Dostoevsky: Grand Inquisitor, Assessment Example

Freedom and responsibility as portrayed by Dostoevsky in the Grand Inquisitor

In the philosophy of life, today, man has the desire for money, for bread, and for every other desire of the heart. These desires have led man to exchange their attainment with freedom. The Grand Inquisitor comes in and promises man everything in exchange for freedom, just as Satan promised Christ while in the desert.

The first temptation of Christ, to kneel before Satan in exchange for bread clearly explains the agony men pass through today. If one goes ahead and feeds hungry men, the grand inquisitor says that all this men will mistake the feeder for Lord, who is the Giver, and Provider of life. Upon leaving, these men once again left craving. Christ thus requires men to worship Thee alone, who banned the earthly bread and rejected it for freedom sake and the dependence of the heavenly bread.

The second temptation of Christ leads to Dostoevsky explaining the issue of “free conscience”. The grand inquisitor says that man desires something to live for, and not only to live. The choice of what to live for, virtually chosen by man out of his free conscience, and his awareness of ethical from evil. This choice has led man to choose peace, or even death instead of freedom. Christ then requires man to lift to talk to God in prayers, where man has lost faith and believes in what he can wait to receive.

The third temptation makes Dostoevsky describe the desire of man to have the universal happiness, the willingness to unite brings stress to modern democracy. It is only upon submitting to some powerful being that man’s freedom renounced.

In conclusion, today man has abandoned their freedom of choice and responsibility to the grand inquisitor. They have given up their freedom, and stopped believing in God as the provider.