First Homework Help

The first of my homework help is one on an essay that will no doubt come into handy in the near future as it is a topic that is often discussed in Ibec, RE, Philosophy and Ethics lessons.

Where was a benevolent God during the Holocaust?

What you must make sure you write is opinions from Christianity and probably one more religion, plus your own view. You can write the most from your own view so use this as much as you can and go into lots of depth.

You should write something like God has given free-will so humans choose what they do.
Then go into more depth by saying that if god was all-knowing, surely he should have known that he wouldn't be able to break into human's free will to stop them from doing evil. Also, as it was God who gave us free-will right at the beginning, then God is responsible for the acts of evil that we are committing because of the presence of free-will that he gave us.

Another very important point is that the Nazis thought they were doing the right thing too and so God, as an all-loving being could not do something against their will.

If you are still really stuck, look at this word document below. This is my essay and it should make some guidance.
Please do not use this completely as that would ruin the point of learning and also because if everyone copied this, then all teachers may end up having to mark the same thing.






















I didn't manage to attach the word document so here it is.

In order to solve this question, some will try to deny the existence of evil itself, however this is very hard to do.

Over time, Christians have tried to solve the same sorts of questions, and they have managed to get some ideas.

Some comment that God is not wholly good, just as the Bible’s Abraham, Job, the Psalms suggests, while others consider that what people consider to be an act of wrong-doing is not evil put an absence of Good. An evidence of this is the Fall of Man explained in Genesis.

God has trusted humans and given them free will, and as humans themselves have chosen the acts of evil through their own will, as well as Original Sin being passed down from Adam and Eve, God has no responsibility for the acts of evil that humans commit themselves. However, I feel that if god is omnipotent and all-powerful, he should be able to break the barrier of free will. Furthermore, I personally think that as God has given us humans free will, and because of that we are committing deeds of evil, if he exists, God should be the one to blame as he was at the start of things.

This problem concerning God’s ‘evil’ is never-ending. For example, if God prevented the September 11 attacks occurring, then that means that he would have committed evil in Al-Qaeda’s opinion. If one person gets what they wanted between what they consider Good and Evil, there will always be someone or something that considers the opposite.

If then God always chose whichever the majority said, that would still work against the fact that God is thought to be all-loving, and therefore he should care as much about one human as he does about another.

Christians will try to deny the claim that God was malevolent by saying that God has chosen to never break human’s free will and that he hopes that because of his presence, human’s will become stronger so they can stop the acts of evils themselves. Some will also say that as God is and was all-loving, he could not act against either of the sides (Nazis were believing God was on their side and the Jews and Allies were believing he was on their side) and so he had to leave it to humans to come to an end – he did not want to betray any. A small percentage of Christians may even say that as God allowed Nazis to kill all the Jews and he allowed the Allies to win, the Nazis and the Allies got what they wanted each in the end. He also gave Jews the happiness of them all being sent to heaven. On the other hand, I feel that this again contradicts the fact that God is benevolent because Nazis would have wanted the Jews to go to hell but instead he sent them to heaven.

 

Another idea stated by theologians would be that God’s omnipotence does not include the ability to do what is logically impossible, such as to make 3+3 equal 7. They will follow up by saying that this is the reason as to why God could not give humans wholly free will and yet have the power over their decisions at the same time. Nevertheless, once again in my own personal opinion, I feel that if God is all-loving and all-knowing as qualities of the God in the Testaments suggests, then God should have realized before he gave us free will that it would be impossible to prevent us from committing acts of evil and as results of that, free will would end up destroying Goodness.

 

A conclusion for me would be that there is no such thing as Good and Evil as something entirely separate, they are both just the opposite of each other and what people consider to be Good and Evil are different for each human and so it is impossible to make everyone completely happy, so God has to be still and watch. He cannot help, as helping one would mean committing an act of evil himself for another.

I feel that blaming God for all the evil going on and that have gone on in the world is merely an excuse for the fact that humans are powerless. God gave humans free will not for humans to stand back and let evil things happen like the Holocaust and blame it all entirely on God himself but for humans to take responsibility themselves and stop what they can stop and find solutions that would make everyone happy for things that are out of their power.

In an answer to the initial question, although it is hard for me to answer it because I do not believe in God at the slightest, if I was a Christian, I would summarize it by saying that God was there but he was waiting for humans to take responsibility for the actions taking place because he was unable to do anything as he could not break into human’s free wills. He could also not do anything because doing something would have meant betraying at least one other person who had the opposite view on the Holocaust.