The Margin

Concept

God and Immortality

Also known as immortality, the existence of God and immortality.

God and immortality first appear as the question on which Alyosha's whole choice rests. He believes in both with practical immediacy, not as an ornament of thought but as a demand on how to live. At this horizon, the idea separates a life of compromise from a life given wholly to truth.

II-VI. Why Is Such A Man Alive?

In Father Zossima's Cell, Ivan's argument is repeated as a moral paradox: without immortality there is no stable virtue, and everything may become lawful.

III-VIII. Over The Brandy

Over brandy, Fyodor Pavlovitch presses Ivan and Alyosha for direct answers. Ivan denies God and immortality, while Alyosha answers that both exist and that immortality is in God.

XI-IV. A Hymn And A Secret

In prison, Dmitri repeats the question in another key, frightened by explanations that reduce soul and conscience to chemistry while still longing not to lose God.

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The Margin

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God and Immortality