The Brothers Karamazov

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In the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov and his younger brother, Alyosha, discuss Ivan’s views on the existence of God. The conversation is started when Alyosha brings up Ivan’s declaration, while they were having dinner, that there was no God. At the time, Ivan was trying to get a rise out of his brother, who he hadn’t seen in a long time. The conversation became very real as Ivan began to spill his thoughts to Alyosha. In the prelude on his views about God, Ivan tells his brother that he has a strong desire to live. He loves life even though he finds it illogical. Both brothers believe that “… the questions of God’s existence and of immortality…come first and foremost and so they should.” Ivan surprises his brother by telling him, “perhaps I too accept God,” reminding his brother of the saying, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” He believes that man is basically a “savage, vicious beast”, and it is illogical of anyone to believe in the idea of a magnificent and noble God. Ivan desires a world in which human intellect can fully comprehend the logic and purpose of life. He uses the analogy of two parallel lines, which according to the mathematician Euclid, can never meet. He says that his mind can comprehend this concept because he has a “Euclidian earthly mind”. If someone were to tell him that two parallel lines could meet in infinity, even if he sees this himself, his mind would still not be able to accept the theory. Ivan tells his brother that even though he is willing to accept God, he cannot accept the world created by God. To further explain why he cannot accept this world, Ivan gives examples of the brutality found in the world, particularly the brutality of innocent children. Ivan uses the suffering of children to make his point about his refusal to accept the world that God created. He gives to Alyosha many examples of
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