As early as before the First World War, the famous Austrian writer Zweig and the religious philosopher Buber had spent an entire night arguing all night over which writer in the 19th century was still the leader of human thought a hundred years later. Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Zola or Hugo? The next morning, as the sun rose in the east, there were only two people left on their list: one was the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, and the other was Dostoevsky. Zweig and Buber were really heroes, and geniusly foresaw Dostoevsky's modernity and world significance.
Sure enough, since the 20th century, Dostoevsky's influence and status in the field of literature and thought not only surpassed Turgenev and Gogol without a doubt, but even surpassed Old Togol to some extent. stein. Dostoevsky's cultural heritage has become one of the important ideological resources for intellectuals in the 20th century to deal with social changes. In 1928, the German critic Julius Meier-Gradfe wrote in his monograph "Dostoevsky and his works": "Dostoevsky opened up a new world: the many fields he explored. It's all unknown to the predecessors... In the near future, Dostoevsky's influence will be like Goethe or Schiller, or even Shakespeare's. This is not an exaggerated assumption. Only a Russian like him could have such a European influence, and not any fashionable appeal to popularism is allowed in the spiritual values of our time."
What is Dostoevsky's masterpiece? This is a rather controversial issue. "Poor Man" was his famous work and was popular with Russian "Naturalist" theorists and writers at the time, but it did not represent the true style of his thought and creation; "Idiot" was "torture the soul", but it seemed There are too many idealized colors and traces of artificial carving; "Crime and Punishment" is a great novel, but it seems to be a little simple and not rich enough; only his "The Brothers Karamazov" is broad and profound, which is the source of his thoughts and ideas. The concluding work of art deserves to be his masterpiece. The most striking thing in "The Brothers Karamazov" is the story about the "Religious Inquisitor". This story fully reflects the greatness, profoundness and contradiction of Tuo's thought, and left many intriguing stories for future generations. Thinking and Inspiration. Freud believed that Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" was an unprecedented grand novel, especially the "chief justice" interlude narrative in it was one of the pinnacles of world literature. In the preface written by the British novelist Lawrence to the English translation of this fragment of "The Justice", he described his excitement when he read "The Brothers Karamazov": the first two readings were knocked down because the narrative was too real. , the third reading still has the shock of the soul from head to toe. The Russian writer and thinker of the "Silver Age" Berdyaev discussed the theories and thoughts of the "Religious Inquisitor" on freedom in the eighth chapter of "Russian Thought"; Lozanov wrote the monograph "Too Stoevsky's "Justice". Therefore, it is probably the most direct and most fascinating to cut into Tuo's thought from the story of the "Religious Justice".
The story about the "Religious Inquisitor" can be found in the fifth chapter of the second volume of the novel. It is not only an organic part of the novel, but also can be an independent chapter. Karamazov, a provincial landowner in the old Russian period, had four sons: the eldest son, Dmitry, was violent and dissolute; the second son, Ivan, went to college, was good at thinking, and was an atheist; the third son, Alyosha, grew up in a monastery. , by nature kind, pure and upright, humble and gentle; the fourth son Smerdyakov is the illegitimate child left by the old Karamazov after he raped the mad woman Lisa in his early years. . In the end, Smerdyakov, at the instigation of Ivan, finally killed his father, the old Karamazov, and put the blame on Dmitry, because he listened to the theory repeatedly promoted by Ivan: "Since there is no God, what is All can be done.” Ivan does not believe in God, but advocates the implementation of authoritarian rule in the name of God, and the unity of all mankind is realized on the basis of authoritarianism. The main source of Ivan's theory is the story of the "Inquisitor", told by Ivan to his brother Alyosha.
In the 16th century, according to his promise, Jesus descended on the most painful place of mankind - Spain under the rule of the Inquisition. "In the Servi region of Spain, in the most terrifying era of the Inquisition, fires were set up every day in various places to pray to God, and on the beautiful fires, the vicious cultists were burned to death." Jesus came here to heal and save people. , bless mankind. "People came to him with irresistible force, surrounded him, gathered around him, and followed him." The Inquisitor recognized him, arrested him, and told him that he had no right to go down to earth. to interfere with the affairs of the church, because Jesus has given the church the right to "tie and untie." He said to Jesus, "Tomorrow I will judge you and burn you on the fire as one of the most vicious cultists, and those who kiss your feet today will wave at me tomorrow. Don't you know that?" (Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", translated by Geng Jizhi, People's Literature Publishing House, 1981, Vol. 1, p. 154.)
Jesus did not answer, so the chief justice stated his three reasons: 1. When the devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, he refused. This is the old "bread and morality" question. In the view of the chief justice, when people are faced with starvation, they should give food first, and then ask about morality; while Jesus believed that morality comes first and food comes second. Morality is also manifested only when food is scarce. 2. When the devil tempted Jesus to jump from the spire of the temple, he refused, and as a result, he lost the three elements that govern human beings: miracle, mystery, and authority. As long as Jesus jumped from the spire, a miracle was created, a mystery was created, and therefore must have authority. The justices believed that people believed in miracles rather than God, and without miracles, the existence of God is doubtful. 3. Jesus chose only a few powerful "chosen people" to follow him, leaving most of them in the kingdom of sin. Now, all these things that Jesus failed to do, the church has done, the justice said, united the world for Jesus and saved mankind. It rules for Jesus the earthly kingdom that he refused to rule.
Jesus still did not speak. So, the justices began to talk about "freedom" again. He said that Jesus respected human beings so much that he loved them less. He handed over the freedom of "spiritual choice" to human beings, which is tantamount to putting an unbearable burden on human beings, so this "freedom" is "cruel freedom". Humans are born weaker and inferior than Jesus imagined, and they do not deserve freedom at all, and they cannot even understand freedom at all, let alone make reasonable choices in reality. Therefore, in the face of liberty, the weak are unavoidable to sin, and they are worthy of sympathy. The church punished them on behalf of God, suffered for God, sacrificing the ego to complete the ego. The weak are punished, their consciences are purified, and they can go to heaven. So the Inquisition loved them. And because "freedom and equality" cannot coexist, true freedom cannot be equal, and thorough equality will inevitably limit the freedom of others, so in order to enable human beings to obtain true freedom, the church takes back the human rights in the name of God. free. Human beings gained real freedom from this, but the church took all the blame. People can thus die peacefully without suffering. Furthermore, human beings love freedom, but are unwilling to take responsibility. In this way, after the slave has handed over his freedom to the master, he has no burden, so he is free; because the master has taken over the freedom entrusted by the slave, the burden has increased, but he has lost his freedom. Therefore, the slave is freer than the master. That's what the Inquisition did, "bearing the sword of Rome and Caesar" and becoming "the king of the earth, the only king."
Dostoevsky believed that as long as there is freedom, there must be sin. Adam chose to sin because he was free. However, denying liberty on the basis of the evil it may induce only aggravates the evil. Freedom is a test that leads both to suffering and liberation, the basic condition of tragic suffering. This is the secret in the depths of human character. Sin is the tragic path that every man must walk before he can discover himself or God. It is through sin that human beings voluntarily cancel their freedom and finally convert to God.
In the face of the Inquisitor's tirade, Jesus remained silent. At the end of the story, Jesus suddenly walked up to the justice without a word, and silently kissed his bloodless lips. The Chancellor shuddered, opened the door and said, "You go, never come again."
The story is clearly directed at the Catholic Church: the Church of Rome has gone utterly against Christian teachings, degenerating into believers and enforcers of despotism. At the same time, this story is also an exposure and criticism of Eastern despotism: Eastern despotism deprives people of freedom and implements a brutal unity of state and religion. In this story, it can also be said that the Religious Judge symbolizes human reason and its practice, and it pursues the utilitarian goal of this world; Jesus symbolizes human conscience, and conscience is non-utilitarian, and the main function of conscience lies in Correct the biases and extremes of rationality. The contradictory opposition between the Grand Inquisitor and Jesus is also a reflection of the contradiction and opposition between human society and people's hearts. Of course, this story is more important to fully demonstrate the contradictions of Dostoevsky's religious thought: God has so many evils, so he does not exist; without God, everything can be done rashly, such as deception, Hypocrisy, patricide, etc., therefore cannot be without God. If God exists, what is he doing? How useful is he? Tuo hated the devil, but there was some intimacy in his hatred; he loved God, but there was some strangeness in his love. Dostoevsky spent his whole life proving the existence of God, but he failed to do so in the end. And it is precisely this that proves the greatness and immortality of Dostoevsky.
If we compare the three famous Russian novelists of the nineteenth century, we may draw a brief picture: Tolstoy always had a cold sympathy for us, and he demanded that we be noble in character. , asking us to sacrifice a little here so that we may suffer less there in the future; Chekhov often looked at us with pity and asked, "Oh, my friend, why do you live like this?" And Dostoyevs Keizer knew that people live the way they think because they think, and that they won't change their minds unless they're in a dead end. Therefore, he asked fiercely: "Do you know who you are?" Indeed, this is a question that disturbs people's souls, and it is because of this that people do not love him, even hate him, but also You have to respect him and admire him.
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