On believing in God after Auschwitz (part 1 of 2)
| August 2, 2012 | Posted by Joseph Keysor under Blog |
It has been asserted that it is impossible to believe in God after Auschwitz. This of course is part of the much larger argument that evil in the world (of which Auschwitz has become a potent symbol) disproves the existence of God.
This is not an argument against an impersonal God indifferent to human suffering, but it does raise a serious objection to the Christian God, who is supposedly loving, benevolent, all-powerful, and at the same time active in the world. How can he tolerate so much evil and suffering, and why would he create a world in which such things exist?
Much has been written about this problem from many angles, but I think it is worth pointing out that the people who raise these questions against God do not (usually) end up committing suicide. In spite of all of the world’s evils, life still remains worth living. There is much good in life and this good, for most of us, outweighs the bad. This is a powerful truth that should never be omitted from any discussion of the problem of evil.
But still the question of Auschwitz remains. Where was God? A deep and difficult question – yet religious faith has not died out. People still believe in God – and they also marry, start businesses, raise children, and enjoy a nice meal or a beautiful sunset without constantly looking over their shoulders at the Holocaust or other evils in the world. The life force in us is more basic and more powerful than problems of evil, however dark and terrible they might be. Yet, those of us who claim to believe in the God of the Bible cannot leave it at that. We have been challenged with a troubling question.
Some years ago I got into a conversation with a Jewish man from a German background. He and his family had managed to get out of Germany in time when he was a child, but he lost many relatives in the Holocaust. He said to me, “When I found out what happened to them, I knew there was no God.” How do we respond to that? This requires something more than debating points and arguments.
One thing that is necessary to put this into perspective is the day of judgement. When the criminals of the Holocaust have to stand before the Creator of the universe, all of their evil will be fully seen, and they themselves will see and know their guilt. They will come to a true realization of what they did, and will experience the utmost shame, horror, guilt, self-loathing, and disgust for their crimes – but then it will be too late for repentance. They will be sent to hell, the place of eternal punishment.
This covers a very significant part of the problem of evil. Someone may object, however, that a Nazi war criminal, even Hitler himself, does not deserve eternal punishment. Even Hitler’s evil was necessarily finite and could theoretically be atoned for by, say, a few billion years of torment. This argument is based on the mistaken assumption, however, that sinners have committed a finite amount of sins, the guilt for which is continually lessened by punishment until at last the slate is cleared and no more guilt remains.
We can’t always apply fallible human logic to higher spiritual realities, however, and the situation of the doomed souls in hell may be very different from what is commonly thought. What if (and I speculate beyond the bounds of scripture here) the evil and rejection of God that dominated sinners in their earthly lives finds a fuller expression in hell, and they so rage against God that, instead of diminishing over time, their guilt intensifies and increases? Thus, instead of earning their way out of suffering, they increase their just penalty yet more and more? If this is the case, eternal punishment is more comprehensible.
What about the possibility of forgiveness for mass murderers, who could then go to heaven? What kind of justice is that? Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Hess, Eichmann, Heydrich, the vast majority of Nazi killers, however, never expressed the slightest interest in repentance, or in the faith in Christ necessary for forgiveness. I did read somewhere of a concentration camp guard who after the war repented and sought forgiveness in Christ. This is possible, since Christ on the cross atoned for the sins of the entire world, and his blood is sufficient to atone even for a Nazi. This would require more than mere human, psychological guilt, but would have to be a work of the Holy Spirit.
Apart from the just punishment of the Nazi war criminals, there are some other considerations showing that the fact of Auschwitz does not necessarily nullify the possibility of a caring, personal God. One such consideration is that Hitler was not allowed to win the war. If he had won the war, and he and his successors had succeeded in exterminating every last single Jew, this would have been an unanswerable argument against Christianity. “It says in the Bible that God’s covenant with the Jews will endure as long as the sun and the moon endure, and that in the end they will be reconciled to God – it seems the Bible was wrong.” Then we would have to admit that the Bible was in error on this important point, and that the story of God’s covenant with the Jews was a fiction.
But, God is still active in the world. The course of modern history was not decided by Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill and Hitler, while God sat on the sidelines not able to interfere because our freedom is primary and his sovereign control is limited by our rights and powers. Many Christians by the way do not really believe that God is in control of world events by the way. This is because they believe in a God of their own limited imagination and weak faith, not in the God of the Bible.
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Dear Joe,
You are speculating as you say that residents in hell get worse. The Bible speaks of “few stripes” and “many stripes” suggesting, in my thinking, limited punishment then destruction which is their eternal punishment.
No, the individuals in hell never get better, however, that they get worse is unsupported as far as I know.
Yes, I was speculating.
Even if they did not get worse, but remained consistently in the same state of enmity towards God, their guilt could increase as they continue to commit the same sins – but, right, that is speculative.
Christ’s saying “Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched” and also Revelation 14:11 (“And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever”) indicates eternal punishment to me
a former pastor of mine, a prominent Christian leader, believed in destruction too while I held to your position at the time. I thought it was a compromise then too (not that this has bearing on the truth), so I am not unaware of your stance.
In my study it seems the explicit statements of Scripture concerning durative punishment outweigh the destruction statements. This is why formerly I leaned towards the neverending position. However explication of Gods word is not the only thing that Christ calls us to consider. We are also asked to make inferences and to recognize the implicit truth from taking the whole of God’s inerrant written revelation.
The Isaiah verse which Christ quotes refers to rebels whom Christ destroys on earth. If I read this right, it will take 7 months to clean the land after this battle. This is not of course everlasting, so, we must look further to the reference. I am not sure yet what Christ means exactly but, to me, everlasting is not very strong from the last verse of Isaiah.
The smoke which rises forever I used to believe implied eternal production if it rises forever. Taking everything together without studying the verse (I have not exegeted this section) it is doubtful to me that this continual production is warranted.
Also, the folks in hell certainly couldn’t continue sinning the way you say since they don’t have the opportunity in the lake of fire. In the eternal state everyone will bow the knee to Christ willingly or unwillingly. It has all the elements of regimented punishment.
As I mentioned before, “stripes” doesn’t convey durative ideas but a set amount as opposed to either intensity or an everlasting aspect.
Hello Alex,
About “few stripes” and “many stripes” in Luke chapter 12, I might be wrong, but I have thought that could apply to the chastening God gives believers on earth. As it says in Hebrews he chastens his children that we might be partakers of his holiness, and if he does not chasten us in this way we are not his children. So, this might not have anything to do with eternal punishment.
If this interpretation is right, it is God’s will that we strive after holiness, mortify the flesh, deny ourselves, seek more of God, and more of Christ, strive diligently to make our calling and our election sure, as is plainly stated in many passages. Those who do this will be beaten with few stripes (being human, they will still need chastening of some sort) while those who do not do this as they should, but are yet God’s children though faith in Christ, will receive more punishments needed to enable them to be partakers of God’s holiness (Hebrews 12:10-11).
I don’t know if anyone else has had this limited interpretation.
But, this passage in Luke 12 may refer to the believer’s judgment, where their works are evaluated, where some works done for God are preserved and others are not. Receiving stripes for more or less disobedience seems inconsistent with “There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus” and “blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin,” but I confess to not understanding this passage fully.
I agree with you that “explication of Gods word is not the only thing that Christ calls us to consider. We are also asked to make inferences and to recognize the implicit truth from taking the whole of God’s inerrant written revelation,” but that does not deny the fact that there are many verses which can be taken at face value and do not require exhaustive study and interpretation. When for example Christ says “If you do not forgive others God will not forgive you,” or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” these statements, like many others in the Bible, can be taken as they stand.
Also, I think that taking God’s word as a whole as opposed to just hunting for corroborative verses can still be consistent with a belief in everlasting punishment.
About the verse in Isaiah (“for their worm shall not die”), in Isaiah it seems to refer to an earthly context as you say, but in Mark, Christ is plainly referring to the afterlife and the final judgment. It seems odd that someone’s worm of torment would not die after the person himself had ceased to exist. Old Testament teachings often have deeper spiritual applications.
Revelation 14:11 refers to eternal torment (“the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever”) though that is limited to those who worshipped the beast or received his mark. You say that this is doubtful – I have never been too dogmatic about the details of Revelation, as there is much in it I don’t understand.
“Also, the folks in hell certainly couldn’t continue sinning the way you say since they don’t have the opportunity in the lake of fire. In the eternal state everyone will bow the knee to Christ willingly or unwillingly. It has all the elements of regimented punishment.”
As you say, every knee will bow to Christ, but that could refer to their initial recognition, before or at the specific judgment. It does not mean that they will always be bowing the knee to Christ in punishment, though they will continue to recognize his divinity. It is possible though to imagine people in torment raging in blasphemy against God as their evil was more fully manifest, it still being possible for them to sin in their hearts and minds even in hell. Thus, they would not be working off their debt of sin until they reach a point of guiltlessness, but rather continuously increasing their guilt so as to never be free of just penalty. But, I did say I was going beyond scripture and offering my own speculation.
Significantly, no one that I know of has ever rejected the possibility of eternal life in heaven for the elect. No one (I don’t believe) has ever said “It is unfair of God to allow people to experience an eternity of paradise after only a short time on earth, so they should be allowed to experience heaven only for a proportionate time and then be eliminated.”
When it comes to an unimaginable eternity of blessings we have no trouble in understanding that God’s goodness is capable of this and gives us far beyond anything we can deserve or imagine. But what if likewise his holiness and our sin are far greater than we can imagine, and an eternity of punishment is, in fact just, contrary though that may be to human logic?
At times I have tried to imagine Hitler in hell, but remember that I need to be more concerned with my own future state. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says God.
Whatever the case, we can be sure that complete, full, and final judgment will be done on Hitler and the Nazis, which goes a long way to resolving the problem of evil (though much remains yet to be explained.
By the way, did Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is a hero to many evangelicals, ever mention hell? Did he ever mention the blood of Christ?