One of the recurring themes in The Silence of Shusaku is the philosophical problem of the existence of an omniscient, omniscient, and omnipotent God and the existence of evil. The problem with respect to the novel can be formulated like this: if there is a good God, why does he let his innocent and devout people suffer? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay A usual analysis of this problem is that an omnipotent and omniscient God is not compatible with the existence of evil. Assuming that such a God exists and created everything, evil must not exist in the first place because it is in direct contradiction to His goodness. But assuming that both God and evil exist, then one of the following is true, each in response to His attributes, namely: God is not omniscient enough to foresee the evil that befalls His creation. Because if he comes to know their suffering, he will be touched by it and will alleviate their suffering. God is not omnipotent enough to save His creation from evil, despite His goodness and knowledge of matter. God is not good after all. He already knew that an evil happened to His creature but he was not affected by it and he acted immediately despite having the power to do so. From the above implications, one cannot hold both the existence of God and evil without offending the attributes of God. And if one still insists on holding both the existence of God and evil, then he is either logically inconsistent in his assertion or he simply believes that such a God, given the reality of evil, simply does not exist. Shusaku's silence, through his Japanese-Christian martyrs, has an answer to all these affronts to the attributes of God, and this answer is based on their claim of life after death or as they call it: Heaven. Heaven, as these characters believe, is a place where their soul can go after death. In Heaven there is no evil or suffering, everything is bliss. With this affirmation of Heaven, the three essential attributes of God: omniscient, omniscient, and omnipotent, can be maintained despite the existence of evil, that is: God is omniscient because He created Heaven from His awareness that some evil may befall His creatures , and there in Heaven, the souls of those creatures will take refuge in eternal bliss without evil. God is not powerless in the face of the evil that happens to His creatures because He created Heaven where those creatures can take refuge after their death. God is good because he created Heaven, which he will not do if he is purely evil. Having Heaven as the answer, it seems that God's response to the evil that befalls His creature is rather delayed. Why did God wait or remain 'silent' until the last moment of his suffering creature? Assuming that total goodness implies the ability to be merciful, why not the mercy of God, as ready in response, as that of the merciful among men, to assist and alleviate the suffering of His creatures? Although the reward of Heaven is rather delayed, Christianity can balance this with their assertion of the existence of Hell, which is a place completely contrary to Heaven as there evil people are condemned to eternal torment and suffering. But this still leaves us wondering: Why doesn't God immediately throw evil people into Hell? Why wait any longer for those evil people to die and remain silent while those evil people commit evil deeds? If man's justice system is supposed to be quick in principle, why does God's justice not seem to be slow, even imperceptible, since He has all the power to work quickly unlike the systemhuman judicial system that is mired in inefficiencies or corruption along the way? To answer the above difficulties, John Hick's appeal to Iranian theodicy may be helpful. Hick's Irenaean solution to God and the problem of evil can be demonstrated thus: Man is born imperfect into the world. Man is given by God the possibility of participating in His perfection only if he chooses. Man possesses rationality, moral judgment and moral choice; and both are necessary if one chooses to participate in God's perfection. In the world there are evils caused either by man (moral evil) or by nature (natural evil). The world, together with the evil caused by nature or man, is a place where man can cultivate himself to participate in the perfection of God. God cannot intervene in the world, not even in response to alleviate the evil that befalls on man, because otherwise it would have defeated the crucial purpose of the world which is to be arable land for man. Therefore, God and evil can coexist, with evil (moral or natural) serving as the final condition in the world as man cultivates himself to participate in God's perfection. With Hick's Irenaean argument, the preceding difficulties can be addressed by saying that, although God seems silent both in the face of his suffering creatures and in front of their evildoers, this is out of respect for the important function of the world of being arable land for men who work towards their perfection. And it will be absurd for God to constantly intervene every time a slight sense of evil strikes his creature, let's say man; given that God has provided man with the essential attributes needed to achieve perfection and that God is omniscient, He is uncertain about His creation. As for the accusation of mercy that does not lead to immediate action: given the purpose of perfection that God has given to man and the essential function of the world for its achievement; God's mercy and corresponding action in giving man the ability to rise from imperfection is not frenetic but rather deliberate, thus befitting His omniscient nature. And finally, to the accusation of slow, even imperceptible justice, one can respond that God wants all of us to participate with His perfection. In this situation, it seems that God offers men a win-win situation, and it all depends on man's choice whether to unite with God with His perfection or not. Hick's Irenaean argument seems to be a plausible solution to make both the existence of God and that of evil compatible; and with this understanding, the suffering of the Christian martyrs in the Silence of Shusaku is not meaningless. However, the argument is based on some key premises that I would like to examine and comment on. These fundamental premises are the existence of God, the destiny of man towards perfection, the function of the world for his achievement and his condition. The existence of God. It is still debatable whether God existed or not. Although some arguments purport to prove the existence of God, among the most popular are Aquinas's cosmological argument, Anselm's ontological argument, or Paley's design argument; but all, as Kant pointed out, are based on the assumption that man's mind can reliably understand and reason about transcendental things like God. But as Kant will later demonstrate, man's mind can reliably understand and reason only on things in experience, and beyond this the human mind is no longer capable of judging and reasoning; therefore, according to Kant, knowing with certainty the existence of God goes beyond man. Compared to popular arguments about the existence of God, I found Kant's critical argument more attractive, because unlike the argument.