Javed Akhtar’s ethical protest and Mufti Shamail Nadwi’s metaphysical grounding answered different questions, leaving us with a richer, unresolved dialogue. An analysis of the dialogue shows one side asking why the world exists, the other asking if it is just. This core confusion explains why such conversations reach dead ends.
Prof Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi
The debate on the existence of God held in New Delhi between Javed Akhtar and Mufti Shamail Nadwi was significant not because it resolved a question that has preoccupied humanity for centuries, but because it revealed how differently that question is understood in contemporary public discourse. At its core, the exchange was not merely between belief and disbelief, but between two intellectual frameworks that operate with distinct assumptions about reason, morality, and the nature of explanation itself. Observed carefully, the debate illustrated why conversations about God often reach an impasse even when conducted civilly and with mutual respect.
Mufti Shamail Nadwi approached the subject as a metaphysical inquiry. His argument was anchored in the classical philosophical insight that the universe, being contingent and dependent, cannot be self-explanatory. Everything we encounter within reality is marked by finitude, change, and dependence; none of it carries within itself the reason for its own existence. From this perspective, the question of God arises not from fear, tradition, or emotional need, but from the logical demand for an ultimate ground of being. This approach does not attempt to prove God as one might prove a scientific hypothesis; rather, it seeks to show that without a necessary, non-contingent reality, existence itself becomes unintelligible.
Javed Akhtar, by contrast, framed his scepticism primarily in ethical and historical terms. His focus remained on human suffering, violence, and the misuse of religion. These concerns are serious and cannot be dismissed lightly. Yet they operate within a different register of inquiry. Ethical protest asks whether the world is just; metaphysical reasoning asks why the world exists at all. When these two questions are conflated, the discussion risks becoming circular. The presence of suffering may challenge certain theological conceptions of divine goodness, but it does not, by itself, address the deeper ontological question of whether there exists a transcendent source of reality.
This distinction becomes especially important in discussions of the problem of evil. Akhtar’s argument suggested that the existence of intense suffering renders belief in God morally suspect. However, such an argument presupposes that suffering is objectively wrong and that the world ought to be otherwise. This assumption itself requires a moral framework that transcends individual sentiment or social convention. If moral values are purely subjective or culturally constructed, then indignation loses its rational force. The fact that human beings across cultures experience injustice as something real and binding suggests that morality is not merely a human invention but reflects a deeper order. In this sense, the problem of evil may point less toward the absence of God and more toward a moral structure embedded within reality.
Another recurring theme in the debate was the demand for scientific evidence. Here again, the discussion revealed a conceptual confusion common in modern discourse. Science excels at explaining mechanisms within the universe, but it is silent on why there is a universe at all. Questions of origin, purpose, and necessity belong to philosophy rather than empirical science. To insist on scientific proof for God is to apply a method beyond its proper domain. Many aspects of human experience—such as consciousness, rationality, and moral obligation—are real yet cannot be reduced to laboratory verification. Their reality is known through reasoned reflection, not experimentation.
The invocation of philosophical authorities such as Kant further illustrated the selective nature of popular scepticism. Kant’s critique of the ontological argument is often cited as a decisive refutation of belief in God, yet Kant himself did not reject theism. Instead, he argued that moral obligation leads reason to postulate God as a necessary condition for justice and meaning. To cite Kant against God while ignoring his moral philosophy is to extract conclusions without acknowledging their underlying framework. Philosophy rarely advances through isolated arguments; it proceeds through interconnected systems of thought.
The historical dimension of the debate also warrants careful attention. Much was said about violence carried out in the name of religion, and rightly so. Religious traditions have often failed to live up to their moral ideals. Yet history also shows that the rejection of transcendence does not inoculate societies against brutality. Secular ideologies that denied any higher moral authority have produced some of the most systematic forms of violence in human history. This suggests that the problem lies not simply in belief, but in how power and morality are understood. Without accountability to a transcendent moral order, ethics becomes vulnerable to political expediency.
What made the debate noteworthy was not triumph or defeat, but the contrast in intellectual posture. Nadwi’s responses were marked by restraint and logical continuity, returning repeatedly to first principles rather than pursuing rhetorical advantage. Akhtar’s interventions, though emotionally resonant, often shifted the ground of discussion, moving from ontology to ethics, from metaphysics to history. Such shifts are understandable in public debate, but they also explain why consensus remains elusive. Each side was answering a different question.
Perhaps the most important lesson to be drawn from the exchange is that belief in God, when articulated responsibly, is not an abandonment of reason. It is an attempt to follow reason to its furthest implications. Human rationality naturally seeks explanations that do not terminate in arbitrariness. When confronted with contingency, order, and moral obligation, reason looks beyond the material world for grounding. Faith, in this sense, does not silence inquiry but responds to it.
Conversely, scepticism performs a valuable role when it challenges complacency and exposes intellectual shortcuts. The danger arises when scepticism hardens into dismissal, substituting moral outrage or cultural critique for philosophical analysis. Genuine doubt requires patience, conceptual clarity, and a willingness to engage with the strongest arguments on both sides.
The Delhi debate did not settle the question of God, nor was it expected to. What it accomplished, however, was to demonstrate that the question remains intellectually alive and resistant to simplification. In an age dominated by soundbites and ideological certainty, the very act of sustained argument is itself meaningful. Whether one ultimately affirms or denies the existence of God, the debate served as a reminder that some questions endure precisely because they touch the deepest structures of human reason, conscience, and experience.
ha*********@***il.com