To refer to the central thesis Dostoevsky presents in The Legend of The Grand Inquisitor as disconcerting barely scratches the surface of the problem. The Grand Inquisitor’s assertion is a simple one: Jesus desired that people choose to follow him freely and willingly and learn to discern good and evil for themselves with only His image as their guide, but the vast majority of people are utterly incapable of doing this because they cannot bear to be free. The Grand Inquisitor derides Jesus for thinking too highly of humans when He set such a difficult task before them. He even accuses Jesus of not loving humanity, for if He had, He would have not have burdened humanity with difficulties like discernment and freedom in mortal life.
You thirsted for a love that was free, not for the servile ecstasies of the slave before the might that has inspired him with dread once and for all. But even here you had too high an opinion of human beings, for of course, they are slaves, though they are created mutineers. Look around you and judge, now that fifteen centuries have passed, take a glance at them: which of them have you borne up to yourself? Upon my word, man is created weaker and more base than you supposed! Can he, can he perform the deeds of which you are capable? In respecting him so much you acted as though you had ceased to have compassion for him, because you demanded too much of him—and yet who was this? The very one you had loved more than yourself! Had you respected him less you would have demanded of him less, and that would have been closer to love, for his burden would have been lighter. He is weak and dishonourable.
In the Grand Inquisitor’s mind, the major flaw in Jesus’s mission was His respect and love of humanity. If Jesus’s assessment and estimation of human limitations had been more realistic, His mission on earth would have been a greater success. Moreover, if Jesus had allowed Himself to succumb to the three temptations in the desert – the tempations of miracle, mystery, and authority – He would have achieved the means through which unify humanity under the material banner of the earth and create a state of universal brotherhood in which none would be free, but all would be happy rather than a banner of spiritual freedom which made no promises concerning the world, but offers instead the promise of Heaven.
It is precisely the promise of Heaven that the Grand Inquistor believes most people cannot achieve, which brings out the larger question of why God chose to create such a multitude incapable of bearing the freedom Christ brings. Consequently, the religion of the Grand Inquisitor strives to eliminate the burden of freedom altogether – to correct the great work of Jesus by unifying man under the banner of miracle, mystery, and authority:
And yet even back then you could have taken the sword of Caesar. Why did you reject that final gift? Had you accepted that third counsel of the mighty Spirit, you would have supplied everything that man seeks in the world, that is: someone to bow down before, someone to entrust one's conscience to, and a way of at last uniting everyone into an undisputed, general and consensual ant-heap, for the need of universal union is the third and final torment of human beings. Invariably mankind as a whole has striven to organize itself on a universal basis. Many great peoples have there been, and peoples with great histories, but the loftier those peoples, the more unhappy, for more acutely than others have they been conscious of the need for a universal union of human beings.
This organization of a universal union of human beings is the driving force behind the 2020 global coup, a Satanic totalitarianism to which virtually all forms of organized Christianity have pledged open allegience. Like Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, the current leaders of organized Christianity believe Jesus set the bar too high when it comes to the purpose of mortal life and the promise of Heaven. Consequently, they have allied themselves with the Big Lies of the Establishment and its System and have dedicated themselves wholly to the promise of a universal heaven on earth.
During his interrogation of Jesus, the Grand Inquisitor reveals exactly which side he is serving:
Why have you come to get in our way now? And why do you gaze at me so silently and sincerely with those meek eyes of yours? Why do you not get angry? I do not want your love, because I myself do not love you.
And what is there I can conceal from you? Do you think I don't know who I'm talking to? What I have to say to you is all familiar to you already, I can read it in your eyes. And do you think I would conceal our secret from you?
Perhaps it is my own lips that you want to hear it from—then listen: we are not with you, but with him, there is our secret! We have long been not with you, but with him, eight centuries now. It is now just eight centuries since we took from him that which you in indignation rejected, that final gift he offered you, when he showed you all the kingdoms of the world: we took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar and announced that we alone were the kings of the world, the only kings, even though to this day we have not succeeded in bringing our task to its complete fulfilment.
The leaders of System Christianity have also revealed which side they are on. They do not think too highly of you and have no faith in your ability to follow Jesus into life everlasting. Blindly following these church leaders now will not lead to salvation, as the Grand Inquisitor himself admits toward the end of Ivan Karamazov’s tale:
Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom for us and submit to us. And what does it matter whether we are right or whether, we are telling a lie? They themselves will be persuaded we are right, for they will remember to what 'horrors of slavery and confusion your freedom has brought them . . .
. . . But we shall preserve the secret and for the sake of their happiness will lure them with a heavenly and eternal reward. For if there were anything in the other world, it goes without saying that it would not be for the likes of them.
You thirsted for a love that was free, not for the servile ecstasies of the slave before the might that has inspired him with dread once and for all. But even here you had too high an opinion of human beings, for of course, they are slaves, though they are created mutineers. Look around you and judge, now that fifteen centuries have passed, take a glance at them: which of them have you borne up to yourself? Upon my word, man is created weaker and more base than you supposed! Can he, can he perform the deeds of which you are capable? In respecting him so much you acted as though you had ceased to have compassion for him, because you demanded too much of him—and yet who was this? The very one you had loved more than yourself! Had you respected him less you would have demanded of him less, and that would have been closer to love, for his burden would have been lighter. He is weak and dishonourable.
In the Grand Inquisitor’s mind, the major flaw in Jesus’s mission was His respect and love of humanity. If Jesus’s assessment and estimation of human limitations had been more realistic, His mission on earth would have been a greater success. Moreover, if Jesus had allowed Himself to succumb to the three temptations in the desert – the tempations of miracle, mystery, and authority – He would have achieved the means through which unify humanity under the material banner of the earth and create a state of universal brotherhood in which none would be free, but all would be happy rather than a banner of spiritual freedom which made no promises concerning the world, but offers instead the promise of Heaven.
It is precisely the promise of Heaven that the Grand Inquistor believes most people cannot achieve, which brings out the larger question of why God chose to create such a multitude incapable of bearing the freedom Christ brings. Consequently, the religion of the Grand Inquisitor strives to eliminate the burden of freedom altogether – to correct the great work of Jesus by unifying man under the banner of miracle, mystery, and authority:
And yet even back then you could have taken the sword of Caesar. Why did you reject that final gift? Had you accepted that third counsel of the mighty Spirit, you would have supplied everything that man seeks in the world, that is: someone to bow down before, someone to entrust one's conscience to, and a way of at last uniting everyone into an undisputed, general and consensual ant-heap, for the need of universal union is the third and final torment of human beings. Invariably mankind as a whole has striven to organize itself on a universal basis. Many great peoples have there been, and peoples with great histories, but the loftier those peoples, the more unhappy, for more acutely than others have they been conscious of the need for a universal union of human beings.
This organization of a universal union of human beings is the driving force behind the 2020 global coup, a Satanic totalitarianism to which virtually all forms of organized Christianity have pledged open allegience. Like Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, the current leaders of organized Christianity believe Jesus set the bar too high when it comes to the purpose of mortal life and the promise of Heaven. Consequently, they have allied themselves with the Big Lies of the Establishment and its System and have dedicated themselves wholly to the promise of a universal heaven on earth.
During his interrogation of Jesus, the Grand Inquisitor reveals exactly which side he is serving:
Why have you come to get in our way now? And why do you gaze at me so silently and sincerely with those meek eyes of yours? Why do you not get angry? I do not want your love, because I myself do not love you.
And what is there I can conceal from you? Do you think I don't know who I'm talking to? What I have to say to you is all familiar to you already, I can read it in your eyes. And do you think I would conceal our secret from you?
Perhaps it is my own lips that you want to hear it from—then listen: we are not with you, but with him, there is our secret! We have long been not with you, but with him, eight centuries now. It is now just eight centuries since we took from him that which you in indignation rejected, that final gift he offered you, when he showed you all the kingdoms of the world: we took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar and announced that we alone were the kings of the world, the only kings, even though to this day we have not succeeded in bringing our task to its complete fulfilment.
The leaders of System Christianity have also revealed which side they are on. They do not think too highly of you and have no faith in your ability to follow Jesus into life everlasting. Blindly following these church leaders now will not lead to salvation, as the Grand Inquisitor himself admits toward the end of Ivan Karamazov’s tale:
Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom for us and submit to us. And what does it matter whether we are right or whether, we are telling a lie? They themselves will be persuaded we are right, for they will remember to what 'horrors of slavery and confusion your freedom has brought them . . .
. . . But we shall preserve the secret and for the sake of their happiness will lure them with a heavenly and eternal reward. For if there were anything in the other world, it goes without saying that it would not be for the likes of them.
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