The problem of evil refers to the existence of evil in the world. If God is good, why does He permit evil to occur? Ivan takes the question a bit further by putting it this: he can understand evil happening to those who deserve it, who are not good—but why would a good God allow evil to be visited upon a child? It is what Adams refers to as “horrendous evil” (26)—evil so bad and so uncalled for and so unnecessary that it seems beyond rationalizing, beyond justification, and beyond any type of explanation for how a good Being Who cares for His creation could possibly sit by and watch and allows such horrendous evil—such as the torture of an innocent child to occur. Yet, Christians should not be shocked by the suffering of child—the Slaughter of the Innocents marked the first instances of death wrought by the Incarnation (Matthew 2:16-18). Christ’s own death upon the cross would seem a horrendous evil—and He even predicted it would scandalize some. Yet God typically does not interfere in the use of men’s free will. It is almost that Rowe and Ivan are all lamenting that God should give men free use of their will. What each one argues for is a policeman God—a Minority Report God—a God Who will stop all evil-doers from doing evil before they do it. They want an Authoritarian God—but that is not the Triune God, nor is it necessarily a good God that they have in mind. The essence of the Triune God is love and love gives liberty to choose: it does not force or coerce. It presents itself as an object to be loved in and of itself for its own sake—but to insist that one love it when one does not will it so is to contradict its nature. Ivan sees evil and thinks God must not exist, otherwise He would intervene. But evil is no argument against God. It is rather the best argument for why Christ is so dearly needed and why love must be willed all the more in the face of it—which is essentially what Alyosha does for Ivan when he kisses the latter just as Christ kissed his accusers. Alyosha shows the Christ-like love that Ivan complains he has never seen before. By displaying it, Alyosha proves that evil is not all that exists—that good exists as well, and that love is the source of all that is good.
Still, the problem of evil exists for traditional Christians because of a primary lack of faith in the goodness of God and the idea that God can even use evil for His own purposes and bring a greater good out of a horrendous evil (Plantinga). Denying the free will of the soul is also out of keeping with God’s infinite generosity: “God has not compelled men to sin just because He created them and gave them the power to choose between sinning and not sinning. There are angels who have never sinned and never will sin. Such is the generosity of God’s goodness that He has not refrained from creating even that creature which He foreknew would not only sin, but remain in the will to sin” (Plantinga 30). In other words, God does not will out of existence someone who may commit unspeakable evils—horrendous evil—because God can write straight with crooked lines. God’s goodness is still nonetheless capable of being seen even in the face of evil, because it is God who has given the freedom of will to the person committing the evil. Were that freedom taken away, there would be no humanity—no choice to love God of one’s own free will. Humankind would be like robots—automatons who know to do only what they are programmed to do. The fact that human beings have a choice and make choices shows that they have free will and are not motivated purely by instinct as the animals. And since they have free will, it is an indication that they have intelligence along with memory—and all three can be said to be qualities or characteristics of the soul. And if man has a soul out of which he can will good or evil for others, then man must have a creator who put these ideas and breathed this life into him. Thus, even the existence of evil is no real argument against the existence of God (Lewis).

Ivan’s stories of abuse and torture of children link to the thorny issue of the “problem of evil,” however, because they come from a man who is without faith. Just as Rowe is without faith when he argues from evil that there can be no God, Ivan too makes the same argument from a standpoint of disbelief (Adams, Adams). He is already confirmed in his own disbelief and is looking for reasons to validate his position. He latches onto the abuse of the innocent as though here he has discovered the indisputable proof that there can be no God or at least no good God in Heaven—because a good God...…is what sheds just enough light on the universe, on the mystery of life itself, to make it all meaningful—to make the tension between love and hate meaningful. It truly is an either/or moment—the moment at which Ivan has arrived, has worked himself up to with Alyosha. Unable to make the leap of faith, of course, Ivan loses his mind at the end of the book—and that makes complete sense as well. The either/or is this: it is either nihilism or Christianity. It is either nothing or Christ. Dostoevsky painted that choice clearly in many of his works, from Crime and Punishment to Demons to The Adolescent, The Idiot and finally to The Brothers Karamazov. That either/or is really all there is to it. For me, nothingness does not explain where love comes from. And I think part of Ivan’s problem is that he has never truly experienced real love before—and that is why he is so drawn to his brother Alyosha. Alyosha is full of love, and if Ivan could get just a hint of this love, a sense of this love for himself it is as though he might suddenly be able to see.

Yet even seeing is not the same as believing. Believing still requires consent of the mind and an act of the will. When Alyosha does show Ivan genuine, real love, Ivan thanks him but still refuses to be swayed. Ivan is at that moment like Pontius washing his hands. He is exercising his free will—deliberately making his choice to go towards nothingness rather than to go towards God, the source of love. Alyosha has faced the question: if there is no God, where does love come from? It is the question of Zossima. It is the reason Ivan wants to keep Ivan from Zossima. Zossima represents Christ: the man who gives all to God and asks others to follow in His footsteps. Ivan wants to keep Alyosha for himself: he does not want to give up the one loving man he knows to God. Ivan is, ultimately, selfish in his isolation. Nihilism is selfish and self-oriented. Christ is other-oriented. Christ’s first and second commandments are other-directed: 1) love God, and 2) love your neighbor. In Christ is the epitome of love, and anyone who understands love understands that. However, one must still make an act of faith to truly believe and to follow after Christ—otherwise one risks falling away and joining with Ivan in his refusal and ultimate madness.

Works Cited

Adams, Marilyn McCord. 1999. Horrendous Evils…