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This article refers to the debate on “Does God exist?” between Javed Akhtar and Mufti Shamail Nadwi, where the suffering of Gaza’s children was justified using the logic of free will. This justification is deeply flawed.
The argument claims that an omniscient and omnipotent God grants humans free will so that they can decide what is good and what is bad, and punishes them if they choose wrongly. But this logic completely fails when applied to animals or natural calamities. Earthquakes, diseases, floods, or the suffering of children cannot be explained through free will. If God creates everything, then he must also create all possibilities. Was there truly no possibility of a better world than this? And if this is the “best possible world,” then the more troubling question is whether such a world should have been created at all.
To escape this, theists invoke the idea of the Greater Good, arguing that humans cannot understand God’s definition of goodness. But if one admits ignorance of what “complete good” even means, then on what logical basis is goodness attributed to God? If God’s actions are beyond moral comprehension, then calling him “good” is no more justified than calling him evil.
Further, attributing characteristics like omniscience and omnipotence undermines the idea of God’s timelessness. Timelessness implies the absence of duality. Describing God as the ultimate cause of the universe places him within time, because causation presupposes temporal sequence. Saying that God is timeless and yet the ultimate cause is a contradiction. Ancient Indian philosophers recognised this problem, which led to the idea of neti-neti (not this, not that). God cannot be defined or described. But something that cannot be defined, exemplified, or logically described cannot be established through reason. At best, theists may claim faith, not proof.
The argument of infinite regression is then introduced. Theists claim that causes cannot go back infinitely, often using the domino analogy: the first must fall for the last to fall. But they never explain why the first cause must be God. This is a clear case of special pleading—arbitrarily exempting God from causal rules applied to everything else. If a self-sufficient first cause is allowed, why can it not be the universe itself or an unknown natural process? The cause of the Big Bang is already described as an unknown natural cause without invoking a contradictory timeless being.
Some cite phenomena like radioactive decay and vacuum fluctuations as causeless. While these events lack classical causes, they still occur within lawful frameworks. More importantly, they do not solve the problem of special pleading. A timeless being cannot be a cause, because cause and effect operate only within the universe.
Philosophers like Immanuel Kant further questioned causation itself, arguing that cause and effect are a priori structures of the human mind, imposed to make sense of experience. Even within the universe, causality is not an unquestionable metaphysical truth.
The debate also draws an arbitrary distinction between subjective and objective morality. The theistic claim is that while some morals vary, others—such as prohibitions against murder or rape—are objective and grounded in God. But all moral systems are historically and culturally contingent. Anthropological examples show this clearly. In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari mentions the Ache tribe of Paraguay, where killing weak elders was once morally acceptable. This shows that morality evolves through social necessity, trial and error, and survival, not divine command. If morals came from God, they would be uniform across time and cultures.
The fine-tuning argument claims that the universe’s constants are perfectly set for life, implying design. But this ignores observer bias. We observe the universe as “fine-tuned” only because we exist in a universe compatible with our existence. If the constants were different, we would not be here to notice them. We fit the universe; the universe is not tuned for us.
Even if one removes the observer and asks why constants are fixed, the argument still fails because we do not know their possible range or probability. Celebrating fine-tuning without this knowledge is like celebrating winning a lottery without knowing how many tickets existed. Future theories may show these constants to be interrelated, just as the boiling point of water was once considered a constant but is now understood as a molecular property. Multiverse theories further weaken fine-tuning claims.
Finally, it is important to separate theism from religion. The arguments here are philosophical, not religious. Religion has historically opposed scientific and philosophical change, only to later absorb it once resistance fails. This is the classic God of the gaps. Science and philosophy illuminate reality; religion follows behind and claims the light as its own.
References:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sejkUeZS3dU
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eternity/
- https://iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/
- https://iep.utm.edu/cosmological
- https://iep.utm.edu/design-arguments-for-existence-of-god/
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