Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor (a Gnostic Fever Dream) (Part 3)

Is Freedom something that brings happiness? In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ***Grand Inquisitor*** chapter of “The Brothers Karamazov” it is suggested that Freedom is something that people “***in their simplicity and innate lawlessness cannot even comprehend, which they dread and fear–for nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them***.”

In this chapter, Christ returns to sixteenth-century Spain during the Inquisition, only to be arrested by the Grand Inquisitor. The Inquisitor argues that Christ made a terrible mistake by giving humanity freedom, because most people cannot bear the responsibility and uncertainty that accompany it. By rejecting Satan's three temptations, Christ refused to secure humanity's obedience through mi