Abdulhadi Alyami

Abdulhadi Alyami

    God’s existence has been questioned over centuries and the answer is varied depending on the factors that people live in such as: culture, race, religion, and education. Allowing evil is another common question among most of philosophers. An agnostic Russian philosopher Ivan has a complete different belief in the existence of moral evil and  than the British philosopher Richard Swinburne has. Why would God allow evil at the first place if most of the religious holy books mention that God is capable of preventing evil?

    Ivan Illich who always criticized and questioned God’s existence, is actually agnostic, referring to what he said in his books  “ I am a believer, but there are children, and what I'm going to do with them”  and that tells us that Ivan has no knowledge about God’s existence and that makes him agnostic. He also believes that all the religions are based on a desire. " I accept God and am glad to” and "I accept God simply” are popular declarations that Ivan has made. Another evidence that leads us to know that Ivan is agnostic is his discussions and questions of God’s existence between him and  Allyoshia, who lives in a mountain and studies to be a monk, Ivan says that, he has not rejected God in his heart, but he somehow feels that he can not accept God or God’s world that he has created.

       Ivan is so determined in his denial, which we can see in his famous statement “And it is my duty, if only as an  hasten man, to return it (ticket) as far ahead of time as possible.… It’s not that

I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I must respectfully return him my ticket’’ and what that means is (the ticket to a world of non endless harmony that would save all suffering). Ivan decides to believe in God exactly since we have no evidence that helps us to determine whether he was made by man or the opposite, what is his nature and whether he exists.  

         Why should evil have happened in the first place? “I think if the devil doesn’t exist” Ivan tells Alyosha,  for Ivan, " It does not make sense to find evil in the world created by a good God” . Reading from Ivan’s book tells us his perspective on evil. He thinks evil was created by a man, and that evil has the same image and likeness as his creator which is a man. He also believe humans can be devil and he brings  wars as an example of  how humanity has become for him nothing but evil, and how innocent and helpless children suffer during wars.  On the other hand, Richard Swinburne justifies the idea that the existence of evil in the world is stable with the existence of supreme.  Swinburne believes that an all good God has the power to stop evil, but God decides not to for a purpose. He believes that we have to have a substantial evil to stand against the good in the world. Replying to Ivan on moral evil, Swinburne tells us how to distinguish between moral evil (that comes from humans actions) and natural evil that does not come from humans, are both necessary for the life's good. Is moral evil necessary? Swinburne says that moral evil allows humans to either harm or benefit them, and he also thinks that people should consider what kinds of goods and kindness a god would give to people.