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.