Page 236 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
he declares that man is free to “return the ticket” to God.
Kirillov, in Demons, pushes this logic further: if there is no
God, the ultimate act of freedom is suicide, by which man
makes himself god. Yet this supposed self-deification ends in
annihilation. Thus the dilemma is stark: either self-destruc-
tion, or the acceptance of suffering.
This leads to one of Dostoevsky’s most striking claims: free-
dom and the elimination of suffering cannot coexist. The
modern West assumes that progress consists in removing suf-
fering while preserving freedom. Dostoevsky denies this. In
the legend of the Grand Inquisitor, Christ is accused of bur-
dening humanity with freedom. The Inquisitor claims that the
Church corrected Christ’s “mistake” by reducing freedom in
order to spare humanity suffering. Here Dostoevsky exposes
the deepest temptation of civilization: to exchange freedom
for comfort and security. The price of a painless world is the
loss of freedom.
For Dostoevsky, suffering is not sentimentalized; it is exis-
tential. Man’s glory lies in his willingness to accept suffering
freely. In this sense, he offers one of the most radical anthro-
pologies ever conceived. Against both Nietzschean and Marx-
ist visions, he insists that they share a hidden contempt for
man, because they cannot believe man capable of bearing
freedom. To eliminate suffering while preserving freedom is
impossible. The only path is freedom through suffering: to say
“yes” to suffering without surrendering one’s humanity.
This gives Dostoevsky his prophetic power. He foresaw that
systems promising liberation through the abolition of suffer-
ing would end in despotism. Shatov in Demons shows how
freedom detached from truth becomes tyranny. Dostoevsky
thus stands outside both Marxism and liberal optimism. He
remains a witness to a paradox: suffering, embraced freely,
236