D.B. Hart Series (III)

The Karamazov Complex

Ivan's argument provides a kind of spiritual hygiene.

• solvent of the semi-Hegelian theology of the liberal Protestantism of the late 19th century, which confounded eschatological hope with progressive social and scientific optimism.
• solvent of the obdurate fatalism of the theistic determinist and of the confidence of rational theodicy
• and generally of the habitual and unthinking retreat of most Christians to a kind of indeterminate theism

Voltaire: sees only the terrible truth that the history of suffering and death is not morally intelligible

Dostoievsky: sees that it would be far more terrible if it were morally intelligible

(The doors of the sea, 43f.)