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The two chapters below are the best thing in this novel, which is quite an achievement. Does anyone know them sufficiently well to discuss them? They are available online at this site:
-Rebellion
-The Grand Inquisitor
I promise you won’t regret reading them.
I'm 57 years old and I read this book in my 20's, a time when I was getting stoned and drunk every day. Instead of going to my college classes I spent my time drinking, smoking, and hanging out in the library, and there out of boredom I read this book. I tried reading crime and punishment in high school but the book totally frustrated me, and this book only intrigued me because I had seen the movie recently. When I got to those 2 chapters, my life changed, It has been the most overwhelming reading experience of my life.
I had already turned my back on God, my family, everything, and then to read in print many of the things I felt about God really grabbed me by the throat. I still love these two chapters and from them in a most amazing way I have regained my faith. LIke Ivan I don't want to understand anything, but from this book I understood one thing, what blind faith means. I had no concept of it, for like Ivan I had too many questions and the answers were not enough.
I would have to relate my life story to express how these chapters, in which I include the previous chapter, captured my very soul. I can't argue any of Ivan's points, I agree with all of them, and it's a mystery to me how I came back to God. But I did.
I knew from the back of the book that these two chapters presented one of the greatest arguments against Christianity ever presented. When I finally reached them, I read them slowly, carefully, and several times. Then I decided I agreed with the back-of-the-book writers. Dostoevsky put into words many ideas that I had touched on in my mind vaguely and superficially. His point about the freedom that Jesus provided by not giving clear and definitive physical evidence resonated strongly with me. So many people I see are like those described by the Grand Inquisitor. Faithfully following something they have not actually thought about and through.
Now, what is the most interesting about this whole argument is right after these chapters, Dostoevsky launches into a description of Father Zossima's life. I think Zossima's life is sort of a Bizarro Ivan or vice-versa. Both have strong, clear-thinking minds but one has gotten bogged down in ideas and philosophy while the other has along with studying ideas and philosophy has devoted his life to helping others. He has given Alyosha the example that leads him to say at the end of the book, "How good life is when one does something good and just!" Zossima is selfless while Ivan is wrapped up in himself.
Dostoevsky obviously does not trust the church as a reliable place to derive your values and personal beliefs from. He feels that our personal beliefs are just that: personal. There is a standard of right and wrong and it is up to ourselves to strive for doing good and just things. Blindly trusting the church will not provide us with a full life.