feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_3_part_7.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 3.chapter 7
feat_summary_id: book 3, chapter 7
feat_summary: {"name": "book 3, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section4/", "summary": "Disputation Grigory and Smerdyakov are arguing over whether it is morally acceptable to renounce one's faith in God if doing so would save one's life. Smerdyakov says that it is, because no one has perfect faith. He says that no one has faith enough to believe that, if he asked a mountain to move, God would move the mountain. Therefore, Smerdyakov says, no one should die for the faith that he does have. He says that a person who renounces his faith to save his life can repent for his sin later. Though he is arguing with Grigory, he seems to be directing most of his attention to Ivan, and he seems to hope that Ivan will approve of his reasoning", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter VII. The Controversy
  
  
  But Balaam's ass had suddenly spoken. The subject was a strange one.
  Grigory had gone in the morning to make purchases, and had heard from the
  shopkeeper Lukyanov the story of a Russian soldier which had appeared in
  the newspaper of that day. This soldier had been taken prisoner in some
  remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonizing death
  if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam. He refused to deny
  his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and
  glorifying Christ. Grigory had related the story at table. Fyodor
  Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk,
  if only with Grigory. This afternoon he was in a particularly good-humored
  and expansive mood. Sipping his brandy and listening to the story, he
  observed that they ought to make a saint of a soldier like that, and to
  take his skin to some monastery. "That would make the people flock, and
  bring the money in."
  
  Grigory frowned, seeing that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched,
  but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, who was
  standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the
  end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in our town he had done so every
  day.
  
  "What are you grinning at?" asked Fyodor Pavlovitch, catching the smile
  instantly, and knowing that it referred to Grigory.
  
  "Well, my opinion is," Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a
  loud voice, "that if that laudable soldier's exploit was so very great
  there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on such an
  emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his own
  christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, by which, in
  the course of years to expiate his cowardice."
  
  "How could it not be a sin? You're talking nonsense. For that you'll go
  straight to hell and be roasted there like mutton," put in Fyodor
  Pavlovitch.
  
  It was at this point that Alyosha came in, and Fyodor Pavlovitch, as we
  have seen, was highly delighted at his appearance.
  
  "We're on your subject, your subject," he chuckled gleefully, making
  Alyosha sit down to listen.
  
  "As for mutton, that's not so, and there'll be nothing there for this, and
  there shouldn't be either, if it's according to justice," Smerdyakov
  maintained stoutly.
  
  "How do you mean 'according to justice'?" Fyodor Pavlovitch cried still
  more gayly, nudging Alyosha with his knee.
  
  "He's a rascal, that's what he is!" burst from Grigory. He looked
  Smerdyakov wrathfully in the face.
  
  "As for being a rascal, wait a little, Grigory Vassilyevitch," answered
  Smerdyakov with perfect composure. "You'd better consider yourself that,
  once I am taken prisoner by the enemies of the Christian race, and they
  demand from me to curse the name of God and to renounce my holy
  christening, I am fully entitled to act by my own reason, since there
  would be no sin in it."
  
  "But you've said that before. Don't waste words. Prove it," cried Fyodor
  Pavlovitch.
  
  "Soup-maker!" muttered Grigory contemptuously.
  
  "As for being a soup-maker, wait a bit, too, and consider for yourself,
  Grigory Vassilyevitch, without abusing me. For as soon as I say to those
  enemies, 'No, I'm not a Christian, and I curse my true God,' then at once,
  by God's high judgment, I become immediately and specially anathema
  accursed, and am cut off from the Holy Church, exactly as though I were a
  heathen, so that at that very instant, not only when I say it aloud, but
  when I think of saying it, before a quarter of a second has passed, I am
  cut off. Is that so or not, Grigory Vassilyevitch?"
  
  He addressed Grigory with obvious satisfaction, though he was really
  answering Fyodor Pavlovitch's questions, and was well aware of it, and
  intentionally pretending that Grigory had asked the questions.
  
  "Ivan," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch suddenly, "stoop down for me to whisper.
  He's got this all up for your benefit. He wants you to praise him. Praise
  him."
  
  Ivan listened with perfect seriousness to his father's excited whisper.
  
  "Stay, Smerdyakov, be quiet a minute," cried Fyodor Pavlovitch once more.
  "Ivan, your ear again."
  
  Ivan bent down again with a perfectly grave face.
  
  "I love you as I do Alyosha. Don't think I don't love you. Some brandy?"
  
  "Yes.--But you're rather drunk yourself," thought Ivan, looking steadily at
  his father.
  
  He was watching Smerdyakov with great curiosity.
  
  "You're anathema accursed, as it is," Grigory suddenly burst out, "and how
  dare you argue, you rascal, after that, if--"
  
  "Don't scold him, Grigory, don't scold him," Fyodor Pavlovitch cut him
  short.
  
  "You should wait, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if only a short time, and listen,
  for I haven't finished all I had to say. For at the very moment I become
  accursed, at that same highest moment, I become exactly like a heathen,
  and my christening is taken off me and becomes of no avail. Isn't that
  so?"
  
  "Make haste and finish, my boy," Fyodor Pavlovitch urged him, sipping from
  his wine-glass with relish.
  
  "And if I've ceased to be a Christian, then I told no lie to the enemy
  when they asked whether I was a Christian or not a Christian, seeing I had
  already been relieved by God Himself of my Christianity by reason of the
  thought alone, before I had time to utter a word to the enemy. And if I
  have already been discharged, in what manner and with what sort of justice
  can I be held responsible as a Christian in the other world for having
  denied Christ, when, through the very thought alone, before denying Him I
  had been relieved from my christening? If I'm no longer a Christian, then
  I can't renounce Christ, for I've nothing then to renounce. Who will hold
  an unclean Tatar responsible, Grigory Vassilyevitch, even in heaven, for
  not having been born a Christian? And who would punish him for that,
  considering that you can't take two skins off one ox? For God Almighty
  Himself, even if He did make the Tatar responsible, when he dies would
  give him the smallest possible punishment, I imagine (since he must be
  punished), judging that he is not to blame if he has come into the world
  an unclean heathen, from heathen parents. The Lord God can't surely take a
  Tatar and say he was a Christian? That would mean that the Almighty would
  tell a real untruth. And can the Lord of Heaven and earth tell a lie, even
  in one word?"
  
  Grigory was thunderstruck and looked at the orator, his eyes nearly
  starting out of his head. Though he did not clearly understand what was
  said, he had caught something in this rigmarole, and stood, looking like a
  man who has just hit his head against a wall. Fyodor Pavlovitch emptied
  his glass and went off into his shrill laugh.
  
  "Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He must have
  been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking Jesuit, who
  taught you? But you're talking nonsense, you casuist, nonsense, nonsense,
  nonsense. Don't cry, Grigory, we'll reduce him to smoke and ashes in a
  moment. Tell me this, O ass; you may be right before your enemies, but you
  have renounced your faith all the same in your own heart, and you say
  yourself that in that very hour you became anathema accursed. And if once
  you're anathema they won't pat you on the head for it in hell. What do you
  say to that, my fine Jesuit?"
  
  "There is no doubt that I have renounced it in my own heart, but there was
  no special sin in that. Or if there was sin, it was the most ordinary."
  
  "How's that the most ordinary?"
  
  "You lie, accursed one!" hissed Grigory.
  
  "Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch," Smerdyakov went on, staid and
  unruffled, conscious of his triumph, but, as it were, generous to the
  vanquished foe. "Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch; it is said in
  the Scripture that if you have faith, even as a mustard seed, and bid a
  mountain move into the sea, it will move without the least delay at your
  bidding. Well, Grigory Vassilyevitch, if I'm without faith and you have so
  great a faith that you are continually swearing at me, you try yourself
  telling this mountain, not to move into the sea for that's a long way off,
  but even to our stinking little river which runs at the bottom of the
  garden. You'll see for yourself that it won't budge, but will remain just
  where it is however much you shout at it, and that shows, Grigory
  Vassilyevitch, that you haven't faith in the proper manner, and only abuse
  others about it. Again, taking into consideration that no one in our day,
  not only you, but actually no one, from the highest person to the lowest
  peasant, can shove mountains into the sea--except perhaps some one man in
  the world, or, at most, two, and they most likely are saving their souls
  in secret somewhere in the Egyptian desert, so you wouldn't find them--if
  so it be, if all the rest have no faith, will God curse all the rest? that
  is, the population of the whole earth, except about two hermits in the
  desert, and in His well-known mercy will He not forgive one of them? And
  so I'm persuaded that though I may once have doubted I shall be forgiven
  if I shed tears of repentance."
  
  "Stay!" cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, in a transport of delight. "So you do
  suppose there are two who can move mountains? Ivan, make a note of it,
  write it down. There you have the Russian all over!"
  
  "You're quite right in saying it's characteristic of the people's faith,"
  Ivan assented, with an approving smile.
  
  "You agree. Then it must be so, if you agree. It's true, isn't it,
  Alyosha? That's the Russian faith all over, isn't it?"
  
  "No, Smerdyakov has not the Russian faith at all," said Alyosha firmly and
  gravely.
  
  "I'm not talking about his faith. I mean those two in the desert, only
  that idea. Surely that's Russian, isn't it?"
  
  "Yes, that's purely Russian," said Alyosha smiling.
  
  "Your words are worth a gold piece, O ass, and I'll give it to you to-day.
  But as to the rest you talk nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Let me tell you,
  stupid, that we here are all of little faith, only from carelessness,
  because we haven't time; things are too much for us, and, in the second
  place, the Lord God has given us so little time, only twenty-four hours in
  the day, so that one hasn't even time to get sleep enough, much less to
  repent of one's sins. While you have denied your faith to your enemies
  when you'd nothing else to think about but to show your faith! So I
  consider, brother, that it constitutes a sin."
  
  "Constitute a sin it may, but consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch,
  that it only extenuates it, if it does constitute. If I had believed then
  in very truth, as I ought to have believed, then it really would have been
  sinful if I had not faced tortures for my faith, and had gone over to the
  pagan Mohammedan faith. But, of course, it wouldn't have come to torture
  then, because I should only have had to say at that instant to the
  mountain, 'Move and crush the tormentor,' and it would have moved and at
  the very instant have crushed him like a black-beetle, and I should have
  walked away as though nothing had happened, praising and glorifying God.
  But, suppose at that very moment I had tried all that, and cried to that
  mountain, 'Crush these tormentors,' and it hadn't crushed them, how could
  I have helped doubting, pray, at such a time, and at such a dread hour of
  mortal terror? And apart from that, I should know already that I could not
  attain to the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven (for since the mountain
  had not moved at my word, they could not think very much of my faith up
  aloft, and there could be no very great reward awaiting me in the world to
  come). So why should I let them flay the skin off me as well, and to no
  good purpose? For, even though they had flayed my skin half off my back,
  even then the mountain would not have moved at my word or at my cry. And
  at such a moment not only doubt might come over one but one might lose
  one's reason from fear, so that one would not be able to think at all.
  And, therefore, how should I be particularly to blame if not seeing my
  advantage or reward there or here, I should, at least, save my skin. And
  so trusting fully in the grace of the Lord I should cherish the hope that
  I might be altogether forgiven."
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 3, Chapter 7
target: Disputation Grigory and Smerdyakov are arguing over whether it is morally acceptable to renounce one's faith in God if doing so would save one's life. Smerdyakov says that it is, because no one has perfect faith. He says that no one has faith enough to believe that, if he asked a mountain to move, God would move the mountain. Therefore, Smerdyakov says, no one should die for the faith that he does have. He says that a person who renounces his faith to save his life can repent for his sin later. Though he is arguing with Grigory, he seems to be directing most of his attention to Ivan, and he seems to hope that Ivan will approve of his reasoning