“. . . Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return.” - Oscar Wilde
“I’m afraid, Alyosha, I can’t bear such questions! Who dares ask me such questions!” (Dostoevsky 393) Ivan Fyodorvich, one of the primary characters of Dostoyevsky’s final novel, The Brothers Karamazov, spirals into self-induced philosophical misery when asking himself one key question: How can God allow suffering? In a society drifting away from religion, this question is relevant and vital. Writers, like Dostoyevsky, have shown us a plethora of answers to this question of suffering, but as we’ll see in this essay, some are more well-reasoned than others.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was certainly no stranger to the world’s cruelty. Not only did he suffer from poverty and epilepsy, but he also spent two years in a Siberian labor camp for being a member of a socialist political group. Right before he wrote his final work, his three-year-old son, Alyosha, died from an epileptic seizure. It comes as no surprise that the theme of suffering is prevalent throughout the novel. This struggle is prominent in all the book’s characters and is perhaps most evident between Alyosha Fyodorvich and his older brother Ivan Fyodorvich (Dostoevsky).
Ivan Fyodorvich first steps onto the pages of The Brothers Karamazov as a cold, intellectual, and nihilistic man. An atheist, he’s a striking juxtaposition to his passionate older brother Dmitri and his pious younger brother Alyosha. Ivan is eager to get to know his younger brother (technically his half-brother, he’s barely met him at the start of the novel) even though they have little in common.
Smart and well-spoken, Ivan even impresses people in the monastery with his intellect, but also shocks them with what he claims is his philosophy. “If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, and therefore everything is permitted” (Dostoevsky 85). This belief is repeated throughout the book, and Ivan’s arguments unwittingly inspire his father’s murder. But, Ivan earlier in the book tells Alyosha it would serve his father to be killed, and reiterates his belief that everything is permitted. Ivan is an example of nihilism, a philosophical belief that made waves in 19th-century Russia and continues to today, in our post-modernist world. Though we still live in a predominately religious society, following the postmodernist movement, religious values and beliefs have been on the decline; people are still looking for answers to life’s big questions. And, without religion, Nihilism, or other post-modernist philosophies are on the uptick. Because, if there is no god, what is the answer?
Nihilism, in its simplest, is the philosophical belief that since the world is meaningless, life itself is meaningless. It starts with the rejection of a God, and if one follows logic they’re forced to conclude that if life wasn’t created by a god it's limited to life on earth, eliminating immortality. Without immortality, there can’t be ‘virtue’, because if there’s no higher power there’s no definite truth. Furthermore, without immortality, there’s no incentive for virtue. So, Ivan’s logic is reasonable: if there’s no god, there is no immortality and no virtue.
But, is true nihilism a valid philosophical stance? I’d have to argue otherwise, though logical, nihilism is a very flawed philosophical system. Even Ivan, confined by his logic, finds himself caring a lot throughout the novel. After his father’s murder, he quite literally descends into madness and despair, wracked with guilt. Guilt because his philosophy ‘inspired’ the true murderer's actions. If ‘everything is permitted’ why should such an event bother him?
And, yet, the circumstances of the story certainly do more than simply bother Ivan. Once he has succumbed to brain fever, he’s visited by a ‘Devil’, some sort of delirious spawn of his philosophy. We the conflict Ivan is experiencing, after this visit, when he’s trying to explain it to his increasingly concerned brother:
“Yes, but he’s evil! He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,” Ivan said with a shudder of offense, “he slandered me, slandered me greatly. He lied about me to my face! ‘Oh you are going to perform a virtuous deed, you will announce that the lackey killed your father at your suggestion!’”
“Brother,” Alyosha interrupted, “restrain yourself, you did not kill him, it's not true!”
“He says it and he knows it: ‘you are going to perform a virtuous deed, but you don’t even in believe in virtue- that’s what makes you angry and torments you, that’s why you’re so vindictive.’ He said it to me about myself, and he knows what he’s saying…”
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky 391-393)
Alyosha, and the readers, quickly see that Ivan has driven himself into his misery because of the philosophical war he is waging with himself. His logic and his pride make him unable to recognize the truth that his nihilistic philosophy is flawed. He seems insistent upon clinging to this philosophy because it allows him to avoid the question of suffering. Because to a true Nihilist, there is no suffering, because nothing matters even human life. And, yet, suffering has entered his life, and his heart is unable to deny the existence of virtue. And he knows if he accepts virtue, he has to accept all of it: he has to accept a world of suffering that he can’t comprehend. So, that’s why Ivan chose to accept nihilism, but what about other people? Why has nihilism continued to this day?
It would be simple to make assumptions about why nihilism persists, but instead, I went straight to the source: the actual Nihilists, on the internet. On the Reddit page ‘r/nihilism’ one user asked the general Redditor population ‘Why are you nihilist?’ One user, TemporaryMonitor, writes,
“I'm a nihilist because I believe that there is no inherent meaning in life. Lots of people smarter than me have tried to find meaning and failed. There is nothing you can or will ever do that will make you happy and fulfilled for longer than a few years.” (“Why are you a nihilist? : r/nihilism”)
‘Vegetablemandolin’ writes,
“I'm not really sure whether I am a nihilist, but as far as I can see there is no reason to exist other than to satisfy your transient interests…The idea that humans are insignificant is so natural to me, that it almost feels as if discussing what version you believe is as pointless a waste of time as discussing your favorite flavor of pop tarts, when you don't even like pop tarts.” (“Why are you a nihilist? : r/nihilism”)
Delving deeper one can gather various other opinions and ideas, but they do maintain a similar belief. Nihilism it would seem hasn’t changed much since Dostoyevsky’s day. One user writes, “Death renders life meaningless. That’s it.” To which ‘Efficent_Nihilist’ responded with, “I’d argue even if we were immortal life would still be meaningless” (“Why are you a nihilist? : r/nihilism”). The thread certainly proved to be interesting. The philosopher Frederich Nietzsche was regularly mentioned, and even he was worried about the effects of Nihilism. Ivan Karamazov tells Alyosha that even if there is no god, humans need a concept of god for the sake of moral and social order. “Can you understand why this drivel is needed and created? Without it, they say, man could not even have lived on earth” (Dostoevsky 252).
Nihilism is essentially an impossible pill to swallow because we are inherently wired with virtue. How else would we all know ‘right’ and ‘wrong’? You could argue that people do evil things all the time, and they do, but they have to justify it. Terrorists have an organization, criminals have a motive, and mob bosses have financial gains. There always has to be justification, is this just another way we’re unwittingly proving the existence of meaning and virtue? If there was no meaning or virtue there would be no reason to justify anything. No reason to feel guilty. And, that is what drives Ivan mad, the fact he feels guilty about something that shouldn’t matter to him. Thus proving that his philosophy is false.
Dostoyevsky wasn’t the only Russian author to tackle this issue; Ivan Turgenev’s short novel Fathers and Sons is perhaps one of the most obvious examples of nihilism in literature. The novel’s protagonist Arkady Kirsanov is a university student returning to visit his father and uncle, Arkady brings with him his ‘mentor’ Eugene Bazarov, both young men startle Arkady’s father Nikoláy Petróvich Kirsánov and his brother Pável Petróvich Kirsánov with their new philosophy: nihilism. Nikolay makes some efforts to keep up with them, but Pavel Petrovich lands himself in several heated arguments with Bazarov. Eventually landing themselves in a duel. Turgenev is a famous critic of Nihilism and saw Nihilism as not only a threat to religion but also peace. Nihilists don’t typically recognize any authority. In Turgenev's book, Nihilists are portrayed as cynical and emotionless (Turgenev).
Turning back to The Brothers Karamozov, we find another character who serves as a philosophical vessel. Ivan’s brother, Alyosha, is a pious monk. If Ivan’s philosophy left him in actual ruins, how does Alyosha’s hold up? Though he experiences waverings in his faith it is because he cares that he can keep faith despite suffering. When he witnesses the death of a school boy his faith is confirmed and inspired by how the boy’s friends handle the event. While Ivan gets stuck on why we suffer, Alyosha finds hope in how we suffer. Alyosha knows there is one person able to save humanity. “...You just asked just now if there is in the whole world a being who could and would have the right to forgive. But, there is such a being, and he can forgive everything, forgive all, and for all, because he himself gave his innocent blood for all and for everything” (Dostoevsky Alyosha takes Ivan’s argument (there is no one that can save us and I thus can’t accept salvation) and turns it in his favor. Alyosha knows there’s someone who can save us and can, therefore, accept salvation.
Alyosha is the only truly ‘good’ person in the book, and even Ivan, who supposedly doesn’t believe in virtue recognizes it. While Ivan can’t see the good in humanity, Alyosha declares he still sees Christ’s love. While Ivan denies virtue, Alyosha embraces it and sees the best in people, as a consequence. Alyosha serves as a powerful contrast to Ivan’s nihilism. His philosophy is tested throughout the book, and unlike both of his brothers, he does not end in total ruin.
British writer, theologian, and philosopher C.S Lewis wrote in his famous work, Mere Christianity, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust” (CSL)? Arguments from thinkers like Lewis would have shattered Ivan’s fictional, but all too real, argument and stance. Lewis argues that the mere fact we recognize there’s suffering proves there is a God. Nihilists even recognize suffering, and in doing so they have doomed their own beliefs. Nihilists do believe in suffering, they just don’t think it matters, but the mere fact we recognize suffering matters.
Humanity’s pain and suffering not only prove the existence of virtue but by a nihilist’s logic prove the existence of immortality and a higher power. In being able to argue the existence of suffering we’re already proving the existence of a god, the existence of immortality, and the existence of morality. Because, if there’s a God, we were created, and therefore suffering matters. That is where Alyosha finds his hope. Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Lewis, and others do an amazing job showing us this truth because while beliefs like nihilism, postmodernism, etc. make ‘sense’ at first when we look closer the holes are rather apparent.
In conclusion, the mere existence of suffering proves the existence of a god. Our pain is an argument in itself; that truth should give all of us hope. To quote the Smiths, “there is a better world, there must be” (Marr) We all know some Ivans in our lives, so instead of pointing them to every flaw in their arguments. Be like Alyosha: show them the love of Christ.
Works Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov (Bicentennial Edition). Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Picador, 2021.
“Full text of "Mere Christianity CSL."” Internet Archive, https://archive.org/stream/MereChristianityCSL/MereChristianity_CSL_djvu.txt. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Marr, Johnny. “The Smiths – Asleep Lyrics.” Genius, https://genius.com/The-smiths-asleep-lyrics. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. Edited by Richard Freeborn, translated by Richard Freeborn, OUP Oxford, 2008.
“Why are you a nihilist? : r/nihilism.” Reddit, 3 December 2018, https://www.reddit.com/r/nihilism/comments/a2nadn/why_are_you_a_nihilist/. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Helen - Thought provoking, well-reasoned and skillfully written. Thank you for sharing and I'm looking forward to discussing this topic with you tonight.