Koppel, Kirsten (2012) The Grand Inquisitor and the problem of evil in modern literature and theology. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3680/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Grand Inquisitor and the Problem of Evil in Modern Literature and Theology Kirsten Koppel MA Phil. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy University of Glasgow Department of Theology and Religious Studies Faculty of Arts April 2012 ©Kirsten Koppel, 2012 The Grand Inquisitor and the Problem of Evil in Modern Literature and Theology Abstract: This thesis is concerned with the parabolic relationship between evil and salvation. In this thesis I argue that only through recognising evil as inescapably woven into the fabric of our lives, can we construct a theology of hope. I further argue that this identification of evil in the individual is always necessarily something that is achieved through the workings of the apophatic, and can therefore only be realised through the address that reaches exclusively the individual through the unsayable in language. This study centres upon the Parable of the Grand Inquisitor in an inter-textual, literary context and the apophatic tradition. The context in which my discussion of this parabolic relationship operates is the literary environment that allows for the parabolic and the paradoxical. My primary concern is therefore not with the question of theodicy, but with what happens when, through the intellectual struggle, we encounter the boundaries of our understanding in the beginnings of learned ignorance. In the first chapter I have set out to establish the narrative of the thesis, starting with Ivan Karamazov’s articulation of the problem. In this conversation with Alyosha he problematizes the fact that when we accept God’s world, we ought, at the same time to acknowledge the suffering in that world. In this way he exposes the paradox that is inherent in reconciliation itself. However, in the middle of this exchange with Alyosha, Ivan tells the story of the Grand Inquisitor, where the question of reconciliation is addressed in the kiss; suddenly possible in the literary space of the parable. In the chapter that follows I explore our relationship with evil within the space of a literary context. Starting with the fall as the moment at which the human being has put on self-awareness; separating the inner from outer part of the person. With Milton in Paradise Lost , and Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot as my main conversational partners, I offer a reading of the story of the fall in Genesis as a narrative about our alienation from the divine. I argue that this alienation has also become an estrangement from ourselves where the spirit can no longer get to know itself through the body and the body can no longer know itself through the spirit. I argue that this inability to recognise what is other closes off the possibility of a hermeneutical encounter with the Other. The third chapter examines the relationship between the inability to recognise what is Other and responsibility; in conversation with Kafka in The Trial and Kierkegaard’s discussion of Abraham in Fear and Trembling . I argue that Joseph K's inability to engage hermeneutically with the world is the reason why he cannot recognise his own guilt. Abraham is in that respect his opposite; he embodies the parabolic and the asymmetrical, and so becomes a fully responsible individual. In the last chapter I discuss the relationship between the unsayable in language and the coincidentia oppositorum . Here my main conversational partners are Meister Eckhart, Thomas Altizer in The Descent into Hell, and Nicolas of Cusa. I argue that the language of the unsayable is what addresses us in the detached self, as Christ addresses the Grand Inquisitor in his detached self. The kiss, as the climax, is the instant of initiation when the inner and the outer self again become one. At the same time this is the moment of betrayal when all command of our identity seems lost. This disintegration of the self is the descent into hell, and simultaneously the moment of salvation. It is also fundamentally apolitical and through its unsayability can address only the individual. Contents Introduction 1 A. Evil and salvation: Betrayal 1 B. Methodology, literature and the role of ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ 5 Chapter 1: The Problem of Reconciliation 10 1.1 Introduction: The Brothers Karamazov 10 1.2 Ivan Karamazov and the problem of reconciliation 11 1.3 The reconciliation that leads to two forms of the demonic 15 1.4 Fallen humanity and the gift of self-awareness 18 1.5 The subverting power of silence as the silent call of conscience 21 1.6 Abraham’s nakedness 23 1.7 The ethical paradigm as contempt for humanity 25 1.8 Romans 7: The law as a two-edged sword 28 1.9 The law opposed to the individual 30 1.10 The kiss 34 1.11 The Grand Inquisitor and Eckhart’s anthropology 37 1.12 The apophatic and the coming together of opposites 40 1.13 Deification, the ethical and the apophatic 43 Chapter 2: The Paradox of Evil 45 2.1 Introduction: Evil and dualism 45 2.2 Genesis 3 and the birth of otherness 46 2.3 The Inquisitorial devil 52 2.4. Satan and his logic 55 2.5 Smerdyakov and Prince Myshkin 58 2.6 The paradox of evil 63 2.7 Evil and the human conscience 65 2.8 Smerdyakov and Hazel Motes: The absence of Christian guilt 66 2.9 To throw away the double 72 2.10 Imprisonment 72 2.11 Assuming our guilt 73 2.12 Silence and the human conscience 77 2.13 From the fall to silence 80 Chapter three: Guilt and Responsibility 82 3.1 Introduction: Conscience and the other-worldly 82 3.2 The silent appeal 83 3.3 Kafka’s Joseph K and the admission of guilt 85 3.4 Who is the doorkeeper? 89 3.5 Recognizing the Other and the call of conscience 93 3.6 The paradox of dissymmetry 99 3.7 Ethics and the Other 103 3.8 Derrida on the undecidable 105 3.9 Abraham and aporia 108 3.10 Abraham must remain silent 111 3.11 The Grand Inquisitor and the absolute 114 3.12 Abraham and Saint Paul: To be dead to the law 116 Chapter four: The Hyper-Ethical 118 4.1 Introduction: The personal address 118 4.2 Secret of the kingdom 119 4.3 Silence and the Secret 120 4.4 ‘Gelassenheit’ and the unsayable 122 4.5 Meister Eckhart’s anthropology and the Grand Inquisitor 126 4.6 The Grand Inquisitor and the unknowing of Nicolas of Cusa 131 4.7 Betrayal of the self 136 4.8 The descent into hell 139 4.9 Ivan Karamazov and the descent into hell 142 4.10 The Saintly 145 4.11 Everything is permitted 150 Chapter 5 Conclusion 154 Bibliography 168 Acknowledgements Thanks to: Professor David Jasper for your great supervision; My friends at the department of Theology and Religious Studies for your friendship and inspiration; Dr Heather Walton for your supervision and encouragement; My dad, for your encouragement and financial support; Mijn moeder, voor je financiële en morele ondersteuning; The Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow for your financial support; Mijn vriend Mike, voor je financiële steun en je vaste overtuiging dat ik het af moest maken; Dr. John van Schaik, voor je hulp en betrokkenheid. | 1 Introduction Evil and salvation: Betrayal In this thesis I will undertake to express the parabolic relationship between Christian salvation and evil. The element of betrayal is of central importance to the argument, as without the moment of being forsaken by God, a return to God can only be illusory. The thesis consists of a narrative that starts with the literary motif of the fall and finishes with the ambiguous moment of salvation where the ascent into heaven cannot be without the descent into hell. The story is played out through a series of conversations with an eclectic company of writers; ranging from the literary to the theological and the mediaeval mystical tradition to post-modern philosophers and theologians. The most prominent of the principal texts in this thesis is Dostoevsky’s ‘Legend of the Grand Inquisitor.1’ My reflections and meditations on this text have provided a large part of the dramatic narrative for this thesis. I will speak of evil in terms of the deviation from the divine and the consequent alienation from the self, found in the book of Genesis in its purest and most unsullied form in the Adamic myth.2 Here we find the story in which humanity passes from a state of innocent oneness with God to self-awareness. Evil after the fall however appears in two contrasting guises. Firstly the kind we find in Genesis, in which the Serpent emphasises the divinity of the human being; inspiring haughtiness and egoism and, as a consequence encouraging alienation from the body and the world we live in.