The Karamazov Brothers - Spiritual Lesson - 2

Ivan the second brother is an intellectual and becomes quite famous in the literary circles. He writes and get recognition. The first controversial theme of his writings is "Everything is lawful". He bases it on his derivation that since there is a lot of suffering in this world there is no God and since there is no God, everything is lawful and permissible.

His half brother Smerdyakov, who is the house keeper of his father's house accepts this idea from Ivan and  towards the end of the story applies it to papa Karamazov and himself. Since everything is lawful, he reasons ,murder is also lawful. He murders his father (suspected by many to be his father). Now the guilt catches up with him and unable to bear it's burden and torture, he ends his life by hanging. 

Dostoevsky beautifully brings out how a destructive and nihilistic idea from the ivory tower of the academia and intellegensia when accepted and applied by ordinary men produces disastrous results. Communism came right after Dostoevsky and when the people of Russia accepted that nihilistic philosophy , it created havoc in their midst. They exchanged daily rations for freedom. But it did not work out because sin and greed cannot be contained by a system. 

Only God can accept, love and change a person and a society. No political system or leader has ever delivered what he promised. No one cares enough or loves enough or has enough selfless love and humility to handle power in order to serve others. Only God can do it and he has shown it through the life, death and resurrection of Christ how to really serve in love. Only God can instill hope for the hopeless in this world of despair. Only God can save us from killing ourselves and our loved ones. Only the love of Christ can give us the strength to love and serve people who are created in God's image. It is exactly because we are created in his image we have infinite worth, so much so that Christ came down to die for us on the cross.  

We should be very careful about the ideas we accept and apply in our lives. They have the power to build up or destroy, instill hope or despair, promote love or hatred. If there is no God, then as Ivan concluded, "Everything is lawful" or more precisely, "Nothing is unlawful". But if there is a God who has commanded us to love and respect others, "Everything is NOT lawful" and we are accountable for our life and what we do here on this earth."