Ivan Karamazov

Ivan made me cry today, while talking with his brother Alexei. He gives several examples of cruelty to children, to make a point. I hate reading about cruelty to children, or hearing about it, or seeing it.

Ivan first addresses suffering and who is to blame:

All that my puny Euclidean, earthling's mind can grasp is that there is such a thing as suffering, that no one can be blamed for it, that quite uncomplicatedly cause precedes effect, that everything that flows finds its proper level--but then all that is just Euclidean gibberish, and, being aware of that fact, I cannot agree to live by it! What good does it do me to know that no one is to blame, that every effect is determined by a cause, which itself is an effect of some other cause and so on, and that, therefore, no one should ever be blamed for anything? For, even though I may know it, I still need retribution.

The next point Ivan makes is that there's no way to atone for the suffering of an innocent child. There's no way that by children suffering some imbalance is corrected. It is not just. A mother couldn't forgive her son's torturer on his behalf.

He then asks his brother Alexei if he would build an edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy and would find peace and tranquility, only the edifice is built on the torture of just one of these innocent children.

At that point, Alexei brings up the one person who could do the forgiving required. This is the segue into the famous story of the Grand Inquisitor. I actually have the story as a pamphlet, probably for school study, but I understand it better now, having the conversation that leads up to Ivan's point about Christ's relationship to the people. It has more meaning for me now.