New Q&A: "Why did God allow the Holocaust?"

Apologetics Q&A from Quora

As my conversation with J.B. reached its conclusion, J.B. asked the final question, the one he’d been building up to the entire time. Good and evil aren’t mere concepts; they describe the joy or suffering of real people. If we’re talking about a real God who really cares, then we have to address the greatest examples of human suffering head-on.

And J.B. did.

J.B. Asked:

I would truly love to hear God’s explanation as to why he permitted the Holocaust to occur. That’s my problem with him.

My Response:

Hello J.B.,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

You said:

I would truly love to hear his explanation as to why he permitted the Holocaust to occur. That’s my problem with him.

We agree: the Holocaust was incredibly evil, one of the vilest things humanity has ever done. It should not have happened.

As to the question of why God permitted it, we have a clear answer:

God gave humanity dominion.

This is a gift with a cost. It’s a free gift; we don’t have to do anything to receive dominion. But using it can result in blessing or cursing, life or death, happiness or horror.

Dominion means that we get to make our own choices.

It means that we (and everyone we affect with our choices) must suffer the consequences of our choices, for good or for evil.

Dominion is here. It’s not going anywhere. It’s not going to be chopped up and apply sometimes, but not others. Humanity has dominion of this world.

Why? Because according to Genesis 1 and 2, God set the rules in place, and this is the rule He established as to who rules this world.

Throughout the rest of the Scriptures, God states repeatedly that He won’t break His word or go back on what He has set in place:

I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. (Psalm 89:34)

This is what is generally referred to as God’s faithfulness. If He promises, He follows through. What He says, He does. What He sets in place remains in place.

God hates evil far more than you and I do. Good is everything that’s like God. Evil is everything that’s opposed to God, everything devoid of God, everything that acts like God’s opposite.

God is love, and love is good. But hatred, the opposite of love, is evil.

God is life, and life is good. But death, the opposite of life, is evil.

God is kindness, and kindness is good. But cruelty, the opposite of kindness, is evil.

God hates evil, and God must destroy evil. But God must work within the rules He Himself set in place.

This is why, to save humanity, Jesus had to take on flesh and live as the human Messiah.

Instead of changing His mind and changing how goodness and badness are defined or dealt with, God worked within the system He set in place. In Genesis 1, God gave humanity the dominion of the earth and our lives. God can’t violate that gift of dominion by stripping away our dominion whenever He doesn’t like what we’re doing.

God became a human to wield the dominion God gave to humanity. With that dominion, Jesus defeated evil by dying for all the evil humanity committed. Jesus rose again in the triumph of goodness over evil, life and love and kindness shining even brighter after their opposites were nailed to the Cross.

But before we wrap this up, let’s return to your challenge. Let’s compare the Holocaust from God’s perspective to the perspective of an uncaring, godless universe.

As God sees the holocaust:

• God gives humanity the good gift of dominion, the ability to make their own choices and govern this world.

• God watches humanity commit evil.

• God takes on flesh and dies in humanity’s place to redeem humanity and save them from sin — both saving them from hell, as well as making it possible for them to stop sinning.

• God gets justice for everyone who is sinned against. Every Nazi stands trial before the Throne of God, with every one of their deeds exposed. They will suffer their just punishment for all the evil they inflicted.

• God loves the Jews. Romans 9 and onward emphasizes how much He loves them and hasn’t given up on them, no matter how they’ve treated Him. He is working to save them. I suspect a great many of those who died in the gas chambers found themselves welcomed onto Heaven’s shores, God’s children welcomed home.

Often, we frame these issues too small. We look at the victim’s death and think it’s the end.

It’s not, not by a long shot.

Countless victims are welcomed home into God’s arms, in love and peace and joy greater than they’ve ever known.

Countless perpetrators are judged and justly punished for their crimes. Even if they “get away with it” in life, they can’t escape God in the life after.

Compare this with a purely naturalistic, secular, God-less take.

• Do the lives of those 6 million Jews matter? In a God-less universe, no. They are cosmic accidents of random evolution like we all are. The universe doesn’t care.

• Are the Nazis evil for committing the Holocaust? In a God-less universe, no, because there is no good or evil. There’s only random chance, random evolution, random molecules of matter bouncing around until the heat death of the universe.

• Does any life matter? In a God-less universe, no. You die and disappear and nothing.

Such a God-less universe doesn’t match what I experience in life.

You know those six million Jews matter.

You know their lives matter.

You know what the Nazis did to them was wrong.

You know the Nazis deserve punishment for their horrific crimes.

God knows all of those things, too. The Scriptures are crystal clear about each of them.

That’s why Jesus took on flesh to save humanity from the evils we inflict upon ourselves.

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