Theodicy and the Holocaust

durangodawood said:

In what way have the Jews been not-completely-innocent that deserves mention in a paragraph about holocaust culpability?

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Did I say "Jews"? You might look more closely to what I've stated and therein will be your actual answer, durangodawood.

Moreover, you may want to keep in mind that even the O.T. writings depict God telling Moses that "things are not going to work out well in the long run for the nation of Israel ........." Then, add to this all those things that Jesus and His Apostles contended over with the different ideological lines of Jewish thought in the 1st century, and this too shall be a part of the answer to your question.

2PhiloVoid said:

Did I say "Jews"? You might look more closely to what I've stated and therein will be your actual answer, durangodawood.

Moreover, you may want to keep in mind that even the O.T. writings depict God telling Moses that "things are not going to work out well in the long run for the nation of Israel ........." Then, add to this all those things that Jesus and His Apostles contended over with the different ideological lines of Jewish thought in the 1st century, and this too shall be a part of the answer to your question.

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Yeah, you said "non-Christian Jews" which in normal parlance, even in a religion discussion context, typically means Jews.

As for the rest of your comment, it sounds like maybe the diaspora Jews of Europe, either personally or collectively, share some sort of culpability for these ancient offenses that you refer to - for which the holocaust was a bit of a had-it-coming moment. Am I getting that right?

durangodawood said:

Yeah, you said "non-Christian Jews" which in normal parlance, even in a religion discussion context, typically means Jews.

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Could be, but I don't conceptualize the Jewish identity in just that way, however. Mine is not some simplistic identification of "them" as some kind of scourge upon the earth as someone who, like Hitler, assessed with zero wisdom. No, the non-Christian Jewish people are my fellow human beings just like anyone else, but I see them as a people who sadly don't know the warmth though they know the direction of the light.

As for the rest of your comment, it sounds like maybe the diaspora Jews of Europe, either personally or collectively, share some sort of culpability for these ancient offenses that you refer to?

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I wouldn't say it in quite those terms, really. What you're missing is that it simply comes down to the fact that certain portions of the O.T. (Law and Prophets) are what they have always been, and the non-Christian Jewish people have, with the assist of their Rabbis, known all along what the Christian message is along with their O.T. treasures.

However, they have denied it and have continued to deny it which, unfortunately, leaves them wide open to those terrible things that God said they would be subject to if they persisted in their unbelief, which they have, even generation after generation after generation. It's something that makes me sad just to think about and their sufferings are not something I'd ever wish to contribute to, but there is a Devil.....................and he is only too happy to oblige in whatever opening God allows. And some of the evil the Devil has promulgated against the Jewish people was done by and through Hitler and none of us will forget it. And we shouldn't.

Sérgio Junior said:

Sorry Philo, I think some of these things are pretty painful. In a Theological sense there is none that does good according to St. Paul, in my opinion this is the concept of man's depravity, but I don't think Jews were executed just because they were sinners and because they made mistakes in the past. I see the Old Testament as scriptures that point to Jesus, not to understand or try to understand God's harsh judgments. So I don't think the holocaust was wrath or God's judgment. I find it very problematic to say the following to the surviving Jewish parents who lost their children in the furnaces and gas chambers, "See, your little children were killed in the burnt offering because God was executing justice against them, since they had a monstrous sin within itself, according to how some ancient writings from the Scriptures are interpreted, and also many Christians died in this Holocaust massacre; and what shall we say about the genocides that took place against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontics Christians at the time of the Ottoman empire? Let us say that God was punishing them because they had a sin that was not atoned for in the sacrifice and death of our Lord and so was their death necessary to satisfy God's righteousness?

And as for the apocalyptic events, I think a lot of that is a metaphorical language (trumpets, plagues and so on), and I think some of these tribulation events and judgments against the God people took place in the first century period, but that doesn't mean all things in the Revelation happened, but I think some things mentioned in the Revelation (like parousia for example) will happen in the future (historical and orthodox Christianity always had various opinions and interpretations about the Revelation).

P.S.: I'm not an expert in eschatological language.

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Thank you for sharing your view on this. I fully empathize with your position, such as it is and feels at the present moment. And while you have a very general, even if in my view, not very robust counter-argument, I know that some of this will have to be acquired as you read and study God's Word in a more thorough fashion, and it will also have to be something that, as hard as is it to wrap our minds around, the Lord Himself will enable you to 'see.'

Peace.

Sérgio Junior said:

And how robust can it be to the opinion that twentieth-century Jews were killed because of a curse of the old covenant?

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It's VERY robust, because it's laid out and stated in the Old Testament that if they fail to obey God in any egregious fashion which involves the outright rejection of God's Will, then God has stated that He will ESCALATE various levels of Curse(s) [plural] against His people.

I mean, even we Christians, if we don't behave, may be subject to God death penalty just for perpetuating sin in this life. How much more so will God punish those who put Him to the test, even by those who claim His name and yet reject His Son in an ongoing manner, century by century by century?

Again, you're going to have to get familiar with the Old Testament, particularly with the Law and it's pronouncement of Blessings and Curses that are therein delineated ... twice in fact. So, yes, my position has Scripture and Eschatology to back it up rather than simply leaning on our own weak intuitions about ethics and morality, as people often do today through using casually strewn together moral notions and acting as if there is actually some kind of Unquestionable Substance to it all, as if their views are somehow a kind of sacred cow that one can't touch.

No, if we have any veneer of humanity and sense of human dignity and significance, it's because it has been surreptitiously lifted from the Bible, modified, and then reused without giving God and Christ credit for their having injecting new notions of human dignity into the core of human ethics. Yet, we pat ourselves on the back for what we think is our own moral ingenuity when that supposed fact is a half-truth.

So, yeah. I'm sorry to have to argue this point with you because I know you're a good hearted guy, but there is a reason there are numerous warnings to humanity and to the people of God littered throughout the Bible. Some think God was just kidding; the fact is, He wasn't, and we see this again numerous times in the Old Testament not the least of which include the time when Nebuchadnezzar wiped out most of Jerusalem and the 1st Temple, killing much of the Jewish population and hauling a small remainder to Babylon, and then also several hundred years later when Vespasian and Titus lead the Roman Legions against the same place and wiped out and/or displaced the Jewish people of Jerusalem and the 2nd Temple. And now, for the last two millennia, the non-christian Jews have unfortunately been homeless and subject to various pogroms and oppressive measures by Europeans and Muslim peoples.

We see the pattern not only in the accounts of the bible, but then again repeated in the last 2,000 years of history, with 1948 being another little point that fits in with what God has stated in the O.T.

So, there is ALL of this to consider; but unfortunately many people just don't .... want to look. Well, it is what it is and it has been what it has been. It is sad, but it is true, and my heart for the non-Christian Jewish people, wherever they may be, is that they'll turn to Jesus of Nazareth who IS their Messiah even though they have tended to leave Him unrecognized.

Sérgio Junior said:

Sorry for continuing to contest, but do you think non-Christian Jews are still under the judgment of the law and that they continued to suffer until "Recognizing the Lord Jesus as Messiah"?

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Yes, I do think the Old Testament Law is still in full effect for the Jewish people, and that isn't 'good news' IF the Messiah has indeed come and fulfilled the Old and offered the New. I don't like that this could be the case, but if it is--and at present, I think it is--then it explains a lot that many Christians heretofore haven't been able to explain in their various Theodocies.

Do you also think that the present state of Israel is what God said in the book of the prophets like Zechariah?

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Which part of Zechariah are you speaking of? As for what I've attempted to touch upon in previous posts, I talking about motifs about how God has said that at the "end" of His escalated curses upon Israel, He would still bring them back to their land---even though they don't deserve it. And here in 1948, not unlike at the end of the Exile in Babylon, the ancient Israelites and now their Jewish descendants, have been provide their own home state yet once again.

When God says it's merciful love, what does it really mean?

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Where in the bible are you specifically pointing to, Sergio, because I have to read and see the overall context of what you're asking about before I can answer.

Quid est Veritas? said:

We'd have to agree to disagree, as I do think it logically determinable, and you keep just restating your axioms, so we are getting nowhere.

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Well, in all of this thread, I've yet to see a logical or convincing argument reconciling God with the existence of evil. And that's not my idiosyncratic opinion. The problem dates back at least to Epicurus. The free will defense provides only a mechanism for the existence of evil. It doesn't answer the question of why God would allow evil-doers to torment others. And it certainly doesn't explain natural evils.

So yes, if you assert that God must be beholden to an external code of morality, a Form as it were by which you can judge God himself, you are correct. That however, as I have been at pains to point out, is not the Abrahamic conception of God.

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I would not expect a god--who is claimed to be morally perfect and righteous --would permit actions that clearly negate any claim of moral perfection and righteousness. This is exactly how I (and many others) view the Abrahamic God--as a logically incoherent concept. You may think this is hubristic. But it's honest. I cannot sincerely believe in a god who is so logically contradictory. And to quote Shakespeare: "This above all...to thine own self be true."

Sérgio Junior said:

It's not that I believe that Zechariah says anything about modern Israel, but I have heard some Christian brothers say that Zechariah 12:3-6 is a reference to modern Israel and its military might.

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I haven't heard that it is a reference to modern Israel myself, really, so I'm guessing it's some kind of Dispensational interpretation. But, as with various Apocalyptic concepts, I suppose one never knows for sure. Actually, I don't have a whole lot of info on Zechariah even though I've read it several times. From the info I do have, and despite the issues of Textual Criticism and archaism that can be seen in Zechariah, I guess a straightforward reading of it leaves things open to the chance that it could be the kind of reference you're talking about. I do find it interesting, though.

As for the following verses you've cited, I'll just offer you my general views and interpretations, but like anything, you can take it simply as my own limited assessment:

Ephesians 2:4-5

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As far as I can tell, the central focus of these verses has to do with the fact that God has provided His Son to us [the Gentiles] even though we are not worthy of His grace in His having done so. We see some of the additional context in this passage in verse 12, where Paul says that formerly, we Gentiles were estranged from God but in Christ we have citizenship. I would say that in broader context, all of this is connected as well to the things Paul says in Romans, chapters 9 through 11. And this means that God's mercy doesn't necessarily provide either Jew or Gentile a 'free-ride' without Christ. So, mercy is conditional in some ways.

Psalms 86:15

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This wonderful psalm simply asserts that prior to Christ, the people of God [Israelites of faith] could expect God to reach out to them with mercy. It doesn't say they'll all be blessed just because they're Israelites, however.

1 John 4:8 for example. What do you think of these verses, Philo?

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I'm not sure that this verse implies 'mercy' per say. It seems to be more concerned with defining what it is to claim 'love for God' and then John moves to verse 9 where his focus is on how God defines love in that He sent His Son on whom we need to believe and by whom we acquire mercy, kind of like how Paul does in the verses in Ephesians above.

Does any of this answer your questions? I'm not sure I'm hitting the points that you may be wanting me to address, Sérgio. But thanks for letting me try.

Peace, brother!

Not to get off topic...

Is anyone familiar with the novel, La Revolte Des Anges (Revolt of the Angels)? It was written by the French journalist, poet, and novelist Anatole France in the early 1900s. The guardian angel of a wealthy clergyman comes down to Earth and begins studying philosophy, theology, and science in the man's large library. The angel comes to realize that everything he understood about God was wrong. God was actually a cruel, power-hungry tyrant. Who became ruler of the heavens by instigating and winning an aggressive war against the other angels. And Satan (formerly Lucifer,) the leader of the losing side, who was the brightest and most beautiful angel, actually loved mankind, and was their Prometheus-like benefactor. He had introduced knowledge and learning into human society. The angel wants Satan to lead a revolt against God. But Satan refuses. He has a dream that the revolt succeeds, and God is overthrown. But Satan then becomes a power crazed, dictatorial demagogue just like God was. Satan says he would rather stay put. The way to overthrow God is by teaching men to think for themselves; learn philosophy and science; and reject ancient myths, superstitions, and the doctrines of churches. The novel turns traditional theology upside down. It's clever and entertaining food for thought.

Of course, the novel was almost immediately declared blasphemous and put on the Catholic Church's list of banned books. But that didn't stop France from winning the Nobel Prize for literature.

https:///Revolt-Angels-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486794970

jayem said:

Well, in all of this thread, I've yet to see a logical or convincing argument reconciling God with the existence of evil. And that's not my idiosyncratic opinion. The problem dates back at least to Epicurus. The free will defense provides only a mechanism for the existence of evil. It doesn't answer the question of why God would allow evil-doers to torment others. And it certainly doesn't explain natural evils.

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I've not seen a convincing argument why God need not be Good and Omnipotent, either. Granted, we all need some form of Theodicy here, and no argument is perfect as long as we apply a human intuition and emotional readings into our rationalisation. There are always Karl Barth-style definitions where such fall away before God's Sovereignty. It may not be idiosyncratic, but it is hardly definitive.

Anyway, you are making the error of reading modern meanings of evil and free will into Epicureanism where it doesn't belong. A common enough error, but still erroneous. There was no theological component to evil in Epicurus, who merely equated it with what diminished pleasure; and his free will was more related to incipient atomism via swerving paths thereof, rather than the firm Fate of the Stoics and directly in counterpoint to Democritus and the Milesian tendency to Determinism once they rejected the gods as the origin of the order in the world.

jayem said:

I would not expect a god--who is claimed to be morally perfect and righteous --would permit actions that clearly negate any claim of moral perfection and righteousness. This is exactly how I (and many others) view the Abrahamic God--as a logically incoherent concept. You may think this is hubristic. But it's honest. I cannot sincerely believe in a god who is so logically contradictory. And to quote Shakespeare: "This above all...to thine own self be true."

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So the other day my son told me I was not a good father, because I stopped him from running around with a sharp pointy stick and trying to hit his sister. You see, I negated any claim I had to righteousness by prohibiting what he had seen as an unmitigated good and punished him accordingly. Likewise, if he hurt himself if I permitted it, in the eyes of his mother - and likely his own - I would also have negated any claim to righteousness I might have had...

jayem said:

Not to get off topic...

Is anyone familiar with the novel, La Revolte Des Anges (Revolt of the Angels)? It was written by the French journalist, poet, and novelist Anatole France in the early 1900s. The guardian angel of a wealthy clergyman comes down to Earth and begins studying philosophy, theology, and science in the man's large library. The angel comes to realize that everything he understood about God was wrong. God was actually a cruel, power-hungry tyrant. Who became ruler of the heavens by instigating and winning an aggressive war against the other angels. And Satan (formerly Lucifer,) the leader of the losing side, who was the brightest and most beautiful angel, actually loved mankind, and was their Prometheus-like benefactor. He had introduced knowledge and learning into human society. The angel wants Satan to lead a revolt against God. But Satan refuses. He has a dream that the revolt succeeds, and God is overthrown. But Satan then becomes a power crazed, dictatorial demagogue just like God was. Satan says he would rather stay put. The way to overthrow God is by teaching men to think for themselves; learn philosophy and science; and reject ancient myths, superstitions, and the doctrines of churches. The novel turns traditional theology upside down. It's clever and entertaining food for thought.

Of course, the novel was almost immediately declared blasphemous and put on the Catholic Church's list of banned books. But that didn't stop France from winning the Nobel Prize for literature.

https:///Revolt-Angels-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486794970

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Being censured by the Catholic Church probably helped him win the Nobel.

I find it a bit odd that an angel had to go and study human theology to determine the nature of God to be evil, almost as if a rejection of direct experience (might I even say of empiric observation) is needed to reach this conclusion.

My two cents anyway, as I haven't read the book, but that was what jumped out at me. Almost sounds a post-Positive work, but probably just the run-of-the-mill anticlericalism the French Left is known for.

There is something quite Satanic in Prometheus, which the Romantics also picked up on. It isn't coincidence that Blake loved Prometheus and Milton's Satan both. Prometheus is just the Greek manifestation of the trickster god, like Loki or Enki. His name means Fore-thought, and the whole typos implies the knowledge of the gods being stolen, as in eating of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. It is of 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'. It is an archetype of a fall of innocence from the Golden Age.

Quid est Veritas? said:

Pretending a problem does not exist is not answering it. Or have young earth creationists solved all the problems in evolutionary biology?

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I'm not sure what you mean by this. Who is pretending which problem doesn't exist?

Quid est Veritas? said:

We look at antecedent factors. Does evil exist? Is one thing worse than another? A robust and coherent Atheism has to affirm no.

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No, atheism simply means to not believe in a god. It's possible to believe in the existence of other supernatural phenomena though. But we'll have to be careful about definitions. For instance, does love exist? Well, it can't really be measured in the physical, but there's no doubt that it exists as a concept and emotion and that it for all practical purposes is "real" - though it's not some sort of "stuff" that floats around and could exist apart from human consciousness. If you would claim that it does, the burden would be on you to substantiate such a claim.
Same with morality. It obviously exists. The question is if it exists independently of human consciousness.

Quid est Veritas? said:

It has to assume morality an ascribed value, either socially, or in an amalgam of social, developmental and instinctual manner or evolutionarily. Thus we reach ideas like a Will to Power, creating your own morality, or such ideas of Nietschze; or alternately have to assume a rigid Determinism than obliterates agency.

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There are many ways an atheist can see morality. I, for one, do not subscribe to the idea of (truly) free will, but there are many atheists who do.

Quid est Veritas? said:

Regardless, you can't then condemn another act as wrong on any stronger grounds than merely my say so.

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True, ultimately I can only say "because I say so." The Christian can only say "because God says so" - and then he'll be at odds with the other supposed gods who have a different morality. I think it's better to ask humans what is right and wrong, rather than a supposed and invisible god.

Quid est Veritas? said:

Removing the problem of Evil by removing God, merely opens up a whole different series of problems, and assumes concepts such as amorality that are inconsistent with human experience - empiric or otherwise.

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It's not about removing the problem of evil per se. It's just that without God, you don't have the very specific problem of "how can God be good and there still be evil in the world".

Sérgio Junior said:

For a long time one question has been bothering me, is the question of theodicy (arguments of God's Justice in the face of evil in the world), I am a Christian and I believe in God, but lately I have been very troubled with a negative image of God and also with the question of God's omnibenevolence in the face of evil in the world, such as the Holocaust (also known as Shoah).In the scriptures it is said that the Lord is onibenevolent, ok, but if God is omnibenevolent, where was the benivolence of God at the moment when over than 1 million Jewish children were killed in gas chambers and ovenss in Auschwitz?

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God hates the death of innocents
Proverbs 6:16-19
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

God grieves over evil
Genesis 6:5-6
5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

The Nazis were racists and believed that their Aryan race was superior to others. They were the 'master race'. This included other pale northern European peoples but the Slavs, Romani and Jews were all defined as being racially inferior.
They followed a French count Arthur de Gobineau who wrote The Inequality of Human Races Essay on the Inequality of Human Races | work by Gobineau
Gobineau divides the human species into three major groupings, white, yellow and black and yes this was based in their belief that whites were the highest evolved humans. I lay this at the feet of evolution belief. It gave people an excuse, "He is less evolved then me, he's still an animal or a savage". This kind of thinking justified the holocaust, the genocide of Native Americans and slavery. Manifest Destiny, what a pile of crap. Manifest Destiny - The Philosophy That Created A Nation < Manifest Destiny - Michael T. Lubragge < 1801-1900 < Essays < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and beyond I mention that because it also influenced Hitler. How American Racism Influenced Hitler Hitler Said to Have Been Inspired by US Indian Reservation System

So you think all evil has entered the world because of a man who ate a fruit? Sorry, I dont take the first 3 chapters of Genesis in a literal way!

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That's your prerogative just like its my prerogative to take it as literally. There are many different beliefs here.

holo said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Who is pretending which problem doesn't exist?

No, atheism simply means to not believe in a god. It's possible to believe in the existence of other supernatural phenomena though. But we'll have to be careful about definitions. For instance, does love exist? Well, it can't really be measured in the physical, but there's no doubt that it exists as a concept and emotion and that it for all practical purposes is "real" - though it's not some sort of "stuff" that floats around and could exist apart from human consciousness. If you would claim that it does, the burden would be on you to substantiate such a claim.
Same with morality. It obviously exists. The question is if it exists independently of human consciousness.

There are many ways an atheist can see morality. I, for one, do not subscribe to the idea of (truly) free will, but there are many atheists who do.

True, ultimately I can only say "because I say so." The Christian can only say "because God says so" - and then he'll be at odds with the other supposed gods who have a different morality. I think it's better to ask humans what is right and wrong, rather than a supposed and invisible god.

It's not about removing the problem of evil per se. It's just that without God, you don't have the very specific problem of "how can God be good and there still be evil in the world".

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I appreciate the candour.

Thing is, this is replaying the mediaeval debates between Realists and Nominalists. Tell me, when you say evil is Real if in human consciousness, obviously you are assuming levels of 'reality' here. Or is Bigfoot real? As real as a Gorilla, say? Both functionally only exist as concepts; as most people have never really seen a Gorilla, some claim to have seen Bigfoot also, and even if you have seen either, that activity is sense-mediated. Why is someone's subjective experience of a Gorilla more real than another's of Bigfoot, or at what point does intersubjectivity switch from delusion or illusion to objective fact? Things that most people see as 'objectively' real, such as a table say, are still merely a mental simulacrum made from the sense perceptions. We'd go so far as to say that in a sense the table is not, but rather an illusion of the particles it consists of acting on light or pressure receptors, which our mental process has constructed into an image in the mind. So how real is Evil, then? Does it have intersubjective valence? If so, how would that be validated? For that matter, what is Consciousness anyway that somehow acts as the medium for this Reality of evil? What of subconsciousness? Or archetype and cultural conceptions both arise somewhat out of?

I am being a bit obtuse, for which I apologise. You agreed that Evil is thus rendered merely a human construct, which can thus not be really justified beyond 'I say so', a nice formulation of Nietzsche's Will to create your own morality, really. However, as human experience is incorribly subjective, and as Science progressed become more so (with primary characteristics of increasingly becoming secondary, as optics first did with colour become observer dependant, then Relativity for length and time, and Quantum theory requiring the Observation altering the observed itself), the difference between what exists 'only in human consciousness' (whatever that means) and what exists, is decidely thin. We functionally treat what amounts to a mental simulacrum as Real routinely. Sufficed to say, to accept this as Real requires a way to accept some Intersubjectivity, which requires an assumed metaphysical framework to account for it.

In my mind, I have direct experience of a moral intuition, which tells me torturing a child worse than not doing so. This is clearer and more obvious to me on reflection, than the existence of a table that I know to be merely a mental model projected of particles mediated by sensory neurons receiving supposed stimuli, or the existence of a Gorilla I take on authority from experts and imagery I have seen. You need not agree with me, but it is obvious to my mind that Evil is, that it isn't primary to existence, and denying the problem of Evil in its theologic sense merely kicks open the question of how anything can then be intersubjectively validated or whether any meaning bears any relation beyond a merely nominally ascribed one then at all.

My point is simply that this doesn't solve a problem, except by creating umpteenth more, while the original proposition is not safely able to be set aside anyway thereby.