ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the implications for political ethics of the Inquisitor's interpretation of the third temptation, in which he proposes the establishment of a homogeneous, totalitarian state as the solution to the problem of human justice. The premise of the Inquisitor's anthropology is that human beings are not created in the image of God and therefore cannot be guided in freedom by the image of the crucified Lamb. If atheistic socialism is the "other end" of God and immortality in the Russian context, then the French Revolution is the "other end" of Roman Catholicism in the European context— and Dostoevsky sees little difference between the two political philosophies. Human beings render God's purpose present in the world insofar as they participate in the divine reality, emptying themselves in order to be filled by the outpouring of divine love. The path of restorative, suffering love entails the renunciation of the devil's illusory power of idolatry, rooted in vengeance and violence.
