Christ’s enigmatic kiss on the Inquisitor’s lips after his
indictment completely changes the tenor of the scene.
• Recalling Zosima’s bow before Dmitri at the monastery in
Book I, the kiss represents an overriding act of love and
forgiveness so innate that it can only be expressed wordlessly.
On its deepest level, it defies explanation.
• The power of faith and love, Dostoevsky implies, is rooted in
mystery—not simply in the empty and easily digestible idea
that God’s will is too complex for people to understand, but in
a resonant, active, unanswerable profundity. The kiss cannot
overcome a logical argument, but at the same time there is no
logical argument that can overcome the kiss.
• It represents the triumph of love and faith, on their own terms,
over rational skepticism.
What Does it Do?
• Not only does the parable function as a philosophical and
religious work in its own right, but it also furthers the
character development of the larger novel. Clearly, Ivan
identifies himself with the Inquisitor.
• After relating the tale, Ivan asks Alyosha if he "renounces"
Ivan for his views. Alyosha responds by giving Ivan a soft kiss
on the lips, to which the delighted Ivan replies, "that's
plagiarism!" The brothers part soon afterwards.
• In having Ivan end his poem on a note of such deep and
moving ambiguity, Dostoevsky has his major opponent of
religion acknowledge the power of faith, just as Dostoevsky
himself, a proponent of faith, has used Ivan to acknowledge
the power of doubt.
• Alyosha’s kiss for Ivan indicates how well the young Alyosha
understands the problems of faith and doubt in a world
characterized by free will, and just how committed his own
will is to the positive goodness of faith.
The Dying Father Zossima
• In many ways the last words of Father Zossima work as a
counterweight against the rational of Ivan.
• The main philosophical conflict of the novel is apparent in the
structural division between Books V and VI: the dark and
brooding Book V is consumed with the tremors of Ivan’s
doubt, while the more peaceful Book VI is devoted to the quiet
wisdom of Zosima’s faith.
• Ivan’s frenzied logical examinations are replaced with more
positive examples of the power of faith to do good in the
world. In a way, the anecdote of the murderer is the exact
opposite of the Grand Inquisitor story. The Grand Inquisitor
story tells about an innocent man who is imprisoned and
judged, while Zosima’s anecdote of the murderer tells about a
guilty man who is goes free and is forgiven.
• In addition to the parallel between the story of the
Grand Inquisitor and the anecdote of the murderer,
there are a number of other parallels between things
Zosima describes in Book VI and events that take
place in the larger narrative, both before and after this
section of the novel.
• For instance, Zosima’s description of himself in
youth as a soldier like Dmitri, with a brother who
helped to redeem him spiritually, echoes the
relationship between Dmitri and Alyosha: Alyosha
also helps to redeem Dmitri, and Zosima says
specifically that Alyosha reminds him of his brother.
• Zosima’s youthful duel and the murder committed in
the anecdote of the murderer are both crimes of
passion committed for a woman’s love, and thus echo
the rivalry between Fyodor Pavlovich and Dmitri for
Grushenka.
• The murderer’s acceptance of responsibility and his
desire to confess involve many of the same issues of
responsibility and redemption that affect Ivan.
• These parallels ultimately are another sign of the
infallible wisdom of Zosima. He is able to predict,
better than anyone else, what lies ahead for the
Karamazovs, and he is thus able to tailor his final
lesson to what he knows will be Alyosha’s needs in
the coming crisis. Alyosha has proved himself
capable of internalizing Zosima’s lessons, and he
emerges from this final conversation with Zosima
better prepared to handle the hardships that lie ahead.
From the Text of The Brothers Karamazov
“Brothers, have no fear of men’s sin. Love a
man even in his sin, for that is the semblance
of Divine Love and is the highest love on
earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and
every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf,
every ray of God’s light. . .Work without
ceasing. If you remember in the night as you
go to sleep, “I have not done what I ought to
have done,” rise up at once and do it. If the
people around you are spiteful and callous and
will not hear you, fall down before them and
beg their forgiveness;”
“If the evil doing of men moves you to
indignation and overwhelming distress, even to
a desire for vengeance on the evil-doers, shun
above all things that feeling. Go at once and
seek suffering for yourself, as though you were
yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that
suffering and bear it and your heart will find
comfort, and you will understand that you too
are guilty, for you might have been a light to
the evil-doers, even as the one man sinless,
and you were not a light to them.”
Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov’s
manuscript ends. I repeat, it is incomplete and
fragmentary. Biographical details, for
instance, cover only Father Zossima’s earliest
youth. Of his teaching and opinions we find
brought together sayings evidently uttered on
very different occasions. His utterances during
the last few hours have not been kept separate
from the rest, but their general character can be
gathered from what we have in Alexey
Fyodorovitch’s manuscript.
“The elder’s death came in the end quite
unexpectedly. For although those who were
gathered about him that last evening realised
that his death was approaching, yet it was
difficult to imagine that it would come so
suddenly. On the contrary, his friends, as I
observed already, seeing him that night
apparently so cheerful and talkative, were
convinced that there was at least a temporary
change for the better in his condition. Even
five minutes before his death, they said
afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to
foresee it.
He seemed suddenly to feel an acute pain in
his chest, he turned pale and pressed his hands
to his heart. All rose from their seats and
hastened to him.But though suffering, he still
looked at them with a smile, sank slowly from
his chair on to his knees, then bowed his face
to the ground, stretched out his arms and as
though in joyful ecstasy, praying and kissing
the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his
soul to God.
The Priest’s Last Act
• Zosima’s death, as he stretches out his arms to
embrace the Earth, is a symbol of acceptance and
faith, indicating his love of God’s creation with the
last energy left in his body.
• Zosima’s sincerity and his assent to the will of God
are total. He does not die with fear, resentment, or
regret.
• His final gesture is one of rapturous acquiescence,
and thus Zosima’s death works as an emblem of
everything he has taught, spoken, and stood for
throughout the novel.