"To produce a mighty work, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it." - Herman Melville

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Ivan and God

I believe it is in Book V when Ivan and Alyosha discuss at the restaurant the existence of evil (specifically the suffering of children) and how Ivan cannot reconcile that with god.  Ivan's solution is skepticism and he rejects god.  Alyosha instead of rejecting god decides to try and help the evil in the world.  In book X, Alyosha assists Ilyusha and his family as well as mending his relationship with Kolya.  Instead of walling himself off from a world of evil, he attempts to combat it with faith and good acts.

I wonder if Dostoevsky is making a comment here about the perils of skepticism.  Isolating yourself by elaborate proofs and theorems of skeptic thought can go too far; they may go far enough to fail to serve as a foundation for any further thought, whether that me ontological, epistemological, or as is much more common, axiological.  Metaphysical solipsism, epistemological relativism, ethical subjectivism...these ideas while possible impossible to disprove leave us with nothing.  It was not the skeptic, Ivan, that does good for these children, but the man of faith in something which he cannot prove. 

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