Flaws In Dostoevski's The Grand Inquisitor

735 Words3 Pages
Flaws Within the Flawless As an inherently flawed element, human nature will continuously battle with right and wrong, and failure will persist without guidance. Dostoevski highlights this conclusion in his work The Grand Inquisitor. According to the Grand Inquisitor, the most important aspects of our human nature are the inability to handle freedom and a yearning for a miraculous being. In his approach to governing these aspects, the argument he defends that Christ’s rejection of the temptations has permanently hindered human nature may appear true. However, the Grand Inquisitor’s rejection that the nature of man has potential to change when we accept Christ as our savior highlights the weak link in his argument. The inability to handle freedom appears to the Grand Inquisitor as one flaw possessed by humans. “… For nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom” (Dostoevski 29). He claims that man is too weak and rebellious to bear the weight of free will and therefore believes our paths should be decided for us. However, as Christians we believe that man should have freedom to choose whether he will follow Christ or not. When man is given the freedom to choose, he has a sincere and openness that is in most cases lost when forced upon him. Unless man began without freedom of choice, he would not be able to oppose a relationship…show more content…
However, he is blind to the truth that all of man is loved and free to follow Christ not only the elites. Human nature is alterable by a God much bigger than oneself. Therefore, when man freely chooses to follow Christ he is miraculously blessed on Earth by faith and love, and even those who chose not to follow share this great
Open Document