The Grand Inquisitor

I was excited to hear Elder Clark Gilbert quote from The Brothers Karamazov—the literary masterpiece by Fyodor Dostoevsky—in his recent talk in general conference. Elder Gilbert said this: “Consider Dostoevsky’s literary description of Christ and the Grand Inquisitor. After repeatedly being denounced, the Savior simply kissed His accuser with no further response.” This is found in chapter 5 of book 5 where Ivan, the intellectual brother, tells his younger brother Alyosha of a “poem” he wrote imagining that the Savior came and visited the authorities of the Church at the time of the inquisition in Spain in the 16^th century. The Savior came among the poor people and they immediately recognized Him. “The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burns in His heart, light and power shine from His eyes, and their radiance, shed on the people, stirs their hearts with responsive love. He holds out His hands to them, blesses them, and a healing virtue comes from contact with Him, even with His garments. An old man in the crowd, blind from childhood, cries out, ‘O Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!’ and, as it were, scales fall from his eyes and the blind man sees Him.” As He healed one who was dead, “The cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken eyes.” He did not want Jesus there and had Him arrested and put in prison. That night the Grand Inquisitor came to the prison and spoke at length to Jesus, telling Him that they were now devoted to the “the wise and dread spirit” (Satan). He went through the three temptations that the Savior faced from the devil and explained why the Savior was wrong in His response to each of them.

One of his main arguments of the Grand Inquisitor was that Christ erroneously gave the people freedom when He should have given them bread as implied in the first temptation. Matthew recorded the original scene this way: “And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:3-4). In speaking about this the cardinal said to Jesus, “Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down to Thee alone—the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom. In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner; give bread, and man will worship thee, for nothing is more certain than bread.” The Grand Inquisitor argued that the vast majority people could not endure the freedom Christ gave them, that they were not capable of doing with it what Jesus wanted with it. He continued, “Thou mayest indeed point with pride at those children of freedom, of free love, of free and splendid sacrifice for Thy name. But remember that they were only some thousands; and what of the rest? And how are the other weak ones to blame, because they could not endure what the strong have endured? How is the weak soul to blame that it is unable to receive such terrible gifts? Canst Thou have simply come to the elect and for the elect? But if so, it is a mystery and we cannot understand it. And if it is a mystery, we too have a right to preach a mystery, and to teach them that it’s not the free judgment of their hearts, not love that matters, but a mystery which they must follow blindly, even against their conscience. So we have done. We have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority. And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift that had brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts.” The Grand Inquisitor argued that the people could not endure agency and could only be happy if they gave up that freedom to be controlled and fed. Satan’s plan of course was to remove freedom, but that was not what the Father or the Son wanted for us. Lehi declared, “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil” (2 Nephi 2:27).

            President Holland once spoke of the Grand Inquisitor’s arguments this way during remarks about religious freedom at a university: “In Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, we find one of literature’s most enduring meditations on the complexity of freedom. In the section featuring ‘the Grand Inquisitor,’ a clergyman interrogates the Savior after he has returned to earth only to be arrested by the church’s authorities. ‘For the Grand Inquisitor, what Jesus brought into the world was freedom,’ writes Simon Critchley, ‘specifically the freedom of faith…. And this is where we perhaps begin to sympathize with the Grand Inquisitor. He says that for 1500 years, Christians have been wrestling with this freedom. The Grand Inquisitor [says that he himself] when younger, also went into the desert, lived on roots and locusts, and tried to attain the perfect freedom espoused by Jesus. “But now it is ended and over for good,” he adds, “After fifteen centuries of struggle, the Church has at last vanquished freedom, and has done so to make men happy.”’” President Holland then commented, “[The Grand Inquisitor] yields to the thought that the truth which sets us free is too demanding, too insistent, ultimately a bridge too far. But as Christ himself taught, so say we—that although freedom is demanding it is not ‘too demanding.’ God has optimistically endowed humans with both the ability and responsibility to make choices with the hope, indeed the confidence, that we will ultimately choose that which benefits the individual and the larger society in which those individuals live.”

            I searched and found that there was one other time this chapter from The Brothers Karamazov was referenced in general conference. Elder Maxwell said this in 2001: “Unfortunately, breaking the seventh commandment is made easier when clever sophists persuade some that whatsoever individuals do is really ‘no crime’ (Alma 30:17)…. Dostoevsky has one of his characters say, ‘The ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger.” Those words were spoken by the Grand Inquisitor, arguing, similar to Satan’s original plan, that freedom should be removed and they should control the people by meeting their hunger. But, of course, Christ will not control us, and He has given us and will never take from us the freedom to choose, even if that means some will use that freedom poorly: “Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life” (2 Nephi 10:23). The scene in The Brothers Karamazov, and the part which Elder Gilbert referenced, ends this way: “When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all His answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him: ‘Go, and come no more ... come not at all, never, never!’ And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away.” He would not seek to control the Grand Inquisitor and He will not control us, but He loved the persecutor perfectly despite his perverted criticisms. Christ left him, as He does for each of us, to choose for himself.