This week, I was tasked with reading Book VI of The Brothers Karamazov, as well as Chapter 6 of The Meaning of Life by Frank, and II.3 of Dugin. In this blog, I want to first begin by analyzing a quote from The Brothers Karamazov: “Very different is the monastic way. Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet they alone constitute the way to real and true freedom: I cut away my superfluous and unnecessary needs, through obedience I humble and chasten my vain and proud will, and thereby, with God’s help, attain freedom of spirit, and with that, spiritual rejoicing!” (Dostoevsky 169). I was enthralled by this part of the book. In this Zosima delivers this speech while examining the essence of the Russian monk. It highlights the stark disparity between Zosima’s perspectives and those of Ivan. Whereas Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor regards free will with bitterness and disdain, Zosima views it as a cause for celebration. The Grand Inquisitor asserts that humanity should have been bestowed with bread and authority, while Zosima contends that they should relinquish material security—through obedience, fasting, and prayer—to attain “genuine and authentic freedom.” According to Zosima, genuine freedom holds significant importance in goodness because it lends significance to the decision to embrace faith. If individuals are compelled to believe in God without choice, faith becomes hollow—only through the conduit of free will can faith transcend mere default inclination. Consequently, Zosima out rightly refutes the Grand Inquisitor’s—and Ivan’s—perception of human frailty, fostering optimism that, through spiritual liberty, humanity can find redemption. Furthermore, in comparing this with Frank’s The Meaning of Life, one can truly see the dialect arising within the main novel on the purpose of God when it comes to freedom for mankind. In Chapter 6, Frank writes, “We cannot identify ourselves with God; but neither can we separate ourselves from and oppose ourselves to Him, for at that moment we would disappear, turn into nothing.” (Frank 75). There is a sense of God-Man relationship that is intrinsically inherent within humans. This specific line is essentially a biblical rejection of free will for humanity, but more of a plea for faith security, such as what the Grand Inquisitor was arguing. But throughout The Brothers Karamazov, as in the representation of Ivan and The Meaning of Life, both authors portray free will as a curse and something that is impossible, one that particularly plagues those characters who have chosen to doubt God’s existence. Free will can be seen as a curse because according to Ivan, it places a crippling burden on humanity to voluntarily reject the securities, comforts, and protections of the world in favor of the uncertainties and hardships of religious belief, and according to Frank, there is a relationship between spirit and mankind that is symbiotic and cannot be destroyed. Nevertheless, the condition of free will is finally shown to be a necessary component of the simple and satisfying faith practiced by Zosima, and the novel’s optimistic conclusion suggests that perhaps people are not as weak as Ivan and Frank believes them to be.
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