In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov’s philosophical and theological ideas are complex and develop in the course of the novel. However, near the beginning of the novel, in Book 2 Chapter 6, an idea is attributed to him by a character named Miusov who reports that at a recent meeting Ivan began by saying that if love has existed between people, it is only because they have believed in immortality. Moreover, without the belief in immortality, there would be no morality and everything would be permitted. If someone ceases to believe in God, then logically he should be an egoist and even become an evil doer. Ivan is asked by the Elder Zosima if this is his view and he says: “Yes, it was my contention. There is no virtue if there is no immortality.” (p. 70) The Elder seems to commiserate with Ivan, accepting that, indeed, he neither believes in God, nor in immortality.
There is no need to go into the ins and
outs of Ivan’s theology, nor be overly concerned about who said what and when
in the novel. The idea that is being put forward is that morality and love of
other human beings in some way depend on immortality with the implication that
immortality depends on God. The inference is that God and immortality are
really one and the same belief or at least interconnected. To cease to believe
in the one is to cease to believe in the other. But why should this be so? It is worth
investigating in what way morality is dependent on belief in God or, perhaps,
more accurately in the existence of God.
Let’s look at the situation from the point
of view of someone contemplating doing wrong. If by wrong we mean something
like theft or murder, why do I not do these things? One reason is that there
are laws and the police, and I realise that if I commit a crime, there is
a reasonable chance that I will be caught and punished. I therefore decide out
of self-interest not to steal from a shop or to commit murder, because I don’t
want to end up in prison or have some other punishment given to me.
The problem with this is that if everyone
thought in this way, law would rapidly collapse. The population of a country
massively outnumbers the police. If everyone sat waiting for their chance to
break the law, when they thought there was a chance of getting away with it,
how could the police catch all of them? The law works only insofar as a
minority of people are criminally minded. The majority do not break the law
because they are scared of the police or punishment, but because they think
breaking the law is wrong. But from where do we get this sense of wrong? From
where do we get the concept of something being morally wrong?
Furthermore, what of things which most of
us consider to be wrong, which are not illegal? Why should couples remain
faithful to each other, why should we not tell lies? Is it that we fear that if
we are unfaithful, perhaps, our marriage will break up, or if we tell lies,
then no one will trust us further? But what if we know at this moment that we
can tell a lie and get away with it? What if we are in another country when we
have the chance to be unfaithful? And yet we might choose to remain moral. Why
do people act sometimes in a way that entails self-sacrifice, why, indeed, are
people kind and altruistic?
It’s worth focussing on how we actually
learn morality. We learn morality normally from a mother who watches. From an
early age, she sees me do something and says don’t do that. If I continue to do
the thing which is wrong, she may punish me. Let’s say I steal sweets from the
sweet jar. The first time, she says ‘don’t steal sweets, it’s wrong.’ And so I
learn not to steal sweets while she is looking. I may think that I can steal
sweets when she is not looking and so when she is in another room I creep up to
the jar and steal a sweet. But mother is cleverer than me, she has counted the
sweets. I’m asked did you steal a sweet? I say ‘no’. She knows better. She
counts out the sweets, one is missing. I’m punished, moreover, she shows
disapproval and I want that approval. I feel shame. In time I don’t steal from
the sweet jar even when I know that I could get away with it. This feeling of
guilt is developed in a myriad of ways such that eventually about a whole mass
of matters I have an internalised sense of guilt when I contemplate doing
wrong. This is what we call conscience. It is based on the idea of mother
somehow overseeing what I do, even when she is not there.
But when I grow up and can reason about
these things, why do I not realise that I can throw off this conscience? Mother
is now far away. I know that she will not discover if I take from the sweet jar.
Who else can be overseeing me? The police observe. And so I should be careful
not to be caught. But this is simply a matter of self-interest and we are back
to the idea of morality being simply a matter of law. What about God? Can
He take the role of the mother watching to see if I steal from the sweet jar?
Perhaps. But if I begin to study philosophy, I quickly realise that this whole
matter of God’s existence is rather uncertain. Descartes is not even certain of
the existence of the outside world. Perhaps, all my perceptions are deceptions.
Any course of philosophy seems to see scepticism win out. First year
philosophy classes are dominated by questions like “How do I know the sun will
rise tomorrow?” But if I don’t even know this, how can the fact that a God who
might exist and might be observing me steal from the sweet jar motivate my
behaviour? Is God, indeed, not just an extension of the observing mother, who
created my conscience in the first place?
Moreover, I quickly realise when studying
philosophy that there are lots of systems of morality that do not depend on
God. Each major philosopher seems to have such a system. One says that I should
do that which leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Another
thinks that I should imagine what would happen if everyone followed a course of
action and act accordingly. There are any number of such systems and they don’t
all mention God. But why should I follow such a system? Who is to make me?
Perhaps, it’s in my self-interest to do so. But that is not morality. That is
just another form of egoism. Perhaps, I realise that it’s my duty to follow a
particular philosopher’s system of morality. But why should I follow my duty?
Perhaps, I realise that rationality calls for me to follow a particular
morality. But then why be rational? Let me be irrational just so long as I get
what I want.
This is our problem. Either I follow the
system of morality out of self-interest in which case it is really the same as
law (just a matter of pragmatism and self-interest), or I follow the system out
of duty. But then I’m already moral. But whence this morality as it cannot be
coming from the system? There is obviously circularity here.
The problem of morality goes far back. It
is stated as well as anywhere in Plato’s Republic with the story of the ring of
Gyges. If I had the ring of Gyges which makes me invisible, such that I could
get away with any crime, would I refrain from doing so? Only if I would refrain
from doing wrong, even if I could get away with it, can I be said to be truly
moral.
The idea of the watcher is present here
also. If no one can watch, because I am invisible, would I steal from the sweet
jar? I don’t steal from the sweet jar, even when mother is not around, because
she has shown that sometimes she knows better than me. Eventually, I
internalise this into conscience and I don’t steal even when I know I would get
away with it, because I have this thing called conscience taught by my mother.
But what if I realise that I’m being a mug, that this conscience thing is just
a fraud? Why then not put on the ring of Gyges and do what I wish so long as I
can get away with it?
Of course, here God can play a role. Even
if someone wears the ring of Gyges and can do what he likes on Earth, God
observes him. The idea of God and with it the idea of immortality is the idea
that even if you get away with immorality on Earth, even if you are a criminal
who is never caught by the law, still God watches. God is the ultimate mother
and the fundament which underpins conscience. God’s justice, the fact that He
can reward or punish can be seen as a reason to be moral, for it may seem to
solve the problem of the ring of Gyges. Even if I am to get away with evil here
and now, it may not be rational to do so if I am to be punished later in
eternity. God is like a universal police force. The lawbreaker may not be sent
to prison on Earth, but there is the equivalent of prison after death. Is this
the reason that Ivan thinks that if there is no immortality, then everything is
permitted?
The observant mother is now in the
transcendent sphere and able to judge according to how I lived my life. There
is no chance that I can escape detection. All my sins will be found out. But
this is our problem. If I do good in order to gain salvation or to avoid hell,
then this is really no different from law. It is in my self interest in the
long run to do good. Out of egoism and selfishness, it would be rational for me
to choose to do good in order to obtain a reward and to avoid punishment. But
this is no more morality than the person who is law abiding solely because he
fears the police. The police have simply been transferred to a transcendent
realm with powers to detect every crime, even those committed with the ring of
Gyges.
Perhaps, the solution is in this way. The
idea that I can treat God as a policeman who rewards and punishes like the
police and the courts is to misunderstand the nature of God. Salvation both
does and does not depend on what I do, how I live my life. My actions are both
necessary and unnecessary. Salvation is by faith alone and by good works. In
Kierkegaardian terms, salvation is a matter of both of what he calls “Religiousness
A” and “Religiousness B”, inwardness and externality, relation to self and
relation to other, how I act and how I believe. In the Reformation debate
between Protestantism and Catholicism we must hold together both sides of the
argument even though they contradict each other, we must have both Luther and
the Pope, ‘works righteousness’ and ‘faith alone.’
What this means can be explained in the
following way. I must believe that how I live is decisive for my salvation.
This is Kierkegaard’s religiousness B and decisive Christianity. Therefore, I
must want to witness to the truth and imitate the life of Christ as far as is
possible. The lesson that Kierkegaard has to teach us, indeed, is that my faith
is my action. This is the importance of the Epistle of James in his work. What
is it to suppose that someone has faith? It is to see that he acts in certain
ways. This was the lesson from Wittgenstein. How can I know if I can whistle a
tune? I must whistle it. How can I know if I have faith? I must act according
to it. There is no faith without action. Once I understand that faith is
action, then there can be no question of faith without it. But and here is the
crucial point. Although I believe that how I live is decisive for my salvation,
I cannot bargain. God’s choice is free and from the point of view of eternity
already made.
Thus I cannot act in order to obtain a
reward and to avoid a punishment. I recognise from my faith the need to act as
a Christian or try to act as a Christian. I also recognise that these actions
are crucial. Following Kierkegaard again, only through relating to other
people, through living the Christian life, do I create the self that God can
save. But I must trust in God. I realise, when faced with God, that nothing I
could do would be enough. Therefore, I am absolutely dependent on his love and
grace for my salvation.
This is not something that can be
understood, for it depends on a Kierkegaardian paradox. Christian morality is
the paradoxical unity of salvation by faith alone and salvation by means of
good works. This is a genuine contradiction, and something that we cannot
understand. A similar contradiction exists in the two ideas that salvation is a
matter of predestination and that how I live is decisive for whether or not I
obtain salvation. This is to look at the matters from the point of view of
eternity and from the point of view of temporality. The combination of the
positions is the truth. Just as Christ was the Eternal in time. So my salvation
is the eternal in time. It is an absolute paradox and a matter for faith, not
for reason. It is for this reason that the Bible at times seems contradictory
on this matter. The thief on the cross will be with Jesus today in paradise,
but salvation is a matter of waiting until the Day of Judgement. But this, too,
is just the paradoxical combination of the eternal point of view with the
temporal point of view. We cannot expect to fully understand these matters.
Here indeed is something that cannot be fully expressed, something that defeats
language and thought.
Thus I believe both that my good works are
decisive for my salvation, that how I live my life is crucial and that nothing I do could ever be good
enough. I am saved from egoism by my realisation that God’s choice is free and
that I am absolutely dependent on his love and grace. Thus I am not acting in
order to gain salvation, for there can be no bargaining with God. Faith is
action. It can even be said that I am saved by faith alone. For when I
understand that faith is not, or not merely a matter of inwardness, I realise
that faith is simply what I do.
If faith is only inwardness, it is only
the relationship to the eternal. In Kierkegaardian terms this is paganism, the
relationship merely to God. The incarnation brings the eternal into time and
enables us to relate externally. The only way to relate to Christ as a
Christian is to love Christ and to try to live as He did. This means action.
Once I understand this, then action inevitably follows.
It is the free choice of God that makes
Christian morality and means that it is neither a matter of law, nor a matter
of egoism. God’s free choice means that Christianity can never be a matter of
self-interest. I have no guarantee, no matter how saintly I live my life. Thus
we have the Bible story of the workers who turn up late getting just the same
as those who came early (Matthew 20: 1-16). I cannot gain God’s perspective.
But I know that God is love and therefore I have hope.
But what I realise also is that finally my
only way of relating to God is through Christ. When I try to relate to the
eternal, the infinite, the omniscient and omnipotent, then I deal with what is
forever distant and remote from my life. I have no way really of relating. I
can try to relate inwardly and I can have a sense of this faith, but it is not
concrete. It's like the idea that I can whistle the tune. Until I actually do
whistle it, there is no whistling. Likewise with faith, it comes into existence
through my actions. But when I begin relating to Christ, through imitation,
witnessing. I relate to something, someone concrete. I can follow his lead. And
through the fact that Christ is paradoxically both God and man, I in this way
relate to God.
In Kierkegaardian terms it is the
paradoxical combination of religiousness A (relating to God, through
inwardness), (the eternal), (relation to self), (Protestantism, salvation by
faith alone, for it has already from the point of view of eternity been
determined), and religiousness B (Relation to Christ), (the temporal),
(relation to another), (Catholicism, the idea that my salvation is not yet
determined and depends on how I live my life). It is this combination that
creates morality.
It is this combination also that creates
the self that can be saved. This shows, indeed, that God is the fundament of
morality. If God does not exist, then ultimately everything is permitted. It is
for this reason that Ivan is to be pitied. Through his lack of faith he puts
himself in a position, which makes it impossible for God to save him, for he
has no self to save. Following Grushenka’s story in the Brothers Karamazov
(Book 7 Ch. 3), God needs at least one onion in order to grab the self.
For Ivan, God is dead and everything is
permitted. The unbeliever’s unbelief is for him the truth, for he has put himself
in a position where God cannot help him. This is his eternal punishment. His
eternal punishment is not that God judges him and condemns him, but that God
cannot even judge him, cannot even notice him. His hell is that his atheism
turns out, for him to be quite accurate.
Brothers Karamazov, Translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, Vintage,
1992
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