From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>actually, after a while there is enough experience to do it better,
>that is what human progress is about. We are able to learn
Human "progress" is an illusion.
Judge for Thyself Who is Right
by Jay Hanson
Dostoevsky's parable is set in sixteenth-century Seville—at the height of
the Inquisition. On the day after a magnificent bonfire, in which nearly one
hundred heretics were burned alive, Jesus descends and is immediately
recognized. The cardinal—the Grand Inquisitor—has Him promptly arrested and
thrown in prison. That evening, the door of Jesus' cell opens and the old,
ascetic Inquisitor enters to confront Him. For a few minutes there is
silence, then the Inquisitor delivers the most profound and terrible attack
against Christianity.
The Inquisitor charges Jesus with betrayal of mankind, for deliberately
rejecting the only ways in which men might have been happy. This singular
moment occurred when "the wise and dread spirit, the spirit of
self-destruction and non-existence," tempted Jesus in the wilderness by
asking Him three questions.
First, the spirit asked Jesus to turn stones into bread. Jesus refused
because He wanted mankind free, and what would obedience be worth if it were
bought with bread? Thus, He denied men their deepest craving—to find someone
who would take away the awesome burden of freedom.
Then, the spirit asked Jesus to throw Himself from the pinnacle of the
temple, "for it is written: the angels shall hold Him up lest he fall".
Again Jesus refused, rejecting miracles because He wanted faith given
freely. But the Inquisitor explains that man cannot live without miracles,
for if he is deprived of them, he immediately creates new ones. Man is
weaker and baser by nature than Jesus thought. "By showing him so much
respect, Thou didst ... cease to feel for him.... "
Jesus' last temptation was to rule the world, to unite all mankind "in one
unanimous and harmonious ant-heap, for the craving for universal unity is
the third and last anguish of men...." He refused once again, and thereby
rejected the only ways in which men might have been made happy.
The Inquisitor explains "We are not working with Thee but with him [the
spirit].... We have taken the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course,
have rejected Thee and followed him. Oh, ages are yet to come of the
confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism.... [But] we
have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery and
authority. And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that
the terrible gift that had brought them such suffering, was, at last, lifted
from their hearts.... And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures
except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, who guard the
mystery, shall be unhappy.... Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will
expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death."
"And we alone shall feed them...." the Inquisitor continues, "Oh, never,
never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread
so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our
feet, and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'"
Jay
