Fyodor Dostoevsky | The Grand Inquisitor Chapter | Existentialist Philosophy & Literature

today we're going to talk about the brothers karamazov and specifically one section of that one chapter called the grand inquisitor it's probably one of the most often exerted portion of the text and this is because there's there's a classic confrontation that takes place there and you can think of this chapter as being something that's very easily read and on a certain level very easily understood once you know some of the cultural reference and there there's not too many difficult ones but one that remains a mystery it still holds some open questions for us that all point towards more toward begun to this this lecture so what's going on in this this passage I actually am going to talk about a little bit more than just this particular chapter I'd like to look at some of the other chapters that take part in that this portion where Alyosha and I are interacting with each other there's Pro and contract but first I want to say what's what's going on and fundamentally yeah this champion itself let's think about narrative and also think about character it's pretty simple when it comes to character so we'll come back to that in a moment and that'll make more sense when we talk about narrative what's going on we have several people talking and then one of them tells a story which actually becomes hold what it means pull them in a somewhat different sense then then we're used to thinking and then we'll talk about that in just a moment so there's a story and within this story there is a confrontation that takes place between the giro Grand Inquisitor and Jesus Christ come back to earth as promised with what happens sometimes and this is taking place some time during the time of the Inquisition so who's telling this story well this story about these guys is being told why I haven't I haven't affairs Makar massa one of the brothers and Ivan himself is speaking with his brother the ocean so there is at the same time a larger love story here we can't - and who would be at the very top of this would be Fyodor Dostoevsky's telling us the story a story larger story within which these two brothers down the conversation within the course at which one of the brothers tells the story and it gets even more convoluted yet because the Grand Inquisitor himself is going to tell the story as well he's going to try it out at end of histories of human beings and God and interactions suffering happiness freedom all these rows of X so you can think of what's going on here is a process of condensation or they think of it like telescoping yet you've got this larger project going on and then it gets much more much more condensed until we finally get to a very coherent point of view being pulled by the Grand Inquisitor it was really the central character of this chapter although when you notice that and then the janitor itself now the ocean and I haven't talked back and forth and they even make some remarks about what's going on in the story itself so that gives you a little bit of the structure the narrative also tells you a little bit about characters but we should have just spelled those out a little bit you know depict them Jesus Christ is showing up and he doesn't say a thing except at one point where he actually does say the famous words from the gospel that come from aramaic tele the Kumi arrives made other than that she doesn't say anything throughout the entire piece he does have a few very important gestures but like gestures typically do there's some ambiguity involved in the gesture itself what is the meaning of what's taking place what is the significance of it it's not exactly easy to tell interpretation on the other hand somebody talked about a lot is the Grand Inquisitor the Grand Inquisitor is a 90 year old man we know that he's a cardinal we know that he's an Inquisitor meaning that he was actually one of the people who was charged with the task of protecting the faith inquiring into the condition of heretics there that as people who had in one way or another set themselves at odds with the Christian faith by taking part of the Christian faith and turning it against understanding heresy now if you know anything about the historical inquisitions there were more than one Inquisition you know that a lot of abuses took place during that time many people used it as a cover for power or for greed or sometimes even for self-protection oftentimes religion and politics became intimately intertwined with in this interest interesting they had done when it came to the Spanish Inquisition before the whole ball got rolling the religious leaders were involved with that didn't want to be charged they thought it was a bad idea who actually was the driving impetus behind it it wasn't they actually hope it wasn't actually the Spanish Church it was actually the king who was using the Inquisition for his own political homes but once it got going like a lot of these things and then once they develop the sort of momentum they allow all these sort of ways in which people who are less Heinlein didn't even those who are fairly high minded but I was from ideologically blind to insert' their agendas into the mechanism and that's sort of what's going on except that the way that Ivan is depicting a Grand Inquisitor he's not doing it for greed he's not doing it solely for power he's not doing it for all the you know perks or pleasures where things like that a job as a matter of fact it's interesting you notice that the day before when they were burning all the heretics he's wearing this full Cardinals garb so you could say very dense clothes the next day people earning a monk's out whether the action actually takes place so what does he motivated by that's part of the stories of the best part what's going on here he's going to tell you about his motivation and in certain ways you can understand what he's driving that because he's a person who's genuinely concerned for Humanity he wants to make people happy and not just happy in the sense of you know tell him to jokes or you know buy them something some nice things he wants to figure out what makes human beings tick what would satisfy their deepest desires and then go about actually trying to satisfy them so in a certain way you can think of him as a philanthropist as a humanist as a reformer that's the Grand Inquisitor he's also blind to certain ways there's also something more going on so that's at this level what about these guys well the book is The Brothers Karamazov and it's about these brothers and all the other characters who are excited with their world and the father they don't all get along I'm not going to try to go into the you know very labyrinthian complex storylines here that those JSP lays out just a part of it is you know there's no way we could possibly do justice to it suffice it to say at this point story Alyosha is in fact a postulate he wants to become a monk he is about to leave the monastery he is looking at getting married since he is leaving the monastery he had he's not named he is a very loving in certain ways even timid soul but we often have this this picture of religious people as if they were destroyed withdrawing themselves from world entirely and very to be how do you saying they're not streetwise they have no sense about you know what makes human beings tick they make stupid mistakes now the Osho he makes some mistakes and do all those to his characters but he actually has some pretty keen insights into human nature and you know you can't actually go into religious life without learning about the aspects of yourself that you might have actually concealed up until that point dig into yourself this goes whether you're whether you're talking about say Christian monasticism or Buddhist monasticism and you monasticism Islamic Sufism all of these promote assert ourself scrutiny sort of exploration of who one has tick and as well as what makes other people take in how you relate to them and you can see that in LA I only is a religious believer although not too far from this this section he actually asks his fiancee we know something what would it surprise you to learn that I don't believe in God he doesn't actually say this but he's testing waters I have another hand is this very dynamic somewhat tortured soul he's the older brother to do nelio show and he has traveled abroad he is fairly worldly he lives a secular kind of life he he claims that that he doesn't buy into all of his religious stuff as a matter of fact you could interpret the whole story that you tell us it's sort of like one big you know knockout blow against religion that's a surface level reading of it but actually the story's a bit more complicated and so maybe it's better mine doesn't even so that's her narrative that's our characters let's now look at two of those what is I can call this at home this whole chapter he and Alyosha are having an argument about God whether he had exist about what that would mean and he says well they get to the point where Alyosha makes reference to Christ in order trying to talk about the meaning of sucker they just get this blonde involved conversation which is worth reading for its own sake in which I have to leave out some of the terrible things that happen all sufferings that children undergo that adults actually take pleasure in inflicting on them and he says look this does not make sense to me I'm not saying that I'm absolutely good God couldn't countenance this but the way that religious people are talking about this that somehow it all balances out in some sort of general harmonization or forgiveness that doesn't jive with you know there's something also about my desire to see that the guilty punishment that doesn't sit right either so Elio sure brings in Christ and at that point five it says you mean the one that's in and just what no I haven't forgotten about it indeed I was wondering how long it would take you to bring it into our discussion because the people on your side usually make use of him above all of their arguments you know well don't laugh now about a year or so ago I compose a sort of poem and if you're willing to waste say another ten minutes with me I could recite it to you OSHA says you wrote a poem and it says I don't know I didn't write a whole per se I've never written the two verses of my whole life but I didn't think it up and then memorized I composed it in a moment of real inspiration when you'll be my first reader I mean audience so he says the poem is called the Grand Inquisitor and that's that's the chapter why does he call it a poem well you know we have been differently country nowadays then people did throughout most of the history and at the time one does we have seen a few of us may have memorized poems in school and if you did that can be quite good it gives you an object that you can wrap your head around any poem that's actually worth being called home articulates a view of reality it may be as small as just you know this bottle cap but it tells you about that that bottle cap it reveals to you sides of it that you can't see before they may not even be beautiful sighs you know Baudelaire a great French poet one of my favorites made a career out of writing about ugliness many people's poetry in the 20th century in the 21st century it seems to well what determines whether it's really a worthwhile poem is whether it sticks with you whether it's something that you once you've seen you have to be coming back to that's what this is for and I think in a certain way it is for emotion and if Dostoevsky magic works on us his skill as craft as a narrator this becomes something that we end up having stuck in our heads as well just like we would a song that really captivates we keep thinking about it not just singing but thinking about you know think about for example cat's in the cradle but I retained them now that I've said it as promised I'm in your head it's all of it yeah it doesn't articulate it doesn't matter tick you late a clear message well you should live your life this way this way this way it does tell you you probably should spend time with your family like camp but it does so in the wedding way and that's why it has its power that's why it stays with you there's a certain sense of mystery in every poem and that's there in the story of the Grand Inquisitor so I just wanted to say a few words about what it means for us to be at home the other thing I'm going to do before we actually start the analyzing this this very interesting chapter is mention a few important remarks and passages in the chapters just before this remarks that are made either by Alyosha we're by item that I think lend a certain context and color and character to the granite visitor passage so one of these is Alyosha and he is saying striking about the law and he says well Ivan it's just he's talking about love it I love those sticky little leaves in the spring of the blue sky that's what you don't love those things with reason with logic you love it with your innards with your belly and that's how you love your own first youthful strength sort of romantic or appreciate however we want to call it now it's not connected with reason it's not connected with logic it's something you feel not something you think about Alyosha says I understand it only too well it's the innards and the belly that long to love you put it wonderfully and I'm terribly glad that you have such an appetite for life your pride I always thought that before anything else people she should learn to love life in this world and that his brother says to love life more than the meaning of life now that's two very different things about that there is life in the sense of what one experiences what what is going on and then there's the meaning of life there's the significance of things being put together and these are clearly not the same thing it's kind of interesting to the Alyosha says learn to love learning learning is very lot of intellectual practice rote and manners so learning to love one has to wonder about that so that Alyosha says yes that's right that's that's the way it should be love should come before logic just as you said only then will man be able to understand the meaning of life and this is very profound this is something that you see in a lot of different religious leaders also within some of the other group of the distributions the notion that knowledge is in some way dependent on that knowledge in the full sense requires loving the object and not just loving the self not just loving what you get from the object but loving that thing to really know a person even to fully desire to go in person you have to at least in some sense love them you have to love something about them so how that was really hitting in something key here only after one love will want to be able to understand the meaning of life that's a the important prefiguring of this chapter you'll see why so that's one passage another passage is where this is a very comic passage I think actually especially the philosopher myself it's where I have been just talking about what are we up to here what are we gonna do and he says you know I'm gonna be leaving pretty soon it may not be you know morning maybe later on we're going to lunch together here you and I still have plenty of time to spend together before I leave a Holy Trinity and then his brothers knows what kind of eternity is it if you're leaving tomorrow axis why should that concern us as long as we have time to settle all the manners we've met to discuss well why do you look so surprised tell me yourself that why we met was it to talk about the many mansions a bunch of sweet news of the day did we meet for the ass at the purpose of our meeting and then the Alyosha says no I don't think so so you know yourself what the purpose was it's different with other people we can use we have first of all the settlement verities that worried us these are enough men and they are concerned with the question the point of things the big issue what is the meaning of life and you know this question of what is the meaning of life if you want to truly get to know somebody you have to ask that question not just in general but workers back to that person so I had been hurt with his relationship with his brother is to get to know what makes his brother tick what is the meaning of life for his brother yeah I'll show you in return in order to know whether the end to love is a brother has to try to wrap its head around means firstly he has to find out what makes him tick what does he think about things and you know it's not just about trivial things do you like mayonnaise or mustard things like that what kind of music do you enjoy all that could be that could have significance you were a red tie or a blue tie it's about the big things what do you think is the greatest good are we capable of that are we bound to be locked in conflict with each other or is it possible for there to be harmony is there a cop just got care about us I mean he's fated to do what we do or do we have something like free will how far does free will go these are the sorts of things that really determine how you do like these are many calls need eternal verities it says all the young Russia is talking about nothing but those eternal questions just at the moment with the old generation has suddenly turned its attention to practical problems so this grand inquisitor passage this is part of two brothers trying to argue with each other about what the point that the world is at the point of itself is points of other people and relations that all these other sorts of big issue things that are all bound up together what those that's just going together so that's important passage as well another important passage that we're kind of jumping a little bit here is where they're going to talk about God and Ivan says something really interesting and he's admitting his own limits here he says from what I've heard it once it's not great but when Mendte to God the enemy I won't bother to repeat to you almost fashion axioms accepted by our Russian boys blog and he's sort of you know spinning his wheels a little bit and then it suddenly says for what is the purpose of this conversation between us this purpose as I understand it is for me to explaining as briefly as possible what I am that is what sort of man idea what I believe in what I hope so I just need here play and briefly that I accept God but I must point out one thing that God does exist and if they really created the world then as we well know he created it according to the principles of Euclidean geometry and man the human brain capable of grasping only three dimensions of space so what are you saying there I just want to stop for a moment he's saying if there's a god he created its world he created an according to certain structures rules and he created the human brain able to interpret and fully understand those those structures yet there he have been and still are mathematicians and philosophers among them some of the most outstanding to doubt that the whole universe or to put it more generally all existence was created affinity in geometry this is an interesting passage what's going on here is symbolic of something larger what do they mean by Euclidian geometry well the Euclidean geometry there are certain things that government time and space and there are things that would make sense to us they're easy to work there are other her geometry as possible human beings now that would mean if there is a God God fits everything that was good too good he would have created human brain and do that got to do with sort of take that and yet I've been saying no God created the world he created it Euclidian way whirring would imagine things that go beyond even what God has created the structures that he's had and they says of course myself I can't really understand those nuclei now think about that no longer in terms of geometry think about that in terms of the human heart in terms of the most complex thing in creation if God created the human being in such a way that we're part of the universe it's not just that God creates creation and then we're gonna like you know extra and then our brains are more portable thing if God created us in such a way that what we are would be fully explicable fully intelligible to ourselves then we actually could get to the bottom of the mystery we actually could figure out that by what we are how we did we could have complete agreement and that's in part with the grand inquisitor activism and that's what either yearns for and why he's so again one of the things that religious thinkers have shown us in so many different ways is that if anybody knows what we are it's not us not not fully at least not all the way down there's always bits of ourselves that sort of escape or so this is what we call freedom one of the key themes not only this is Grand Inquisitor thing but what is freedom because we're three we have the capacity things we never even dreamed of to escape the boundaries that seemed to be placed upon us and yet we don't fully understand that freedom we can even make that use of it we can screw things up we can destroy that's one capacitance that's a really interesting passage I think there are a few other passages that I think are kind of relevant as well once they get into the next chapter with value Ivan actually says I think that if the devil doesn't exist as therefore man's creation man has made it in his own image that Alyosha says just as these creative God in that case if you think that you know supernatural entities or the supernatural order are just fabrications positive reflections of us that would mean that we are in action the highest creature creature right we are the highest being in all of the universe it's very interesting that he says I mean this is pretty common to talk about man created God even religious figures went off from quashing against kind of an idea of God that's just basically us projecting their assault on the god this is the classic Jewish and Christian you know the looks of profits but this is also something that secular fingers Bob would say that human beings have created with their long marriage do we greet the devil there do we think of evil or principle that's something really interesting to think about given that the grand inquisitor talks about the devil in relation to the god or the Christ EMP actually seems to be kind of taking the sign of the devil causing that wise spirit and he criticizes Christ for resisting the temptations of the devil he says you made a long decision and we're going to fix things because of so that's those are all in using passages it's sort of three things now let's get into the actual meat piece so I had said that there's a narrative being laid out by the Grand Inquisitor and it's a narrative essentially having to do goods and evils and temptations let's think about this a little bit let's sort of sketch out what do you say here's a live in sort of a nutshell he's saying human beings you know human beings are beset by all sorts of they oppressed each other they can't get along they find ways to hurt each other they don't feed each other they don't treat each other right even when we tried that creates new forms of suffering we can display suffering from one person to another if God loves us God cares about us you would think that God would come along and try to alleviate suffering satisfy some of our basic needs and what it means for needs are or Goods needs are for good things that you're lacking and the grand inquisitor says here is sort of you know he's covering a lot of ground he's not trying to you know provide it in the beginning all just trying to say something to did this figure of Christ he says you screwed up you didn't do when you want to have done when you want it done that's why we're rejecting well that's the the narrative within the narrative and all the other parts of that which we're going to look at in greater detail fit into that general scope yes you screwed up you didn't solve because the divine plan looks like like screwed up the stuff that doesn't make sense it doesn't satisfy it works for those strong those people the Saints who you know you know are able to handle this but for the mass of them of humanity even them being like this you know it's a race to the bottom now let's fold it into a larger what's the larger Christ he actually shows up and it shows up that a church I suppose and it shows up right after there's been a lot of debate and 100 years he's been burning day before and when he shows up he pops up at the church just as they're caring in the closet a young girl who was died and they're all born and so he goes over and he reenact something that took place in the New Testament in the Gospels and he tells her to arise and he brings the dead back to life he gets back then what was lacking not only to that girl but to all the people surrounding and more breathing and he performs a miracle he does so you know we're guessing this is you know a replication also a unique event taking place the grand inquisitor season on the granite bitters Inquisitor says get it get that guy and so as guards go and they take it and people are used to obedience and they're kind of crushed down and perfect as a suffering and they they want to listen to him so Christ is miracle worker this good thing is taken away he's thrown into the cell and visitor comes to this again and he says to him we're gonna kill you as a matter of fact those people who you were helping yesterday they're gonna help us kill you they're gonna be right there and they're gonna cheer why is that this is when he goes his whole narrative I want to tell us about a little bit at the end I'll just get the head before we come back into the heart of that that story Christ doesn't say anything the Grand Inquisitor tries to provoke of a few times wants to get angry because you realize is that what he's doing is you know posed to price and sort of co-opted and the only thing that ends up happening in the very end is Christ kisses him and we don't know what the significance of that truth is Christ kisses is that mark of love is it's telling him something like I give news saying it's all right I don't know what I do know is that the visitor tells him get the hell out of here do you know opens the door and shoes him out for the night so he's not going to execute yeah Ivan says you know that kiss stayed with and what he has is a very coherent ideology so let's look at that ideology and here is I think where we come to the real part the chapter I think that this is fundamental and evils tenant and temptation what this is fundamentally about is goods evils temptations this is the heart the narrative itself the heart of this chapter so looks let's actually live in those often freedom these are two things that end up getting left out or rather misconceived behind the grand inquisitor and I think to a certain extent maybe even this conceived by my high and I think that one of the lessons this piece is trying to teach us not by coming straight up and telling us that but indirectly by making us think of that it is it's trying to challenge us to think about our own understandings of love and freedom as to goods that really ought to be seen as the highest puts the ones that you don't trade other things for the ones that make everything else work because what goes on in this the a grand inquisitor narrates this this whole process by which human beings for these things for these goods give up lot of they give their long to something that they want not and they throw away or give over there these correspond to temptations and this is where this is why things dose to the espys most genius moved here he has the Grand Inquisitor this passage of Scripture which you find enough already after where Christ goes out to the desert and then after fasting for 40 days the devil comes to tempt the devil has three different temptations one of the temptations is to deal with hunger that's the price is hungry and the devil said is look at these rocks over here tsongkhapa turn them into bread then you won't be hungry and the inquisitors talking about this not just in terms of redford for Christ alone but you know you can do this for everyone today you know if you think about hospitals there are stories where people are hungry and Jesus feeds them regular the multitude the multiplication of the loaves and fishes which resulted in multitude feeding the multitude that happens a couple different times in the scriptures and they actually have so much leftover there's more than they started with so it's not as if there isn't any of that going on but it's sort of capricious God chooses when he's going to do that he doesn't say dole he doesn't say well he doesn't say all right be here next Friday and I will give you this from the soup kitchen and if you income below this level we're going to give you this than that there's nothing along those lines instead it's always sort of random you know the disciples after the resurrection find Christ on the seashore he says catch some fish right you didn't tell them ahead of time hey meet me a couple days after the resurrection and nice fishing together it's all when God chooses to do it and this is part of what the Grand Inquisitor doesn't he says look if you can do it and you can do it any time why did you choose to do that and you read you know he says to have some very important things I'm going to read you a few passages he says before you can ask people who are virgin for even ask people who are obedient people ask people to forget do the things that they'd have to do you have to actually feed them you actually have to satisfy their basic needs and desires he says turn these lows in to throw these stones into loaves of bread then we'll follow you like a fossil and grateful or constantly fearful listed with driving and they lose their bones but you didn't want to deprive and freedom and you rejected the suggestion when you thought what sort of freedom what they had with your obedience was bread so price its value the freedom that's good about breath and he not only evaluated for himself evaluated for human beings he wanted to leave the optional which is in fact honor to freedom the grand inquisitor her size freedom is no good to you if you don't have breath as a matter of fact people will in fact trade freedom for Britain in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and stateless enslave us but feed us and they will finally understand that freedom and the assurance of daily bread for everyone are two incompatible notions that could never coexist they will also discover that man can never be free because they're weak corrupt worthless and restless so you know he's saying satisfy their basic needs that is a greater the devil will offer you the chance to do that you chose not to do it what the hell is wrong with you now we the second temptation then actually at this point nobody s he or I would rather his jungling things up because the second temptation the devil takes Christ up and he and he shows of all the kingdom in the world he says hey 30 years just do me just you know sings and Jesus rejects that as well so however I put that second here in apartment that's actually going to treat it the third power or what you know the people who are seedings of are what are they getting out of it the other thing that he talks about the other temptation which he spends a lot of time this is very interesting the devil takes him up to the top of the Temple in Jerusalem and he says jump now you know there's easy like you know trying to kill himself or something like that no he's he's actually saying tempt God put God to the test jump because if you do angel intention this is a really big temptation and there actually are portions of scripture where God tells people hey put me to the test I want you to come on ask for something in this case the temptation is there and Jesus says I'm not going to do that yeah this is really Dostoevsky against I have a grand visitor tell price that you know people will actually in order to try to swage their conscience to have a good conscience about things they will give it just you know give them heavenly bread give them the capacity to feel okay about themselves to feel they're connected that things make sense you can give them that and then they will actually be quite happy he says where is that he says how do we actually make this work miracle mystery and authority people want to be told what to do they want to give their you know they want somebody else to tell them they're doing the right thing whether it's political or economic enterprise whether it's how they live their life as a sports fan as a father as a mother as a child as a consumer all these sorts of things people want somebody else to tell them hey you're doing the right thing you're okay if you do things this way and that's giving them over ones freedom for feeling good that's a temptation and the Grand Inquisitor says to Christ look you have the opportunity to set things right want to go but you didn't do it so now that we and at this point is talking about the church but you know this is something that's got great implications for not just a church we're going to talk a little bit more about that later but for any sort of organization anything that would would claim to satisfies he says you know you could have made human beings happy if you had just give it into this you would have made human beings happy we laid out the cathode I'm sure there was had to give up a freedom sure the love that they would have given and counting these things not because they actually chose to love you for your own sake that would have been the loving thing to do and they're the grand inquisitor showing he got love along it was more love for her Christ to leave these things that's that's the sort of soft tax the best that the grand inquisitor beginning so the grand inquisitor says you screwed up so now we have to set the flat light we are going to make it work because otherwise too many people are in this song we're going to actually says for the first time think about how we can make human beings happy we can think about human happiness with a capital H for everybody well almost everybody to another interesting Christ doesn't say anything to all of us the grand inquisitor census of his whole speech he's laying out a sort of systematic understanding of things the systematic way of looking at understanding human being in relation to just something higher who's actually going to carry out all of this that's before all this coordination it's self consciousness who's going to actually exercise power he says there's going to be a hundred thousand inquisitors who are actually not going to be happy that's the price that they have to pay there's sort of like in his view was that Jesus did the Christian narratives which is to take on the sufferings all so that the rest of them can in fact be happy and here they're imagining human beings doing so these are going to be human beings that are actually seeing what's going on behind the scenes and they see the lies and they see that things are not as good as they're being made out to be and they see that they've taken Christianity and sort of turned it on its head they have to live with that they have to live with that sovereign why is that good why is that the way to go over to the grand inquisitor because anything else would be worse should we just abandon all the rest of them to their suffering okay God didn't do his job now it's up to us to do errands to do the job to take over where God didn't follow through we're going to follow through and then some and he says you know if this means being in favor of the devil then that's fine well be will being able to devil because the devil actually new battery than two words here I won't say about now about Church and organizations and so now there's an interesting conflict of queen of views between Ivan and Alyosha us Ivan says you know I just makes perfect sense this is the way the Catholic Church is you know Jesuits just company home right now and say this this sort of thing actually says it one way you gave your power over to us that's it you didn't choose to exercise the power we to the church take the power and Elio should have a certain point says hold on out of there I mean are you saying that the Orthodox Church the running of Eastern Roadbuster behaves like this because I've guessed well I'm an orthodox mom I'm not a Catholic but guess what he didn't even get the Catholics right because I don't know I'm you know some Catholics and they don't actually behave like this and you know maybe the Jesuits do to a certain extent but even they don't behave like this your candidate you know presenting a false picture here and then it says something really interesting well okay I'll grant that to you but I think there have been some human beings through history who actually yeah seven sorts of things in the end the sorts of thoughts of the Grand Inquisitor did and wanted to lay out that kind of program and he had those kind of ideas in mind and I think some of them were in church as a matter of fact the church the basis so much because they see if my competitor now if we think about this in our century where are we seen these kind of promises maybe that's going to my churches I mean it doesn't matter how you feel about the Catholic Church it's lost its worldly presence which was on the wane percent but in the 20th century you know like Stalin at one point he asked how many divisions does the church have I have got this many Britain and system in the United States has this maybe so it's not that that's where the power what he has claim to do that sort of thing that's been mainly ideologies I think that you can see within discourses and practices of many of the communists the end even to a certain extent the the fascist International Socialists are integral nationalists the sort of thing that's being discussed at the grand inquisitor we're going to make human beings Kathie's they have to give us that our freedom they have to give love but not on their own terms and you know any sort of supernatural transcendence thing has to then that's not just a matter of being on the state where the organization has to be a face it has to be sucked in somehow that has been sometimes the case so that's that's something particularly work I'd like to think about a few other things too before we finish up one of these is what is it are there different understandings of the grand inquisitor says these people out here who were flowing they think they're free could that be the case in our own society are there many people who think that they're free when really they are being controlled by not necessarily some sort of you know overarching to cover everything totalitarian entity but what other things that take where they you know people think that they're being free when really somebody else's calling the shots playing playing their heartstrings dealing in their emotions supplying I think that there probably is we could ask ourselves sometimes is that the case for us what about the men of the Inquisition not just the madman of the age of the Inquisition later than freedom at the feet of the inquisitors but the inquisitors themselves he says they're free they taking on the burden of freedom they face up to them they also face up to the fact that most people can't handle and they but here's something to think about let's assume that those day st actually science more with and is trying to get us to see that the grand inquisitor is actually maybe quite attractive prospect that would mean that he missed conceived the nature of freedom but here you're right he he is more creative than the people used to see them for kind of like cattle but in a certain sense he's not either giving in to these temptations makes me at a certain point the granted visitor says peace even death is more attracted to me and then freedom of choice that derives from the knowledge of good and evil once we start to thinking knowledge of good and evil is not the best truck - it's not like we actually go you know with perfect clarity this is good this is evil it off isn't something quite murky it's not Amanda this is black and white with the black and white arrival so intertwined that they're hard to distinguish African children they do want to look great do we actually want to give up our freedom because of the anxiety that it produces for us because of the fact that when we exercises we do deprive ourselves to be able to remain to that moment and thank producer ESP is part of the freedom to be able to for Alyosha to look too long and to look to Christ even though he can't make sense of them completely and certainly can't satisfy his brother with respect to that this is a kind of freedom that the Grand Inquisitor just wants to face he doesn't recognize that it's for you but it's not freedom a few other interesting questions you know the Grand Inquisitor does he actually believe in God no God is a kind of a sort doesn't doesn't I mean it's talking to Christ he says you know I believe that you did these things you just got that wrong you didn't do what you needed to do so here we can ask yourself what does it mean to believe in God does it mean to have some sort of propositional truth there is a God Jesus Christ always was the son he did such a thing at such-and-such a time where does it mean - does it mean something more performative something more a matter of the heart and of the human will and action doing things the lining is believing something like pledging one's allegiance to something in this case if that's it it's clear he certainly doesn't believe in God in this world you just thinks God didn't do it as he should be economic instead what is redundant Lee you know this term of government comes up over and over again I didn't stop this is called the rebel by Alyosha that's why he brings up this whole grand inquisitor passage the Grand Inquisitor calls him himself and his the Patriots rebels as well but he also talks about Humanity in the whole week the corrupt as being good guys and as the Grand Inquisitor and the musician as being able to sort of put them in place so they're no longer the Daleks no longer striving to have their own expense of others is there another category his rebellion always be a mystery buddy I was glad you sir these are sort of open questions at this this another thing that this poem is up as well is this question what is more right what is the more jobs what is more good to set things up so they had a weak the failures the mass of humans can sort of be channeled into the proper areas happiness that's we're gonna rule out some of them some of the few and it's going to harness some of the they got in there stuck you know being cogs of the machine in the Inquisition it's also going to rule out and I'll say Jesus Christ you better not show up again and those who are sort of you know committed to him and strong as he calls it sinks they better not show up either is it better to serve the happiness of the majority the vast majority or is something destroyed in that process is something is there something vital that's what I'm getting

Channel: Gregory B. Sadler

Views: 93,923

Keywords: power, Satan, Fyodor Dostoevsy (Author), good, values, lecture, being, human, literature, novel, reason, Fyodor, happy, grand inquisitor, freedom, love, Sadler, Truth, Devil, Christian, religion, peace, desire, fear, bread, hunger, stone, philosophy, human nature, happiness, Brothers, Karamazov, Alyosha, Christ, Christianity, Ivan, obedience, Dostoevsky, authority, temptation, lesson, humans, humanity, unhappy, faith, evil, Book

Id: 4lbbZq-oxeU

Length: 60min 42sec (3642 seconds)

Published: Tue May 15 2012