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When God delivered his people from Egypt, He broke their chains, but they were far from being a free people. The book of Exodus recounts their discontent, grumbling, and final abandonment to sensuality — to the worship of the golden calf. Why, after their own miraculous salvation, did they not abide in virtue? Consider that as slaves, they had not been trained to govern themselves with either virtue or reason. Obedience only was demanded of them. Masters train slaves to be slavish. At the trough of their former masters, the only needs acknowledged or cultivated were solely physical, such as hunger and shelter. For them the flesh was the law they lived by, the code of the slave.
Christ chose to give man freedom, yet human nature is at once both spirit and animal, and in this we recognize a great dilemma: our struggle between two natures. Freedom we have been given, but what is freedom to our animal nature that cares only for pleasure and relief from punishment? How will some promise of freedom compare to the assault of desire, or keep man from slavery to his own impulses? What is freedom to a slave?
What the Apostle Paul called the struggle between flesh and spirit, visits us today as it did then. And just as the struggle never ceased, so too the debate is not yet laid to rest. A debate? Yes, concerning whether freedom suits mankind better than slavery. For indeed, many take issue with the freedom that Christ offers. They do not deny its existence, but they, like the Devil, denounce freedom as the solution to human fulfillment. I had not been familiar with the arguments, at least explicitly, till I read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. But now I see the importance, for this was the original disagreement that caused rebellion in the cosmos.
I see the section about the Grand Inquisitor as an expression of that debate. I hope to rekindle that imaginary discussion, long ago, in Seville, in Spain, during the most terrible time of the Inquisition, when something most peculiar occurred. Christ visited his Children, and decided to walk amongst them once more, if only for a moment. The multitudes gathered, the people worshiped, the blind saw, a little girl rose out of her coffin, but then the Grand Inquisitor passes by the cathedral. Almost ninety, tall and erect, he observes the scene, “holds out his finger and bids the guards take the Christ. And such is his power, so completely are the people cowed into submission, that they make way.” The old man brings Christ to a tower in the ancient palace of the Inquisition, and presents his challenge to Christ. “‘Thou came into the world with some promise of freedom, which men in their simplicity cannot even understand.’ Man is too base for freedom. But recall ye, the alternative put to Thee by Satan in the wilderness, which ‘in the books is called the temptation?’ Hear this, nothing in all the ‘wisdom of the earth could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three questions.’ He, the great dread spirit, asked Thee, ‘seest thou these stones? Turn them into bread.’ The real meaning was that if Thou feed man, by performing a great miracle, ‘mankind will surely follow thee like a flock — grateful, lest thou withdraw thy hand.’ ‘But thou wouldst not deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer.’ Why didst thou reject this? ‘Nothing more truly predicted the future history of the world,’ than that for food man will go to any length. ‘Do you know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim, there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? Make us your slaves, but feed us.’ So ‘we have corrected Thy work,’ taken from men freedom, and given them bread.” The attack of the Grand Inquisitor is utterly profound.
The force of it astonishes me, because it goes against everything in Christ’s work. I think that Dostoevsky meant this as a statement of Satan’s position, of his disagreement with Christ.
The Inquisitor contends that man fundamentally is an animal, a slave who only responds to “the code of the slave.” The cravings and aching of human desires overpower freedom. “Feed men, then ask of them virtue!” — as the Inquisitor says. But if Christ gave men bread, he could not also have given men freedom. Therein lies the profundity of the temptation. To give man bread, if bread truly conquers freedom, would give man no choice but to follow Christ. Christ never chooses this, because the whole plan of Heaven rests on free will. So Satan moves in to claim dominion and victory over hearts and souls; because man, in his frailty, cannot accept freedom. Ultimately, bread, desire, and the code of the slave are his chief values.
But Christ turns the tables. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” This concept, upon which Christianity and freedom rest, is that man is even more fundamentally spiritual than animal. What is bread without purpose? If all the days of life pass aimlessly, how could man care even for bread? It only sustains something meaningless. In saying “not by bread alone,” how beautifully does the Christ state that another law, another system of values beyond the code of the slave, exists. Christ places the source of all human purpose in being on the side of right.
This response He issued to the bondage of desire: that by the word of God, man triumphs. Yet let us not stride by and miss the whole point of freedom. Jesus’ proclamation means also that only by living by the word of God can man become free. Without it, man relapses into bondage to bread, hunger — the flesh. Only the higher law of Christ can replace the code of the slave. The higher law makes us free.
The challenge made, the battle lines drawn, the positions taken: which will win, the flesh or virtue? Can man bear freedom, which he has been given? Or does Christ err in giving freedom by the cross? Should the freedom be taken away, replaced by something else? Three questions merit examination. First, do freedom and morality exist in relation to each other? Second, is being on the side of right even more important to man than physical fulfillment? Lastly, is the higher law more powerful than the flesh?
Of course, who are mortal humans to try the claims of Satan, much less of the Lord? But this question of freedom, which lies before us, remains so essential to who we are and how we live, that nonetheless we must consider it. So let us tread in the great crossroads of philosophers and historians and wise men, testing their conclusions, so as to find the truth.
The idea that freedom and morality exist in relation to each other, is powerfully affirmed throughout the writings of history, and even before the advent of Christianity, among the ancient Greeks. The father of history, Herodotus, records a conversation between a free Spartan and the invading Persian emperor, in which they discuss this topic. The Spartan said to king Xerxes, “the Spartans are the most gallant men on earth. For they are free — but not altogether so. They have as king over them Law, and they fear it much more than your men fear you.”
In the epic battle of Thermopylae, 300 Spartans fought the whole Persian army, holding their ground until the end. The tendency when helplessly outnumbered would have been to cut and run, to avoid death. Compared to the desire for self preservation, what appeal of patriotism, brotherhood, or courage can hold the soldier to his post? So would say the Grand Inquisitor. But the Law, said the Spartan, they feared even more. To run ignobly and live doing the wrong thing is worse than to stand nobly and die on the side of right. The Spartans had been trained to realize this, to subdue the code of the slave. They were free, but with freedom tempered by morality, with “king over them law.”
What did the Spartan mean by the “Law” which was “king?” In several different ways, the Spartan law could be compatible with the higher law of Christ. Firstly, it parallels the words from the mouth of God in the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments set specific regulations, such as “do not murder…do not commit adultery,” which contradicted natural tendencies. So too, the Spartan law’s exhortations to courage and sacrifice countered physical desire. Secondly, Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that the specific revelations in Scripture do not comprise the entirety of God’s truth. For example, the Bible does not explicitly include the idea that all men are created equal, but in the last three hundred years Christians championed it. They felt convinced that it was true, and in accordance with Scripture. The same holds true for the Spartan. Most likely God would not look kindly upon cowardice, nor want a soldier to shirk from duty. If the Law held a Spartan soldier captive to some conviction of doing the right thing, of not fleeing from battle, then wouldn’t that moral imperative be in accordance with God’s truth? Finally, in The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis proposed that all people across cultures, religions, and history have recognized a timeless truth and path of right conduct, which Lewis referred to as the Tao. This conception of a Good, as Plato put it, “beyond existence,” all men perceive, and all actions are accountable to. So perhaps the Spartan had no literal Law at all. Perhaps the real Spartan Law had no origins in ink and tablet, but its sole inscription was on his heart.
How does the Law of the Spartan apply to the argument of the Grand Inquisitor? When slavery replaces freedom, inevitably people cease to make moral decisions. So when the Inquisitor designs to remove freedom, he also plots to take away the moral tension in which free men live. Under Christ’s higher law, and the Ten Commandments, and the Tao, everyone struggled to adhere to what was right. People constantly had to grapple with truth, and decide whether or not to follow it. The Law, as the Spartan said, was actually “King” over them. But as a slave, someone else replaces the Law as master. Instead of the struggle with the heavenly Law, I slump my shoulders, nod my head, and obey orders. Eventually, I relapse back into the code of the slave, where the fear of the whip, and the hunger, and desire are all I know.
Here Socrates deserves a seat at the table. Who else among the philosophers lived more in harmony with his teachings?
Socrates became convinced that outside himself, above the world, and beyond all things, Truth literally existed, in pure, concrete, and absolute form. The primary purpose of the human soul, he believed, was to find it, and then to embrace it. In his life, he walked the streets of his native Athens wrestling with the truth. He discussed with leaders and peasants the question of how best to live in light of truth. Socrates died, put to death by his city, with the hope that his soul would fly to the heavenly realm of perfect truth. Socrates’ philosophy championed the idea that the ultimate freedom came in escaping from the flesh and experiencing truth. As a Christian, this hope of a pagan philosopher really grasps the similar freedom of Christ, by “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Socrates believed that visceral desires run counter to freedom. Writing on his view of the soul, Socrates pictured the flesh as an unruly, dark, insolent horse which derails and hampers the chariot of the soul. To correct the dark horse of desire required a noble horse of temperance, modesty, and virtue. Socrates admonished his followers to restrain desire with virtue, to keep the soul running free. Despite the Grand Inquisitor’s insistence on the supremacy of desire, Socrates simply admonishes his followers to meet desire with virtue and temperance. This, he felt, would keep the soul running free; free towards truth. Again, Socrates makes an uncanny parallel to Christ’s position, if one allows for the comparison and matching of words. How can Christ’s freedom through “the words of God” not include Socrates’ freedom through pursuit of truth, justice, and virtue? Students of Plato and Socrates would surely appreciate the agreement between Laws like the Ten Commandments, the Spartan Law, and the Tao spoken of earlier, as statements of truth.
Among the great political philosophers, it is also held that morality is invaluable to the maintenance of freedom. John Locke argued that the state of greatest freedom could never permit immorality. Discussing it he said, “though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license… the state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one.” In saying this he drew on an idea from the thirteen century theologian mentioned earlier, Thomas Aquinas. According to Aquinas, right and wrong, justice and injustice are universally understood by all men through conscience. Locke understood these concepts to form the law which governs free men.
When Locke’s political ideas were realized, in America and in Great Britain, Alexis de Tocqueville perceived this morality as the unique strength of those democracies. He noted that in most places, in France and abroad, democracy leads to a “very dangerous instinct.” Democracy, de Tocqueville wrote, “lays the soul open to an inordinate love of material pleasure.” This single-minded pursuit of pleasure — which especially occurred, he noted significantly, when a “people’s religion is destroyed” — “prepares a people for bondage.” Therefore, he concludes, “the greatest advantage of religions” comes by inspiring a “diametrically contrary urge” than democracy; it “places the object of man’s desires outside and beyond worldly goods.” “Religious peoples are naturally strong just at the point where democratic peoples are weak.” Because of this, de Tocqueville believed that the Americans enjoyed such freedom because it had been tempered by Christianity. What de Tocqueville observed in his time traveling across nineteenth century America, applied throughout an entire people. Fortunately, this reminds us that those who adopt morality to obtain freedom are not merely a saintly few, a thousand from amidst the millions, but that many have succeeded. Consider how deep a blow this strikes to the Grand Inquisitor, who in the story conceded that though a few — apostles, prophets, men such as Job — could perhaps accept Christ rather than “bread alone,” the great mass of humanity could not. But yet was it not the “masses,” the publicans and the sinners and the prostitutes whom the Scriptures tell us the Messiah came to save, and dwelt amongst?
When eighteen hundred years after the event of His great sacrifice, the normal and ordinary people of another nation, far removed by a vast ocean, still remains convinced, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “that these liberties are a gift from God,” has not the freedom of Christ succeeded? If to them, neither was “life so dear, [n]or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery” — in the words of Patrick Henry — then has not man opted for more than “bread alone?”
And what is freedom for, for what greater purpose reserved, than that of loving freely? And who deserves human love more than God? Was this not the original reason that freedom was given to man? Is this not the sole method of fulfillment; for “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God?” This discovery has been made by nations and individuals alike throughout the centuries. Augustine of Hippo recorded his own journey in one of the most powerful expositions of faith every written. At the climax of his Confessions, Augustine related that the final obstacle before him in accepting the freedom of Christ was leaving behind his “worldly desires.” But in Scripture Augustine read the exhortation, “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” (Rom 13:13) This sealed his decision. This verse in Romans ties directly into the theme of Christ, of not living by bread alone.
In the instance of Augustine, just as in Socrates, Herodotus, and de Tocqueville, each of the original contentions of the Grand Inquisitor failed. The first question discussed whether freedom and morality, in fact, exist in relation to each other. Augustine’s freedom through Christ came through a putting away of immorality. The Spartan’s freedom made him feel more accountable to the moral law than if a King controlled his actions. For Socrates, freedom came only in following the Truth, and also in keeping desire in check with morality. De Tocqueville demonstrated how the morality of the Americans sustained their democratic freedom.
The connection between freedom and morality in each of these cases leads to a significant question of human nature. Could man ever side for Christ’s morality and freedom if bread got in the way? In the contest for kingship over the human heart, could doing the right thing and being on the side of right ever withstand the assault of physical desire? Again, the answer came out affirmative, where Augustine forsook the real obstacle in his way, where the Spartan insisted on sacrifice rather than survival, where Socrates died for virtue and lived in temperance, where Christians said “give me liberty or give me death.” Finally, a third question arises dealt with in part by the other two: is the higher law more imminent to the human being than the flesh? Evident in each of the aforementioned cases, the free man perceives and is compelled to action by a law higher than any other. Precisely because of his freedom, the fact that he obeys no one, that he must perceive the law of God. The greater his freedom, the more he feels his accountability to this Law deepen. Likewise, the more he obeys the law, the greater his sense of freedom, particularly spiritual freedom. As if the former slave awakes to his freedom and recognizes the awful accountability of his actions to a standard of right, to this moral law. In that accountability, the slave learns to act in the capacity of a free man. He can now take on his responsibilities as his own master, and join society. I am not saying this as some trite, moralistic platitude which I am obliged to make if religion is to make sense. What I say, I remark from a real and literal sense of a tangible, moral force that makes free men imminently aware of itself. Over the years, those attuned to it will grow in the awareness of its principles, which will guide them into maturity and perfect freedom. Those who continually ignore it however, and cultivate only the base tendencies, will find that the dark horse controls their path entirely. In that sense, both Augustine and Socrates and the Spartans and the Americans required discipline in their decisions. Obviously, spineless humans cannot withstand the temptation, but certainly humans can grow into the sort of spiritual beings that do not “live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds…”
As Lewis pointed out once, what so often happens when people attempt to put “God in the dock” is that in fact, the tables are turned. They find themselves standing in the presence of a much holier God, and they themselves are on trial. The problem when people try to accuse God is that their own sense of justice handicaps them. Where does that sense of justice come from? When the bereaved widow cries, “how could God be just?” she really implies that a true and real objective justice does exist, and that somehow God, in allowing her husband to die, is in violation. Yet from the very admission that justice exists, and that she, as a human created by God can perceive it, does she not place God as the author? Similarly, when the Grand Inquisitor attacks the means of eternal salvation established by Christ’s death on the cross as unjust, he cannot speak as a man speaks to a man. When I accuse my neighbor, I imply that I am on better terms with justice than he. But when I accuse God, I employ a moral high ground that cannot be applied to my creator. If God is unjust, I am far more thoroughly so, and my injustice would be so natural that I would scarcely perceive it. Justice cannot be a third party to a man’s discussion with God. So the fatal flaw of the Grand Inquisitor, assuming he does indeed act from a pure wish for justice, is that his very motivation disproves him. If justice could inspire him to forsake God, and attempt to correct his work, how then could justice, or freedom, or forbearance not also animate the rest of mankind? The very premise of the Grand Inquisitor is overthrown, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
At the last, after listening silently to each word of the old Inquisitor’s litany of accusations, the son of God reaches across to give his only and fitting response. He, God, kisses the man, and vanishes.
Written by Francis Pedraza
Founder of Invisible and Pendragon
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