Category Archives: Books

The Grand Inquisitor and Faith without End

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

In the novel The Brothers Karamazov there is a very interesting story about the Grand Inquisitor. That was the head of the Inquisition. The story is part of Ivan Karmazov’s religious quest. This is a deeply religious story that challenges much of what we think about God and religion. It is a must read.

Ivan tells the story of the 16th century for in those days, “it was usual to bring  heavenly powers down to earth” and people “staged plays in which the Virgin, angels, saints, Christ, and even God Himself were brought out onto the stage.”

Ivan’s story is one of those stories and it is brought down to life like that. He brings God to life. As an example, Ivan mentions a story where the Virgin Mary, “the Mother of God visits hell.” Can you imagine how such a story would have disturbed people in the 16th century?  Ivan’s story was as disturbing as that.

In hell Mary sees sinners being tortured and her guide, the Archangel Michael, tells her God has forgotten about these sinners. The sinners are floating on lake of fire and try to swim out of hell to no avail. “The Holy Virgin kneels before the throne of God and beseeches Him to forgive all those she has seen in hell everyone of them without exception.” We must imagine this.  The Mother of God, who in the 16th century was worshipped nearly as much as God himself, falls on her knees to beg for God to forgive these poor sinners. They actually argue about it.  Have they not suffered enough already?  How long must they suffer? After all, 15 centuries have passed since men tortured his son on the cross. After all, 15 centuries earlier Jesus had promised he would return quickly, even going so far as to suggest that some of the people who heard him speak would still be around.

In the end, the Mother of Jesus wins a concession from God. We might think it a pretty minor concession.  God agrees that for one day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday each year all torture should cease. Yet the sinners are overjoyed at this brief reprieve. Yet humans have waited for 15 centuries without losing faith. And they still have the “same love” for God.

People prayed to Him every day but for 15 centuries God appeared to some lucky few, but he did nothing to relieve the torture of sinners. This was a mighty stern God. And yet the people loved Him and continued their faith in Him.

This reminds me of a dog who continues to love his master even if his master constantly beats him.  Dogs show undying devotion. So do some people.

The Great Rebellion

Books, Classic Books, Rebel, religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

One of the great themes in the novel The Brothers Karamazov is the problem of evil. In other words, is the fact that evil exists in the world proof that God does not exist. If God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, as most believe, how could God allow evil to exist? Sice evil exists, it is argued, God cannot exist.

 

In the novel, Ivan Karamazov says “I’m not properly equipped to deal with matters that are not of this world.” In other words, he cannot fathom how this world makes sense and finds no solace in saying it is mysterious and will all make sense when we are in the world that follows. To him that is no answer to the problem of evil. It is not good enough to say we will learn in the next world why evil was necessary. Yet, amazingly, he accepts that it makes sense, even though it does not appear that way. This is hard to untangle. As Ivan tells his brother, Alyosha,

“I would advise you too Alyosha never to worry about these matters, least of all whether He exists or not. All such problems are quite unsuitable for a mind created to conceive only three dimensions. And so not only do I readily accept God, but I also accept his wisdom and his purpose, of which we really know absolutely nothing, the divine order of things, the meaning of life, and the eternal harmony into which we are all to be refused.”

 

Even though we don’t know these things we must accept them. Ivan says, “I believe in his Word.”  In other words, he has faith. I think that is what he means. What else could he mean?  Yet, there is something he does not accept.  As Ivan says,

“I do not accept this God-made world, although I know that it exists. I absolutely refuse to admit its existence. I want you to understand that it is not God that I refuse to accept, but the world that he has created.—what I do not accept and cannot accept is the God-created world.”

 

What Ivan cannot accept is a world in which children suffer. How could a loving God create such a world?  And if it is necessary for a child to suffer—even just one child—Ivan cannot accept that. Yet Ivan, despite that,  amazingly has faith. Or at least that is what I call it. Dostoevsky does not use that word. He uses a different word, “trust.” That might be a better word. As Ivan says,

“…let me make it clear that, like a babe, I trust that the wounds will heal, and the scars will vanish, that the sorry and ridiculous spectacle of man’s disagreements and clashes will disappear like a pitiful mirage, like the sordid invention of a puny,  microscopic, Euclidian, human brain, and that in the end, in the universal finale, at the moment universal harmony is achieved, something so magnificent will take place that it will satisfy every human heart, allay all indignation, pay for all human crimes, for all the blood shed by men, and justify everything that has happened to men.  Well that day may come to pass—but I personally still do not accept this world. I refuse to accept it!”

 

That is the great rebellion of Ivan Karamazov. Nothing can make him accept a world in which a child must spend an entire night freezing in a shed at night until he dies.  Nothing can justify that in Ivan’s eyes. Even if it is a miracle. This is the magnificent rebellion of Ivan Karamazov. The only rebellion that compares to it is the rebellion of Huck Finn who will go to hell rather than give up his friend Jim. These, I think are the two most astounding rebellions in all of English literature and they are what makes this novel and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the two greatest novels ever! Both novels embody magnificent rebellions against what they find on their religious quest.

The Problem of Evil: Tortured Children

Books, Classic Books, religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

One of the greatest problems in the history of religious thought is the problem of evil.  In its simplest form it goes like this: How can God exist if evil exists? If evil exists that means there is no God. Dostoevsky deals with that problem in The Brothers Karamazov in a remarkable way.

In a lengthy discussion with his highly religious brother Alyosha ,  Ivan Karamazov—the man of reason—considers the problem through a number of case in which parents torture their young children. These adults “have a passion for inflicting pain on children.” These people are kind and gentle to adults, but enjoy torturing children. Ivan says,

 “They even love the children because of the tortures they inflict upon them. What excites them is the utter helplessness of the little creatures. The angelic trustfulness of the child who has nowhere to turn for help—yes that’s what sets the vicious blood of the torturer afire.”

What could be more evil than such a parent? How is this possible? It seems incomprehensible. No, it is incomprehensible. But Ivan has collected stories of this phenomenon. He even claims “many people have this trait.”

Ivan described the actions of the little girl’s parents this way in horrible detail:

“…these refined parent parents subjected their five-year-old girl to all kinds of torture. They beat her, kicked her, flogged her, for no reason that they themselves knew of. The child’s whole body was covered with bruises. Eventually they devised a new refinement. Under the pretext that the child dirtied her bed (as though a five-year-old deep in angelic sleep could be punished for that), they forced her to eat excrement, smearing it all over her face. And it was the mother who did it! And then that woman would lock her little daughter up in the outhouse until morning, and she did so even on the coldest nights, when it was freezing. Just imagine the woman being able to sleep with the child’s cries coming from that infamous outhouse! Imagine the little creature unable to understand what is happening to her, beating her sore little chest with her tiny fist, weeping hot, unresentful, meek tears and begging ‘gentle Jesus’ to help her and all this happening in that icy, dark stinking place! Do you understand this nonsensical thing, my dear friend, my brother you novice who is so eager to spend his life in service  of God? Tell me, do you understand the purpose of that absurdity? Who needs it and why was it created? They say that man could not do without it on earth, for otherwise he would not be able to learn the difference between good and evil. But I say I’d rather not know about their damned good and evil than pay such a terrible price for it.  I feel that all universal knowledge is not worth that child’s tears  when she was begging ‘gentle Jesus’ to help her! I’m not even talking about the suffering of adults: they at least have eaten their apple of knowledge, so the hell with them. But its different when it comes to children.”

 

I feel that Dostoevsky has put the problem of evil as strongly as it could be put. What in this world could possible make those tears of that freezing child worth it? Ivan suggests nothing could. Do you disagree? Who could possibly disagree. How could a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God permit that to happen? Even truth is not worth it. Even freedom is not worth it? The entire world is not worth it.

Ivan also says there is no way out. He says no remote future harmony is good enough either to justify it.

 Ivan asked his angelic brother Alyosha what he thought of this mystery.  His answer, “I want to suffer too.” Is that an answer? It is not a rational answer as far as I can see. Yet, compassion, fellow feeling is the only possible response that makes any sense. It can’t possibly justify what happened.  But no logic can provide a satisfactory answer. No reason can provide an answer. It would only be what Ivan calls “Euclidian gibberish.” What faith could provide a justification? What retribution could provide a solution? Personally, I see no way out.

The Big Ideas

Books, civilization, Classic Books, Philosophy/Ideas, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Truth Seeking

 

The Brothers Karamazov is often called a book of ideas.  In some respect that is an apt description.

In the novel The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky asks big questions.  Does God exist?  If not, can we do whatever we want? And Ivan asks Alyosha the question that is so vital to him, does Alyosha love life more than the meaning of life? Alyosha’s answer is surprising but clear. “love should come before logic…Only then will man be able to understand the meaning of life.” So he tells his brother he should “bring back to life those dead of yours.” He was referring to the great thinkers and artists. And that brings him back to civilization and the eternal verities. The big questions, the big ideas that drive Ivan.

Ivan loves life and loves ideas. He is passionate about both, though usually we see only his love of ideas. Ideas excite him. Ideas drive his life. He doesn’t just want to chase  wine, women and song, but the big ideas, what he calls “the eternal verities.”

Ivan realizes that his younger brother Alyosha, is also driven by ideas, the spiritual ideas, for he too is on a religious quest. That is why he went to the monastery. That is why he has made Elder Zosima his mentor.  He wants to find the spiritual path. As Ivan says, “we callow youths, we have first of all to settle the eternal verities.” Usually, it is often thought, the big ideas must be settled by wise old men, but Ivan disagrees.

What are these big ideas?  He tells Alyosha

“those eternal verities such as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. And those who do not believe in God will bring in socialism, anarchy, and the reorganization of society according to a new scheme…But it really boils down to the same damned thing—they’re all the same old questions, they’re just approached from a different angle. And there are many, many extremely original boys who spend their whole time nowadays debating these eternal questions.”

 

And Alyosha admits to Ivan that these are the most important problems, especially for Russians. But Ivan says what really surprises him is not that they say if God does not exist, they would have to invent God, which is what Voltaire said, but rather that such an idea would have ever occurred to “a vicious wild animal like man. For that concept is so holy, so touching, and so wise that it does man too much honour. For my part I’ve long since stopped worrying about who invented whom—-God  man or man God.” There’s a big question for you.

There is a lot to be passionate about in these ideas. And the Karmazov brothers, are passionate about those ideas and that makes for fascinating reading. And a fascinating life.

 

The Appetite for Life

Books, civilization, Classic Books, Nature, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

Ivan Karamazov in the novel Tthe Brothers Karamazov is the epitome of the man of reason, but this does not prevent him from knowing the joy of passion and love. He is also, presumably, the nihilist that does not believe in God, and hence can do anything he desires without moral consequences, but nonetheless he knows the importance of nature, life, love, and morality. He is the one who says if God does not exist, everything is permitted. But, As Ivan told his much more saintly brother, Alyosha,

 

“… even if I believed that life was pointless, lost faith in the woman I loved, lost faith in the order of things, or even became convinced that I was surrounded by a disorderly, evil, perhaps devil-made chaos, even if I were completely overcome by the horrors of human despair—I would still want to live on. Once I start drinking from this cup, I won’t put it down until I have emptied it to the last drop…many times I’ve asked myself  if there is anything in this world that would crush my frantic indecent appetite for life and have decided that nothing of the sort exists. This appetite for life is often branded as despicable by various  spluttering moralists and even more so by poets. It is of course the outstanding features of us Karamazovs.”

 

His appetite for life has overwhelmed his nihilism. Even though he is passionate about ideas, as Dostoevsky himself was, Ivan says,

“…so I want to live and go on living, even if its contrary to the rules of logic. Even if I do not believe in the divine order of things, the sticky young leaves emerging from their buds in the spring are dear to my heart; so is the blue sky and so are some human beings even though I often don’t know why I like them; I may still even admire an act of heroism with my whole heart, perhaps out of habit, although I may have long since stopped believing in heroism.”

 

Besides loving the world, including that world of nature he so glowingly described, the green world that emerges from its buds, he also loves the world of civilization—western civilization exemplified by Europe. It is where he finds meaning in a world that often seems meaningless. As Ivan said,

“I’ve been wanting to go to Western Europe and that’s where I’ll go from here. Oh  I know that going there is like going to a graveyard, I tell you!  The dead who lie under the stones there are dear to me, and every gravestone speaks of their ardent lives, of human achievements, of their passionate faith in the purpose of life, the truth they believed in, the learning they defended—and I know in advance that I’ll prostrate myself and kiss those stones and shed tears on them, although the whole time I’ll be fully aware that it’s only a graveyard and nothing more. And I’ll not be weeping out of despair, but simply because I’ll be happy shedding those tears. I’ll get drunk on my own emotion. I love those sticky little leaves in the spring and the blue sky, that’s what! You don’t love those things with reason, with logic, you love them with your innards, with your belly, and that’s how you love your own first youthful strength.”

 

After this magnificent speech in which he makes clear that he too is filled with passion, passion that includes the mind, includes intelligence, he asks Alyosha, his younger holy brother who has been preparing to become a priest, if this makes sense. And Alyosha says, “I understand only too well,” proving that he is also a Karamazov. All of them are filled with passion. All of them have this astonishing “appetite for life.” Even Alyosha, the near holy man, a near ascetic, says, “I’ve always thought that before anything else people should learn to love life in this world.”

He is no ascetic monk. He is a Karamazov.

 

 

Joy to the World

Books, Classic Books, reason, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

Dmitri Karamazov, like his father, is a man of deep sensuality and near infinite passion. He drinks the joy of the earth. The joy of sacred nature in all its manifestations. And the joy of God. For Dmitri, sensuality is near divine. It is where his religious quest leads him. Many see the divine and the sensual in conflict but not Dmitri. His religious quest is for the love of Grushenka or is it the love of Katrina? Sometimes it is very hard to tell. He seems to be in love with both women at the same time.

 

Dmitri is sad for his holy brother, Alyosha, because “it’s such a pity you really don’t know what exaltation is.” I am not sure at all that Dmitri is right about that. I will come back to this after we consider how Alyosha and the young boys held hands at the funeral of their young friend Ilyusha. He came every bit as close to exaltation as Dmitri did, but in a different way. And an important way as well. And he exalted in it too.

 

Dmitri finds joy in the sensual. Like his father he was deeply sensual.  So, he starts his confession with Schiller’s Hymn or Ode to Joy.  The joy is sacred. This poem was the basis for Dmitri’s strange confession. Many think a sensualist like Dmitri should confess, so in a weird sense he does confess, but he does not regret.

Ivan Karamazov, sees the world through his intellect. He is driven by reason, but in a way that shows reason can be passionate too. In that sense, Dostoevsky is like Saul Bellow.  His brother Dmitri sees the world through the body.  And we will get to Alyosha. He is different than both brothers. He is studying to be a priest.  Alyosha understands and does not disparage or even criticize his brother’s approach to the divine. He is not judgmental.

Reminding me of the spirituality of indigenous North Americans, Schiller in his poem puts it this way:

“Man must enter an alliance

With eternal Mother Earth”

 

Dmitri starts his “confession” by eliciting Schiller, but as a sensualist he has trouble with this idea of divine. To him the relationship should be more sexual and this confuses him. Dmitri says, “I don’t know how I could possibly enter that eternal alliance with Mother Earth. I don’t kiss Mother Earth.  And in a directly sexual, allusion, he says, “I don’t plow her soil.”  As a result of his confusion, “everything in this world is a puzzle.”

Dmitri then deals with his dilemma in this remarkable way:

“…because I’m a Karamazov, because if I must plunge into the abyss, I’ll go head first, feet in the air. I’ll even find a certain pleasure in falling in such a humiliating way. I’ll even think that it’s a beautiful exit for a man like me. And, so in the very midst of my degradation, I suddenly intone a hymn. Even if I must be damned, even if I’m low and despicable, I must be allowed to kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded; and even if  I may be following in the devil’s footsteps. I am still Your son, O Lord, and I love You and feel the joy without which the world cannot be”.

 

Then he adds a verse from Schiller:

“Joy eternal pours its fires

In the soul of God’s creation,

And its sparkle then inspires

Life’s mysterious fermentation…

All things drink with great elation

Mother Nature’s milk of joy.

Plant and beast and man and nation

Sweetness of her breast enjoy,

To man prostrated in the dust,

Joy brings friends and cheering wine;

Gives the insects sensual lust,

Angels—happiness divine.”

 

As he read this tears were flowing, and even the eyes of his holy brother, Alyosha’s were “glistening.”

Dmitri also realizes that to live like this is difficult and even dangerous. He says he is an insect. One of those filled with what Schiller called “sensual lust.” And he said that lust lives in Alyosha too.  For he is a Karamazov even though he is holy. Even though he is his “angel brother.” Alyosha is more traditionally religious than either of his two brothers or their father, but he is still a Karamazov. That sensual lust is in all of them. That is his confession.

Dmitri warns his brother Alyosha that this will “stir up storms.”  “Because “sensuality is a storm, even more than a storm. Beauty is a terrifying thing.”  Dmitri warns his brother that “a man with a noble heart and a superior intelligence may start out with Madonna as his ideal and end up with Sodom as his ideal.” That is the risk for sensualists like the Karamazovs. All of them.  “What the head brands as shameful may appear as sheer beauty to the heart,” Dmitri tells his brother. He adds, “the terrible thing is that beauty is not only frightening, but mystery as well. That’s where God and the devil join battle, and their battlefield is the heart of man.”

 

A twisted Business: The Absurdity of Love

Artificial Intelligence, Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

 

One of the recurring themes of the novel The Brothers Karamazov  is the absurdity of love. Katerina loves Dmitri, and maybe Ivan, his brother,  who also loves her. Mrs. Khokhlakovs, not the most reliable of guides since she seems to lack all sense, even though she is rich, says “they’re both throwing away their lives for no good reason; they are perfectly aware of it and actually enjoying it.” Sometimes in the novel it is very difficult to discern who loves whom. Or whether the emotion is love or hate.

But immediately Dmitri abandons Katerina for Grushenka instead. Even though he still loves Katerina. Both Dmitri and his father love the same woman—Grushenka. And perhaps Dmitri and his brother Ivan also love the same woman—Katerina. It is confusing to say the least.  That causes problems and sets the novel in motion.

Grushenka said she would be “the god to whom Dmitri will pray.” That brings the religious quest to an entirely new level. And Ivan, the man of reason, even tells Katerina that he approves of this twisted business, even though it seems so absurd.

Lise loves Alyosha and Alyosha loves her. But she can’t believe this is possible. And nothing seems to happen as a result of this professed love. It is still-born.

The loves in the novel are as crazy as religions. It was all a “twisted business” and “a twisted ecstasy.” Just like religion.

On it surface  the novel is an absurd  love farce and a murder mystery. And. yet it is a great novel. One of the greatest involving a profound religious quest.

Katerina loves (and hates) Grushenka and yet tries to keep her away from Dmitri. Dmitri and Ivan at one point nearly fight over Katerina. For a while Grushenka and Katerina love each other, even though they were competing for the same man,  but quickly those loves break into a thousand tiny shards. In all of this heartbreak where does the truth lie? Obviously, in this twisted business it is impossible to find the truth. It is the result of the “violent and conflicting passions of the Karamazovs.” Particularly “when it is possible to fall in love and to hate at the same time.”A twisted Business  And particularly when those passions involve God. Another twisted business.

 

Love and Hate

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

 

The novel The Brothers Karamazov is a novel of ideas and passions.  To Dostoevsky  they are interrelated.  Ideas are believed (or not) with passion. One of those ideas that is explored in the novel is love.

A curious aspect of the novel is how closely connected love and hate are.  Dostoevsky does not see them as opposites. They are really two sides of the same coin.  As Dmitri said about Katerina “I stared at her with a terrifying hatred that is only a hair’s breadth from the maddest most desperate love.” It is just like “ice burning my forehead like a flame.”  Dmitri asks his brother “Can you understand Alyosha that there are moments of ecstasy in which we could kill ourselves.”

Dmitri also tells Alyosha “Falling in love with someone doesn’t mean loving that person. It’s possible to fall in love and hate at the same time.”

Dmitri can passionately love 2 women at the same time. Katerina and Grushenko. Of course that makes things very difficult.

Often the loves resemble hate. Even the lovers sometimes fail to see the love. The love between Dmitri and Katerina are like that. “It was a hysterical twisted love made up of offended pride, a love that resembled revenge more than love.” Dostoevsky says, “They were like two enemies desperately in love.” Dmitri tells Katerina “I swear to you, I loved you while I hated you.”

Grushenka  tells  Dmitri to forgive her because she loved him but deliberately made him suffer. How is that possible?   She tells him, “I made you all suffer just out of sheer viciousness” and I “drove your old man insane.” It reminds me of what Shakespeare’s King Lear said, “We are to the gods as flies to wanton boys. They kill us for their sport.” These twisted loves are so crazy that Grushenka says If I were God I’d forgive everyone.”

And  in he world of Dostoevsky all of these contradictions can be true, in some sense, in the furnace of the Karamazov’s passion. Somehow, in some very strange way, it makes a kind of sense.

Dmitri begs Grushenka to forgive him for “ruining you with his love.” And that is exactly what he did. He even did the same for Katerina. He ruined two women with his love.

These are all strange loves.

.

The Many gods of the Brothers Karamazov

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

In a way there are many gods in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. Is Fyodor Karamazov—the father of the 3, or perhaps 4, Karamazov brothers—God? He certainly is God-like. He is fickle, absurd, unreasonable, and demands adherents be faithful no matter what. Sounds a lot like God doesn’t it?  His former serf Gregory is faithful to him when faith has not been earned or deserved. As Dostoevsky explains about Fyodor Karamazov, “For some complex and subtle reasons, that he himself could not explain, he felt an urgent and pressing need to have someone loyal and trustworthy by him.” Again this sounds god-like. If he is a god, then, of course, his 3 or 4 sons, are all sons of God.

 

Because of the absolute loyalty,  the father liked his youngest son, Alyosha who “touched his very heart, by being there, seeing everything, and condemning nothing.” Remember he is the one who judges no one. Alyosha gave him “something he had never had before—a complete absence of contempt for him…he treated him with invariable kindness—and a completely genuine and sincere affection which Karamazov little deserved.” Of course he treated everyone that way. He was a near saint. Or you could say he was God-like.

Elder   Zosima is certainly god-like. As is Alyosha. But so is Karamazov. He is an absurd god. But in many respect the god of the bible is also absurd. The God of the Bible is the god who lets a small child freeze to death in a shed in a Russian winter. Ivan could not accept such a god.

Dmitri (also known as Mitya) is a god to Katerina. She bows down to him, as Elder Zosima bowed down to Fyodor Karamazov and Dmitri to Grushenka. In fact, Grushenka had father and son “conquered and lying at her feet.” Again a bit God-like.

Dmitri also treats Alyosha like a god. He confesses to Alyosha:

“I’ll make a clean breast of everything, for there must be someone who knows the whole truth. I’ve already told it to the angel in heaven and now I’ll tell it to the angel on earth. Because you are the angel on earth Alyosha.”

 

What are we to make of so many gods on this religious quest?

 

 

God’s Fools

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

In the book The Brothers Karamazov, the monastery was where Alyosha, one of the three sons of the patriarch Fyodor Karamazov, was learning how to find light and love with the assistance of his mentor, the elder, Zosima, a near Saint. The elder lives in a small room in the monastery that was far from grandiose. It is not the Vatican. Nor the lavish home of American televangelists. As Dostoevsky described it, “The whole cell was rather small and drab-looking. It has only the most indispensable furniture, and even that was poor and crude.”

It is interesting that we learn a lot in a chapter of the novel titled, “The Old Buffoon.”  The elder Karamazov as invariably he does, acts like a buffoon.  And he is exactly that.  In fact, he introduced himself to Elder Zosima that way, and then acted the part with gusto. He refers to himself as “one of God’s fools,” and even says there may be an unholy spirit in me too, but it must be one of minor rank—if it were more important it would surely have chosen better quarters.”

Miusov also acted the part of the fool. As Dostoevsky said of Miusov, “He rated his own powers of judgment rather highly, a weakness which was excusable in him, since he was already past fifty, an age at which an intelligent, cultured man of the world of independent means acquires an exaggerated opinion of his own judgment, sometimes despite himself.” I guess I am lucky, not being a man of means nor cultured.

The three sons are each fools but each in their own way.

Is elder Zosima an old fool for living so simply? In the novel when elder Karamazov plays the buffoon to such an extent that his son Alyosha can’t stand to see his father acting so in front of his mentor Zosima. But the elder Zosima, echoing Christ with Mary Magdalene, throws himself at the feet of the Fyodor Karamazov the father. According to Rakitin, “That’s the way it always is with God’s fools: they’re liable to cross themselves at the sight of a tavern and then hurl stones at a church.”

But Zosima impressively treats the fool like a nobleman. There are many of God’s fools in the novel, sometimes in disguise.  Some of the fools are very intelligent. Wise men are harder to find. Isn’t it always like that?