The Legend of The Grand Inquisitor, as featured in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, certainly requires little introduction. As a universally acclaimed piece of literature it has...Show moreThe Legend of The Grand Inquisitor, as featured in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, certainly requires little introduction. As a universally acclaimed piece of literature it has served as a source of inspiration for a wide array of different fields including philosophy, politics, literature, theology and art. Amongst the peculiarities that this Legend holds, we find that the head of the Spanish Inquisition, ‘The Grand Inquisitor’, is himself accused of being an atheist. In this ironic accusation, however, may just lie the expression of a defining feature of Christianity itself, as Slavoj Žižek would argue. With his unorthodox thesis that true atheist freedom is reached only through the process of Christianity, Žižek makes a point that seems to relate to Dostoyevsky’s legendary passage. Through a close analysis of several key points in The Grand Inquisitor, the manner in which the passage implies an intertwinement between Christianity and atheism is explored. In connecting this inquiry with Žižek’s theory of ‘Atheist Christianity’, a case is made for the idea that atheism and Christianity are interdependent and in the most radical sense even equivalent. This cross-analysis leads towards the issue of defining a secular form of faith, while at the same time opening up the way for questions regarding the aptness of Žižek’s Atheist-Christian framework in understanding the social issues brought to light in Dostoyevsky’s intriguing passage.Show less
