Editor’s Note: “Reflections On…” is a new feature in the journal. The purpose of this column is to provide thoughtful reflections on classic literature, film, or music as relevant to our issue theme and Conversations overarching theme of promoting Christian spiritual formation.
The Brothers Karamazov is a polyphonic novel that displays the architectonic grandeur of a Gothic cathedral. Dostoevsky explores the souls of his characters, ranging from the depths of depravity to the heights of exaltation, from meanness to the nobility of which the ambivalent human spirit is capable. Taken together, the three brothers form a composite hero, constituting the body, the mind, and the soul. They represent three dimensions that include physical experience (Dmitri), intellectual reason (Ivan), and intuitive faith (Alyosha). This fragmented collective hero reveals the tragic fission of the fallen soul and illustrates how the division of the family is symptomatic of and largely responsible for the loss of a binding moral idea in contemporary society.
For me, the most artistic and controversial section of The Brothers Karamazov is the chapter concerning the Grand Inquisitor. Here Ivan rejects God, and therefore real love. Ivan says, “I don’t accept this world of God’s, and, although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by him I don’t and cannot accept.” He goes on to say, “I could never understand how one can love one’s neighbors. It’s just one’s neighbors, to my mind, that one can’t love, though one might love those at a distance.” He argues that this idealized love is not realistic or possible. He continues, “One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it is almost impossible.” He adds, “People talk sometimes about bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beast; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically, so artfully cruel.”
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