Justin Appel
Dear Friends,
It's time for something dense and theological. Ready?
In today’s gospel lesson (Luke 4:1-13), we read of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. To interpret this story, we can refer to one of the great passages in modern literature, the parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.
In this magisterial work on human nature, Dostoevsky includes a parable, in which Jesus appears in Seville during the Inquisition. His miracles land him in prison, and the Grand Inquisitor questions Jesus there. The Inquisitor himself is an image of the devil: ‘the dread and intelligent spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-being’, and he tempts Jesus by asking three questions.
‘By the questions alone, simply by the miracle of their appearance, on can see that one is dealing with a mind not human and transient but eternal and absolute. For in these three questions all of subsequent human history is as if brought together into a single whole and foretold; three images are revealed that will take in all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature over all the earth.’
Why do these questions matter so much?
According to Dostoevsky – and here I am following Fr. Steven Kostoff – these three questions are so apt because they question the possibility of human freedom, a point of utmost importance throughout the story in Brothers Karamozov. Through his responses, Jesus resists the temptation to become the kind of Messiah that would force humans to believe in him by various devices. He will not force us to believe by virtue of miraculous events (like turning stones into bread). He will not try to attract us through our desire for mystery (as when Satan offers to protect Jesus from gravity – Dostoevsky has Matthew’s account of the temptation in mind). He will not simply prove his divine authority for us either, as comforting as that might be.
No, for Dostoevsky the basic condition of the human nature is one of freedom. Jesus’ responses to the devil meant that he rejected a violation of that freedom. Jesus could have easily foiled the devil, he could have mown down the soldiers who arrested him, he could have stepped down from the cross. But he didn’t. He allowed himself to be led into the desert (by the Spirit, no less) to be tempted, to suffer, and to die. Christ allowed his decisions to be shaped by the Father’s will, in order to protect the whole reality of free human will!
It blows the mind.
It is precisely this marvelous dance between Christ’s divine and human wills that now allows our human wills to be healed. We can resist temptation because Christ showed us the way. Because we are made in the image of God, we too can freely choose to follow Christ – who is perfectly God yet fully human.
I hope this makes sense. It's a tough notion to comprehend!
Yours in Christ,
Justin