Dostoyevsky: Does God Expect Too Much From Us? (The Grand Inquisitor) (2/4)
Description
Within The Brothers Karamazov is a chapter so powerful, vivid, and shocking that it has since impacted the course of Western Civilization. The chapter, called The Grand Inquisitor, expresses Dostoyevsky’s worst fears about the human condition, and discusses how man desperately wants to give his free will to any tyrant who will give him food and existential security, regardless of whether that tyrant is the church or the state. In this fascinating chapter, The Grand Inquisitor declares that Jesus Christ has actually acted cruelly towards man for giving him free will, when he knows so many are too weak to follow Christ. Is that true? Does God expect too much from mere mortals? Are his rules, precepts and teachings simply too hard? Or are Christ’s commandments actually the gateway to a relationship with God? Perhaps even the road to virtue, even the destination of peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control is about the journey rather than the destination.
Episode Notes
- The featured oil on canvas is called Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi (1837–1887). It was painted in 1883. I chose it because I think it perfectly depicts Grushenka: beautiful, mischevous and immoral. Grushenka is a central character in The Brothers Karamazov because she directly instigates the feud between Dimitri and Fyodor that leads to critical circumstantial evidence in Dimitri’s murder trial.
- The featured piece is Piano Concerto No. 1 (Op. 23) – Allegro Non Troppo E Molto Maestoso by Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), a Russian composer and contemporary of Dostoyevsky.