The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky was using his character Ivan to explain the three dimensional component of humans. He claims that we have problem solving skills to conquer our world if we choose to use them, but not beyond it. Within our highest level of understanding there lies an image of God's abilities, but when it comes to the concept of Him, we can only hold onto the direction He takes us. This concept is dissected in the novel with the belief that God gave us just enough of Himself to see his intentions, but not enough to see why he allows for such evil.
Free will is demonstrated by Ivan as a gift we cannot fully understand, because we don't know why He gave it to us. This explanation is Fyodor's unanswerable question, by an example of a child's suffering. This child is a metaphor for God creating an only son in hopes of gaining a little insight into His followers' perspectives. His son was a vessel to get certain points from one plane to another. The suffering of Christ is looked on as a thing of beauty, because it is the perfect symbol of emotional pain, which is considered by some as His greatest gift. By having the ability to experience this kind of pain we can relate to others and use the concept of empathy to build stronger bonds. Pain was a lesson that could not be demonstrated, merely felt, so He made a son after the original image of Adam, someone to whom we could physically listen, and from whom we could learn.
God sees a purpose for the suffering, while Ivan can understand but does not accept it. There is a common theme of elderly knowledge being withheld in Fyodor's work; this is the contradiction God has to deal with by not explaining Himself. These contradictions represent life at the simplest of problems, going back to our mathematically mapped minds. And in believing that the crucifixion was a symbol of beauty, he passes this opinion on to his character who tries to describe our salvation, then, as a thing of beauty. This can be compared to a theory of Kant's, for a characteristic of being human is having the ability to appreciate beauty.
The frustration that comes from even considering a possible answer is much like the pain of that child. This could also mean God's reasoning for creating a world where evil was bound to exist. So He is a part of us but we are not a part of Him.
The weight of being human is the burden of contradictions. Fyodor used a theme of honesty in a few of his stories, with the thought that if you confess, you can save your soul. The meaning of God's forgiveness is a letting go of sins, but Ivan does not believe we can do this. Ivan can sense that God knew this was going to happen, but He felt the need to do it anyway. This need is the part that we can never understand, and Ivan wants nothing to do with finding out the answer, because it is bad for humanity to grasp that form of pure understanding. The brilliance of Ivan's character is the fact that he can see this, but the irony is in the fact that he cannot see this could have been a gift from God. This could be used as another reason why we are not ready to accept such big things. Or it could be the way we were made.