Why do we suffer? If God is a good, how do we explain the indescribable evil that exists in our world? This is a question that many want the answer to. For some, the answer is sin: We suffer and deserve to suffer because we are all corrupted by sin. Ivan, from The Brothers Karamazov, rejects the idea that we suffer because of sin. In a discussion with his brother, Alyosha, he describes the suffering of children in particular to make his case. Ivan details the unfairness in the fact that a child must suffer; he defines them as a “different species with a different nature” (Dostoyevsky 273). Ivan does not understand why children, the picture of innocence, must suffer if they have had no time to sin. Children have not eaten the apple as adults
