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The Grand Inquisitor points out that only a few tens of thousands are really strong enough to follow Christ. The rest, the millions, are too weak; but because of this weakness they will be obedient. The rulers however will have freedom. He continues “They will marvel at us, and look upon us as gods, because we, standing at their head, heave agreed to suffer freedom and to rule over them” (p. 253).
The party always maintained this sort of distance between it and the proletariat. The party had freedoms that everyone else lacked. The party were the new gentry, and the rules did not always apply to them. This is the essence of socialism. It is why the leaders of socialist parties always get rich. Tony Blair could never have become as rich as he did if he had been honestly in favour of capitalism, but by pretending to want equality he became as unequal as it is possible to be.
The Grand Inquisitor admits to Jesus that there is a deceit. He says that the Church will pretend to rule in Jesus’ name. But it is a lie and it is for this reason that the Church will not allow Jesus to reappear. It is because the Church has taken the Devil’s side in the first of the temptations. They have rejected freedom.
Jesus puts freedom at the heart of his message. It is a free choice whether someone will follow him or not. It is a free choice whether someone will act as Jesus does. It is also a free choice whether someone believes in Jesus at all. But do I have a choice when I believe that grass is green or that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. No, I have no choice about these things because there is no question of doubt. But it is this question that the Grand Inquisitor thinks is the flaw:
“Man seeks to bow down before that which is indisputable, so indisputable that all men at once would agree to the universal worship of it.” (p. 254)
But what could such a thing be? What is indisputable? It certainly isn’t Christianity, unless Christianity becomes a tyranny. When people are forced to believe perhaps because they fear the consequences of expressing their doubt then there is something indisputable.
But here too I think the Grand Inquisitor may be mistaken. He argues that if Christ had accepted the loaves, accepted that stones would be turned into bread, then he would have become indisputable. But Jesus of course did perform miracles. He did multiply loaves when he fed the five thousand. He did change water into wine. Did these things make him indisputable? Far from it. All of these things depended on a miracle. But it is because the story of Jesus involves a miracle that so many doubt it. Why? Because miracles are contrary to nature and science.
The Christian message is always going to be disputable unless it is enforced by the auto da fe. Everything that is important about Christianity involves a contradiction. It is for this reason that it involves a choice. It is not like watching the sun come up in the morning. Here there is no evidence.
Where are there people who believe without question? Some people in the Soviet Union believed what the party told them. They believed that Lenin was almost the equivalent of a god. They believed contrary to reason, because they had no choice. So too where apostasy is punished by death there is no question of freedom of choice in believing. You will believe or you will be killed. But this is not faith at all, but rather compulsion. You can make me believe that the moon is made of green cheese if you put a gun to my head. I will tell you that I believe. Winston Smith finally could believe even that two plus two was five.
But what also is indisputable? We can feel smug about those who are forced to believe things. But we should not feel smug, for many of us too think that there are things in the world that are indisputable. Science for instance. If I even express doubts about climate change then I am a heretic. If I doubt the wisdom of doctors or the wonders of the NHS I am beyond the pale. If I doubt that a man can turn into a woman or that two men can marry I sin against the most modern of faiths. I may not be killed if I express these doubts, but I might lose my job or be arrested for hate speech. Are we so very far away from the inquisition?
The Grand Inquisitor argues that man seeks something indisputable to believe because it is not enough to find something that each individual can bow down to. Rather it is necessary to find “something before which everyone else will also believe in and bow down to, for it must needs be all together” (p. 254).
Christianity is about individual choice, but it is distorted by the demand that everyone must follow. But this can only be done in two ways. Either faith becomes a matter of force and threat or it is about something that does not admit of doubt. Communism and some religions including Christianity have at times depended on threat, even if the threat is mild such as social ostracism. Why are there religious wars? Because we have historically been unwilling to allow people to choose their own faith. A king wanted all of his subjects to believe as he did and so he forced them. This is one form of tyranny. But there is another.
Today in the West, there is a tyranny of ideas. Nice people only believe certain things. These things may be quite unlikely. They may be things that almost no-one believed o100 years ago. They are also things that can be disputed. But the purpose of saying that something is politically correct is to say that the alternative is politically false. It is indisputable that something that is correct ought to be believed and that something that is false ought to be disbelieved. But what are these things that ought to be believed? Are they really indisputable? Not at all. Many people do dispute them. But to try to force people to believe things that are disputable is exactly what the Grand Inquisitor was trying to do. Forcing people to believe the politically correct for fear of social ostracism is no different from forcing people to go to church for fear that the neighbours would twitch their curtains. But eventually people cease to care if you are twitching your curtains. This is happening today. Political correctness is a modern church, but its threat is empty. People no longer care about its threats.
The Grand Inquisitor thinks that Jesus in rejecting the temptation of the Devil rejected the only way to make man bow down to him indisputably. This is the earthly bread. This is making his kingdom of this world. But what of the other temptations?
The Grand Inquisitor argues that there are only three powers capable of holding captive man’s conscience “these powers are miracle, mystery and authority” (p. 255). He argues that Jesus hoped that man “would remain with God, having no need of miracles. But you did not know that as soon as man rejects miracles, he will at once reject God as well” (p. 255).
It is true that Jesus hoped that belief would not depend on miracles. There are those who need to see the marks of the nails. There are those who need to see that the blind can see or the lame can walk. But if faith depended on witnessing miracles there would be precious little faith. It is as if the Inquisitor thinks that Jesus needs continually to perform miracles in order to get people to believe. But the Inquisitor is right I think that to reject miracles is to reject God.
What is it to reject miracles? It is to believe that the world is governed by the laws of nature and that science can and eventually will reveal everything that there is to be known about the universe. The belief in God is the belief that there are important things that science cannot reach and know. It is a completely different world view. It is contrary to reason. In the story of the creation of the world science can find no room for God. In the story of the creation of each individual and in his destruction science can find no room for God. It explains birth in terms of biology and death in terms of destruction. This is a matter of nature. But Christianity involves the belief that God is involved in the creation of the world, that he is involved in the beginning of life and he is involved in death. This is to believe in something that contradicts the laws of nature. It is to believe in miracles.
Sources
Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, Vintage, 1992.
Come back soon to read part 4 of Chapter 10: Grand Inquisitor.