New Delhi : An academic dialogue on the existence of God between poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar and Islamic scholar Mufti Shamail Nadwi drew a packed audience at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on Saturday and quickly spilled beyond the hall, sparking sharp reactions online and dividing commentators over faith, reason and morality.
Moderated by Saurabh Dwivedi, editor of The Lallantop, the nearly two-hour debate on ‘Does God Exist?’ marked a rare public exchange between the legendary screenwriter and a religious scholar, with both sides pressing their case through logic, ethics and lived experience.
Akhtar, known for speaking his mind bluntly, anchored his argument in human suffering and the moral contradictions he sees in the idea of an all-powerful deity. He pointed to the war in Gaza, where more than 70,000 Palestinians have died, to question the notion of an all-powerful and merciful God.
“If you’re omnipotent and omnipresent, then you must be present in Gaza as well, you must have seen the children torn to shreds, and you still want me to believe in you?” he said.
“Compared to that, our Prime Minister is better, kuch to khayal karte hai (at least he takes care of us),” the screenwriter quipped.
Over the course of the debate, Javed Akhtar repeatedly returned to violence carried out in the name of religion.
“Why is it that everything stops at this idea of God?” he asked. “Why must we stop all questions? And what kind of God allows children to be bombed to shreds? If he exists and allows that, he may as well not.”
Mufti Shamail Nadwi countered by placing responsibility squarely on human agency.
“The creator has made evil, but He is not evil,” he said. “Those who misuse their free will are responsible.” Acts such as violence or rape, he argued, are the result of human choice, not divine intent.
Opening the discussion, Mufti Shamail Nadwi, who has a sizeable following online, said neither science nor scripture could serve as a common yardstick in the God debate.
Science, he said, is confined to the physical world, while God, by definition, is beyond it. Scripture, he added, cannot convince those who do not accept revelation as a source of knowledge.
He rejected the claim that scientific explanations eliminate the need for God. Discoveries in physics or biology, Nadwi said, explain how the universe works, not why it exists.
“If you do not know, then do not claim that God does not exist,” he told Akhtar at one point.
Javed Akhtar responded that acknowledging ignorance was precisely his position. No philosopher or scientist, he said, claims total knowledge. Humans, he argued, should resist absolute answers, religious or otherwise.
A central clash emerged over belief versus faith. Belief, Akhtar said, rests on evidence, reason and testimony. Faith, by contrast, demands acceptance without proof.
“When there is no evidence, no logic and no witness, and you are still asked to believe, that is faith,” he said, warning that such demands discourage questioning.
The debate also turned to morality and justice. Javed Akhtar argued that morality is a human construct, not a feature of nature.
“Nature has no justice,” he said, likening morality to traffic rules — essential for social order but absent in the natural world.
Mufti Shamail Nadwi pushed back, calling the comparison flawed. “If oppression is declared right by the majority, does that make oppression just?” he asked.
