Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

112 BRUNO HIDBERIn fact, in the face of such an experience, how can one stillspeak confidently of this God whose glory will fill all the earth(Ps. 72:19)? Is it not necessary to affirm instead, that in the faceof atrocious experiences of evil, man can no longer count onGod? The fact is that an evil that is so very excessive, with noapparent limit or end, has become the most pointed and compellingargument for the denial and rejection of God.The experiences of unmerited and unjust suffering are existentiallya much stronger argument against faith in God thanare all the epistemological and scientific arguments, all thearguments used by critiques of religion and ideology, all theother philosophical arguments of whatever kind. These experiencesare in fact the rock on which atheism stands. 46At the existential level, the rejection of God in the name ofevil was formulated in a classical and unforgettable way byIvan, in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan focuses thescandal of evil on the suffering of innocent children. Havingoffered some heart-wrenching examples, he then expresses hisrevolt, exclaiming that he would never accept a ticket into heavenfrom a God who had permitted the scandal of such evil. 47Yet the presence of evil does not show itself only as rejectionof God, but at the same time it ignites hope in God. Joblives and suffers even today; he lives and suffers everywhereand more than ever. Even today his lament is heard because thejust and the innocent are visited by every kind of evil. Such alament is always addressed to God as an accusation, but also asa cry of “hoping against hope” (Rom 4:18). For this very reasonthe unjust suffering of the victims of evil must be the point ofdeparture for an untiring theological discourse on the questionof evil as well as on the question of God.A witness, beyond all suspicion, to this task of theology isMax Horckheimer, philosopher and declared atheist. Despitehis atheism, he nevertheless sees theology as the ultimate signof hope in the face of the scandal of evil. He underlines, in anow famous interview, that even as an atheist, he does not want46Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, 159.47Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chap. 4.