Ivan, Zosima, and Miusov

Ivan

Ivan is against the separation of the church and state. He believes that the state should exist within the church, as this would lead to a stronger moral order. Ivan recognizes the conscience as what leads a person to live morally or immorally. He predicates that many criminals are able to convince themselves of false truths about the nature of their actions. Ivan believes that excommunication or another intervention by the church would lead criminals to see the criminality of their actions and accept it. Most importantly, Ivan seeks the rising of the Church for the overall good of the people.

Zosima

Zosima supports a state within a church as well but with several distinct differences in his reasoning. Zosima asserts that the ultimate force leading humans to do good is their conscience, and that punishments do little to discourage people from committing sins, citing the existence of punishments and the nevertheless persistence of crime. Zosima believes that the church would aid the individual in seeing the truth in his/her own actions. In Zosima’s mind, the church aids the individual in living morally as opposed to discouraging wrongdoing through punishments. Zosima imagines that some day there may not even be the need for excommunication.

Zosima and Ivan’s ideas thought lines are similar in that they both recognize the imperativeness in getting people to see the truth and have a fully developed conscience. The difference between the two is that, Ivan seeks the overall bettering of a group of people whereas Zosima seeks the improvement of the individual.

Miusov

Miusov confuses Zosima and Ivan’s support of a state within a church for the view of church within a state, where the state is the primary concern (although it may seem that Ivan is somewhat close to this in his beliefs, but not openly). Being a bandwagon leftist, he fails to grasp the ideas of the discussion and just spews claims about arch-ultramonatism. Perhaps is only valid contribution to the discussion is that the transformation to such a state would be nearly impossible. Both Zosima and Ivan do concur that the transformation must happen slowly and that the people are not quite ready.