[goldstategop]

The answer to the Pope's question is it wasn't God who built Auschwitz; it was Man. Human beings are endowed with free will to choose between good and evil. The same faculty that gave us a Pope Benedict also gave us an Adolf Hitler. We have it within us to choose life or to choose death. Those words are in front of us, written right in the Torah. And we do not need to go up to Heaven to learn how to serve God and love our fellow men and women and refrain from doing evil. We can do otherwise but the consequences will be severe for us. And in our exalted free will we are raised above the beasts but are not meant to be like them but are destined for greater things. Let us take the time to listen.

[spikeytx86]

Man made Auschwitz and man ended Auschwitz. God has given us his divine wisdom it is ours to heed or ignore. We shall do good or evil in this world, we shall be saved or go into the darkness all is ultimately up to us. We all however when we perish from this earth must answer for the deeds we have done. Life is a buffett we get to eat, but ultimately we have to settle up the bill and there is no skipping out on it.

[Pajamajan]

Interesting post. Ages old questions. In keeping with the theme I could add "Why didn't God save his only begotten son from the cross?"

Personally, I think what was done to Jesus, tells us all we need to know about human nature. Let me be clear- I'm not saying anything about the Jews. As I read the story, several groups of people could have stopped Jesus's crucifixion, but didn't. Starting with Judas- who was Jesus's own disciple. The Romans could have stopped it, the people in the crowd could have stopped it- but nobody did. Of course, it had to happen that way to save us from ourselves.

The Nazi's had no God . As the Bible says: Without God, we are nothing. They (Nazi's)did terrible things. But with all due respect to the Pope- the people in the Concentration camps were set free. We had to go to war to do it, with great loss of life, but it was done. What gave "the Greatest Generation" the courage to go to war and make such heroic sacrifices? Also from what I've read of the history of WWII- there were times when we were only one step ahead of the Nazi's- in fact at the beginning of the war- we were losing. There were certain key events that HAD to go our way, or we would have lost. (Where did the liberals or anyone get the idea of an "easy war"?) I believe that God must have been helping us out back then.

Maybe it goes back to Genesis, when man was first tossed out of the Garden of Eden- we have to toil here, in this fallen place, and try to make something of it. We have knowledge of Good and Evil so we have the responsibility to to use this knowledge to give glory to God or to use it for evil. This place is sort of a neutral ground, and the battle between good and evil goes on continuously, in major and minor ways.(I seem to have said what you said- but with much less eloquence.)

Off subject, but, same theme- I've gone to Church on many Sundays where we pray for the troops in Iraq-which is great, and necessary- but, I'd like to hear more of people praying FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE MISSION IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN too. (just my two-cents)

[trailboss800]

A bit of blame shifting by the Pope. Why did the current Pope help to smuggle Nazi officers out of Germany after WWII. He needs to take his own inventory and not God's...

[GiovannaNicoletta]

bookmark

[ClearCase_guy]

bump

[LowCountryJoe]

Personally, I'd like to accept the 'God allows us to have free will' theodicy because it suits my understanding of why people do bad things to each other. But then i cannot grapple with the fact the bad things also happen to people that other people could not possible be responsible for, such as natural disasters. Is God trying to test our faiths when/where applicable? Did He just set the Earth in motion with its physical & biological laws and then step back vowing to have minimal interference or none at all [none at all would invalidate some biblical accounts of intervention]? Is the 'good and the bad' all subjective and not properly placed in the divine context [this explanation sort of contradicts the 'testing our faiths' question...or does it?]?

Or could it be that I'm making the fundamental mistake of trying to comprehend God's actions/inactions by trying to think of Him through the lens of a mere human's understanding? Yes, I believe that's it.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The pro-socialist slant/bias/favoritism/politics of the modern liberal (be they liberal NY Jews or any other "intellackuals") is shown by the question: The writer never brings up the millions MORE killed under Communist regimes (Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, NVM, NK) and their socialist influenced countries and "liberated" areas: Sudan, Ethiopia, etc.

The hundreds of millions killed by socialists simply CANNOT be condemned by a liberal.

The tens of millions murdered by liberal abortionists CANNOT be mentioned either.

[GingisK]

"Why was he silent?

This same question can be asked of the Pope during WW II.

[Cvengr]

A simplistic perspective.

In studying Scriptural perspectives on good and evil, there are two types of good: human good and divine good. Human good in even the best of conditions is temporary and only lasts maybe several years to a century. Divine good has eternal consequence. Divine good is recognized in heaven. Human good is merely parlayed into evil by HaSatan in his attempt to counterfeit perfect environment.

[aimhigh]

Where was God in those days?

To stop all evil, God would have to kill us all. We live under grace.

[RoseofTexas]

Can anyone here recommend a book or books of positive things that happened in those camps. I remember, quite sometime ago a person telling me about the Christians who were held in those prisons and how they saw the hand of God work in their behalf as well as some of the Jewish folk those Christians befriended. Sure would love to read the good that came out of that horrific evil event in history. Words do fail, why were WE silent...:(

[alwaysconservative]

Thanks for posting this and for the fascinating discussion!

[buffyt]

"Where was God in those days?" asked Pope Benedict XVI as he stood in Auschwitz last week.

Well HE was one of the Hitler Youth, NOT me.

[SuziQ]

It was not God who failed during the Holocaust or in the Gulag, or on 9/11, or in Bosnia. It is not God who fails when human beings do barbaric things to other human beings. Auschwitz is not what happens when the God who says "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is silent. It is what happens when men and women refuse to listen.

A big AMEN to that!

[quadrant]

Auschwitz wasn't built by God but by men who thought they were God.