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I just finished rewatching a Netflix series on WWII. There was footage of the Americans liberating Nazi concentration camps. There were grown men crying in gratitude for the advent of the Americans, and of course, all the atrocities the Nazis committed. The intense suffering of the people waiting to die was heart-wrenching. It got me wondering, if God truly is benevolent and has humanity’s interests at heart, why did he let such large-scale genocide go on for so many years and at such a high level of human suffering? It seems His tolerance for evil is very high — almost too high in my estimation.
We know that He will send his Son to intervene at the height of suffering eventually in the last days, why wasn’t he more present and willing to intervene earlier during the senseless suffering and destruction Hitler caused in WWII?
That’s a good question. The French had the chance to end the war early. Had they not been so timid, they could’ve saved themselves and many other Nazi victims. Had the Nazi’s played their cards differently, they had a good chance to knock the Soviets out of the war and end Stalin’s rule. It would’ve been too late to prevent Holodomor, but millions of Russian lives might still have been saved from starvation and the gulags.
If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor and awakened the sleeping giant, they could’ve continued their conquest of Asia and the Pacific. Their destruction would’ve gone on, but the CCP also wouldn’t have been able to take over China and beat Stalin in the game of ‘Who can starve more of their own citizens?’.
Had the assassin who shot Archduke Ferdinand not found him by dumb luck, both world wars would have never happened and our current world would look very different.
We have the benefit of hindsight. There are so many places we can look and see how lives would be saved if things happened differently. If those events had gone differently, the people living in that alternate timeline would never know the bullets they dodged. How many bullets have we dodged and don’t know about? Considering what people are capable of doing to each other, it probably could’ve been worse.
Perhaps that’s a darkly optimistic outlook, and it’s certainly no consolation for those who suffered. The only good thought I have is that the atonement covers all, even those who suffered beyond what we can imagine.
Many years ago I read the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solahenitsyn. There are scholars that believe the atrocities committed by Stalin were at least 5 time greater in suffering and the loss of human life than what occurred because of Hitler. A friend of mine from my military experience was captured by the Vietcong and suffered greatly but was able to escape. But his suffering lasted beyond his return to peace and safety. Suffering seems to take upon a different meaning when it is close and known. I am hardly an expert in suffering – somehow, I have avoided what has befallen even upon my family and friends. I will give my opinion which is the only logical conclusion I have found. I do not want to appear callous or not caring. In scripture we are presented with what is called the Garden of Eden epoch. In this epoch we are told through symbolism concerning the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We are told that through mortal experiences we will learn the good from the evil. That with this knowledge we will become like the G-ds – knowing good from evil.
I believe that at the evil end of our mortal experience we will gain understanding through suffering even up to the final conclusion of death. It appears to me that some are more burdened in suffering and death than others. I believe that the greatest suffering of such burdens was laid upon Christ. I do not intend to separate the suffering of Jesus from his divine Father except to echo that Christ did not allow anyone to endure more than what he suffered and endured. This then is at the other or good end of the symbolism concerning the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That we will also experience good that comes from our G-d that suffers more than any and all of us – not for himself or his individual glory but so that all will transcend suffering and death to be resurrected so that needless suffering of those that believe in Christ is finished. When I speak of belief in Christ, I am not talking about just in our mortal experience but what began long ago before we were born and that will be remembered forever after when we die.
That suffering which buries us and other in sorrows and tears is overcome by Christ as sure as the sun rises after the storm that we may rejoice in the light. I believe that those that experience greater sorrows and tears will rejoice the more with Christ when it is made known that the sorrows and tears are overcome and ended.
I watched a movie on WW2 where a catholic nun school teacher gave an analogy. She said that if we drop a pencil and pick it up then we might be momentarily distracted to other events going on around us.
If time moves differently for God than for regular people then maybe God is temporarily distracted by some other pressing matter.
That distraction could continue for years, decades, centuries even – but God will eventually return to set right what went wrong while he was called away.
I understand that this analogy has some holes and I do not know if the analogy was historically accurate to the time period or invented for the sake of the movie.
Roy wrote:
I watched a movie on WW2 where a catholic nun school teacher gave an analogy.She said that if we drop a pencil and pick it up then we might be momentarily distracted to other events going on around us.
If time moves differently for God than for regular people then maybe God is temporarily distracted by some other pressing matter.
That distraction could continue for years, decades, centuries even – but God will eventually return to set right what went wrong while he was called away.
I understand that this analogy has some holes and I do not know if the analogy was historically accurate to the time period or invented for the sake of the movie.
I both like and dislike the dropped pencil analogy. Jesus said that in this world there will be tribulations but to be of good cheer because he has overcome the world. I think that everything is alright – we just need to not see things as disconnected moments but as a beautifully woven tapestry.
I don’t care for the dropped pencil analogy either, especially since most Christians (and other Abrahamics) believe God to omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. If God truly were all three of those, dropping a pencil would make no difference in ability (and for the record I’m not sure God is any of them). I recognize the original question is why many don’t believe in God or doubt God. The only way I have reconciled it for myself is from the Deist viewpoint.
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