This question of why God would allow the Holocaust has been in my mind ever since spring break of last year. The choir took a trip to the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland and we went to the concentration camps. I cannot comprehend how people could see others in such pain and not feel guilty about it? I do not understand how God would let so many people suffer and die? Why did he not step in an prevent it? Was he just allowing us to have human free will? Was it just an object lesson?
I don't have answers to this, I just have thoughts. God, as we know him, is supposed to be a loving God. He is a God who works miracles. He is a God who has given us free will so that we can become better people by learning from our mistakes. He doesn't fix everything for us or we really wouldn't have free will because we would never have to suffer the consequences from of our actions.
So what does this have to do with the Holocaust? Maybe it was just to show the utter depravity of people. Those who have gone so far to push God out of the way and set themselves up as God. Nazi Germany decided that it wanted to be God. It had rejected God so much that it claimed the right to rid the earth of undesireables. They went to the utter extreme of freewill. Free will of taking power and setting themselves up as gods. Given the choice of preserving life or ending it, they chose power to end the lives they thought were just taking away from the life of those who were worthy.
Still ,why would God allow this? Can God really be real and good as we know him and let this happen...again and again? Could it be that God is saying this is what happens when you stray too far from me and put your faith in man instead of God? Would that not mean that it was just an object lesson? Maybe God is allowing us the opportunity to see him contrasted to humans. If we trust in an all powerful God he can and will protect us, but if we trust in man (fallen as he is) we will be subjected to the most excruciating pain and anguish. It is like Hell on earth. Chosing human leadership is hell, pushing God out of the way. It causes suffering. But to be with God is to know heaven. Maybe then the Holocaust was a demonstration of hell, brought about by the depravity of man. Again, I don't have answers. But I cannot help but believe in God as loving and providing. I have seen it and felt it. But I cannot answer why he would allow such atrocities. Freewill choses hell. And people's choices affect everyone around them.
Do we, in chosing hell, chose it for other people as well?
Lately, I have been doing a lot of reading on the differences between Western thinking and Eastern thinking. There are gobs of articles, books and sites that talk about this, and I'm sure I am only touching on a very small tip of a very big iceberg.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, I have been reading about the change that took place in Judaism after the crucifixition of Christ and the bleeding of Hebraic thinking with Hellenistic Greek thinking.
It seems to me that as Westerners, especially in dealing with the Problem of Pain come from (or come to, depending on how you look at it) the question "why?" For example "why pain?" or "why not another way?" We search for the overarching meaning. We like adjectives and ways to describe main ideas.
The Easterner, thinks "what?" in the context of "what am I supposed to do?" or "what is my purpose?" This may sound like a very similiar question but at the core I understand them to be profoundly different.
The book of Job seems very foreign to westerners. Job definatley asks why something like this would happen but his response seems to come from thinking that is completley remote to any rational thinker. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of Lord."
Why is a big question for Job, but the bigger question for him, is "what am I supposed to do next?" In the Western Tradition I think it's extremely easy to think of our way of philosophizing, or asking questions as neutral. But any Orthodox rabbi will be very quick to point out otherwise. I often think about how people from other ways of thinking would react to our class discussion.