The Logic of Laceration in The Brothers Karamazov

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The Logic of Laceration in The Brothers Karamazov

• David Banach
• Department of Philosophy
• St. Anselm College

2
The Crucible of Doubt

• Those blockheads have never even conceived so
  powerful a rejection of God as exists in the
  Inquisitor and the preceding chapter, to which
  the whole book will serve as an answer.
• I do not believe in Christ as a child but my
  hosanna has passed through the great furnace of
  doubt.
• (Notebooks, Ralph Matlaw (1976), trans., 770)

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I. Faith Gives Rise to Miracles

• I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than
  anyone. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully
  believed in miracles, but, to my thinking,
  miracles are never a stumbling-block to the
  realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists
  to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an
  unbeliever, will always find strength and ability
  to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is
  confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact
  he would rather disbelieve his own senses than
  admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits
  it as a fact of nature till then unrecognised by
  him.
• Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the
  miracle but the miracle from faith.
• (I, v. 19-20)

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Miracles

• Fyodor It's impossible, I think, for the devils
  to forget to drag me down to hell with their
  hooks when I die. Then I wonder- hooks? Where
  would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where
  do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of
  some sort? The monks in the monastery probably
  believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for
  instance. Now I'm ready to believe in hell, but
  without a ceiling. . . . And, after all, what
  does it matter whether it has a ceiling or
  hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable
  question involved in it? If there's no ceiling
  there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks
  it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for
  then there would be none to drag me down to hell,
  and if they don't drag me down what justice is
  there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer,
  those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you
  only knew, Alyosha, what a black-guard I am."
  (I, iv. 18)
• Peasant Women and Zossima Nikita will come home.
  (II, iii. 42)
• Dimitri "No fear. I am sending you to father,
  and I know what I'm saying. I believe in
  miracles." "In miracles?" "In a miracle of
  Divine Providence. God knows my heart. He sees my
  despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely He
  won't let something awful happen. Alyosha, I
  believe in miracles. Go!" (III, v, 110)
• Smerdyakov Faith so as to move mountains (III,
  vi, 118)
• --------------------------------------------------
  -----------------------------------
• Alyosha Odor of Corruption
• Zossima Heaven on Earth

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II. Faith Requires Active Love

• By the experience of active love. Strive to love
  your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as
  far as you advance in love you will grow surer of
  the reality of God and of the immortality of your
  soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness
  in the love of your neighbour, then you will
  believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly
  enter your soul. This has been tried. This is
  certain. (II, iv. 48)

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III. If There is No God then All is Permitted

• . . . if you were to destroy in mankind the
  belief in immortality, not only love but every
  living force maintaining the life of the world
  would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then
  would be immoral, everything would be lawful,
  even cannibalism. (II, vi. 60)
• "Is that really your conviction as to the
  consequences of the disappearance of the faith in
  immortality?" the elder asked Ivan suddenly.
  "Yes. That was my contention. There is no virtue
  if there is no immortality." (II, vi. 60)
• I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All
  things are lawful then, they can do what they
  like?' 'Didn't you know?' he said laughing, 'a
  clever man can do what he likes. . . . (XI, iv.
  558)
• ACTIVE LOVE REQUIRES FAITH

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The Vicious Circle

• Faith give rise to Miracles
• Faith Requires Active Love
• Active Love Requires Faith

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Ivans Dilemma

• "You were not altogether joking. That's true. The
  question is still fretting your heart, and not
  answered. But the martyr likes sometimes to
  divert himself with his despair, as it were
  driven to it by despair itself. Meanwhile, in
  your despair, you, too, divert yourself with
  magazine articles, and discussions in society,
  though you don't believe your own arguments, and
  with an aching heart mock at them inwardly....
  That question you have not answered, and it is
  your great grief, for it clamours for an answer."
  
• "But can it be answered by me? Answered in the
  affirmative?" Ivan went on asking strangely,
  still looking at the elder with the same
  inexplicable smile.
• "If it can't be decided in the affirmative, it
  will never be decided in the negative. You know
  that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and
  all its suffering is due to it. But thank the
  Creator who has given you a lofty heart capable
  of such suffering of thinking and seeking higher
  things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God
  grant that your heart will attain the answer on
  earth, and may God bless your path." ((II, vi.
  61)

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The Logic of Laceration

• Laceration (nadryv) The exacerbation of an evil
  that hides a greater guilt or evil.
• The person you hate most is not the one who has
  done you wrong, but he to whom you have done
  wrong.
• The fact that you rebel against something shows
  that you care about it.

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Lacerations

• Fyodors buffoonery He feels himself to be evil
  and inferior and hides it by exacerbating his
  foolishness on purpose.
• Father Feraponts Devils.
• Ilyusha and the wisp of tow.
• Dimitri and Katerina They punish each other out
  of laceration for the guilt of the baseness of
  the 3 thousand and the bow.
• The Little Demon Lisa punishes herself and is in
  love with evil as laceration for her sexual guilt
  and her indifference to suffering. (Pineapple
  compote)

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The Fundamental LacerationLifes Paradox

• Infinite Impotent Will Our wills are infinite in
  the scope of their love, but finite in the scope
  of their power.
• Once one takes responsibility to all for all, one
  finds there is more to care about then we can do
  justice too.
• Yet we cannot abstain from caring without
  lacerating our soul, or destroying our capacity
  for active love.
• Love God but cannot accept the world.
• Trade the suffering of one child to forever
  establish paradise.

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Expressions of the Fundamental Laceration.

• Fyodor cannot abandon the values that condemn
  him. (hooks)
• Dimitri and the idol of the Madonna and the Idol
  of Gomorrah
• The sticky little leaves of Spring and the
  suffering of innocents.
• The innocence of children and loving ones
  neighbor as oneself.
• Destinies of 3 Brothers in second half.

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The Solution Syllogism

• Giving an Onion allows one to overcome Laceration
• Overcoming Laceration allows one to take
  Responsibility to all for all.
• Taking Responsibility to all for all creates a
  heaven on earth (Miracles)

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Giving an Onion allows escape from Laceration

• "I shall begin to cry, I shall," repeated
  Grushenka. "He called me his sister and I shall
  never forget that. Only let me tell you, Rakitin,
  though I am bad, I did give away an onion." (VII,
  iii. 330)

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Other Onions

• Zossima in Alyoshas Dream (VII, iv)
• Dimitri and the Babe (IX, viii)
• Ivan and the Peasant (XI, viii)
• One good deed from childhood (Epilogue, iii)

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Taking Responsibility to all for all creates a
heaven on earth (Miracle)

• Zossimas brother All are responsible to all for
  all. I have sinned against all and everything for
  I did not love them enough, yet all forgive me,
  and that is heaven. One day is enough for man to
  know happiness. (VI, iia)
• Zossima at duel Look around you at the gifts of
  God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender
  grass, the birds nature is beautiful and
  sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish,
  and we don't understand that life is heaven, for
  we have only to understand that and it will at
  once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall
  embrace each other and weep. . . . All are
  responsible for all. (VI, iic)
• Mysterious Stranger Life is Paradise. It is
  hidden in all of us if we but will to reveal it.
  . . . And that we are all responsible to all for
  all, apart from our own sins, you were quite
  right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how
  you could comprehend it in all its significance
  at once. And in very truth, so soon as men
  understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be
  for them not a dream, but a living reality.
  Before we realize this we must go through a
  period of isolation. (VI, iic )

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The Fundamental Laceration in Ivan

• Cannot Affirm or Deny God
• Loves Life more than Logic (than the meaning of
  it)
• Rebellion
• The Devils temptation and Jesuss kiss
• Geological Cataclysm and Nihilism
• The quadrillion miles.

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The argument boiled down

• The power of love takes us beyond the limits of
  our being, yet we cannot abandon it. Holding true
  to love in the face of this produces miracles.
• Nihilism is a self-defeating laceration. You stop
  caring only because you care.
• You cant torture an innocent child because you
  love children.
• You cant kill yourself because you love life.
• It is enough to be on your way. The falling away
  of laceration in an authentic good action is
  itself a miracle.
• "Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid
  of life! How good life is when one does something
  good and just!"