If God is good and all powerful, then why is there suffering? That summarizes the problem of evil confronting monotheists. It becomes especially clear as we contemplate the Nazi Holocaust. On page 284 of the book, Explaining Hitler, Ron Rosenbaum (New York: Random House, 1998) writes:

God as Satan. Or an impotent nebbish. Are these the only alternatives open to us in the aftermath of the Holocaust? In fact, there is a strain of theodicy that attempts to argue that God is neither all-powerful nor impotent but has limited his own power to the extent necessary to give man free will, the freedom to choose good and evil. The most powerful argument for this — a contemporary symbolic-logic version of G.W. Leibniz’s argument that this is the best of all possible worlds consistent with individual freedom (as opposed to determinism or predestination) — is the one made by Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who insists that without God permitting the possibility of evil, of man choosing wrong, of what Plantinga calls “transworld depravity” (that in any world in which there is freedom some will choose evil), there can be no possible world in which free will or moral choice is meaningful.

But to many, the Holocaust is a challenge to the notion of the best-of-all-possible-worlds-consistent-with-free-will theodicy. Why couldn’t God have created a slightly less depraved human nature? Does the necessity for transworld depravity require a human nature so depraved that hundreds of thousands would collaborate in the murder of millions of children too young to be paying for any imagined sins? Can Auschwitz be reconciled with any best-of-all-possible-worlds theodicy that doesn’t require us to question the character of God’s creation, the character of God’s creative impulse? Or must we resort to what is generally known as an irenic (or “soul-making”) theodicy — that catastrophic evils such as Auschwitz are painful moral lessons that God intends will lead ultimately to a less-depraved human nature? Must we then say, in effect, “Thank you, God, we needed that”?

However, the conclusions too often drawn from the Holocaust — that God wasn’t there, or that he doesn’t exist, or that he doesn’t care, or that he is somehow impotent — overlook one very critical point: Hitler lost.

The question is sometimes asked, “Where was God during the Holocaust?”

There is an answer: “He was bombing the crap out of Nazi Germany.”

We may legitimately wonder why he didn’t just snap his fingers and end it instantly. But then again, when has he ever done that? It took ten plagues over at least a year to get the Israelites out of Egypt. And even then, the Egyptians weren’t so impressed that it prevented them from pursuing the Israelites to the Red Sea. And then, another forty years passed before the Israelites began the conquest of Palestine — a conquest that took another few years of long, hard and bloody fighting — and was far from complete by the end of Joshua’s life.

The Holocaust would be a serious challenge to the existence of God only if Hitler had won. He didn’t. He lost.

The Bible gives us the hope that God will ultimately triumph and good will prevail. We ask why God doesn’t do something about all the evil in the world. But that overlooks the simple fact that he has done, and continues to do something about it. Every day. We’re just too impatient.

So why didn’t God just kill Hitler when he was a soldier on the field of battle in World War I? Or better yet, why didn’t Hitler succumb to his childhood illnesses?

Yet, consider all the soldiers who do die in war, and all the children who do die young. And when these sad events transpire, we moan, “Where’s God? How could God let that innocent die?” So God is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.

The question of why doesn’t God do something about evil is actually, “Why doesn’t God solve it the way I think would be best.” It is a disagreement over tactics.

The following fable may also help us as we consider the problem of evil:

“It is quite clear that there can be no such thing as the Owner,” said the old dog. He had perched himself on the edge of the chair and surveyed the pups below them. “Consider the obvi¬ous fact of the existence of the Veterinarian.”

The little pups shivered in fear.

“Is there anything positive that might be said about the Veterinarian?” asked the old dog.

“Perhaps it is to teach us something?” squeaked one little pup.

The old dog laughed. “What possible thing can you learn from being jabbed and prodded and tormented in that little cage? That you don’t like being poked? I could have told you that without the experience.”

“Perhaps free will has something to do with it?” suggested another little pup.

Again, the old dog laughed. “We assume that the Owner is all-knowing and all-powerful and that on top of that he loves us and cares for us.”

“We do receive food every day,” pointed out another small pup.

“Then why is there the suffering of the Veterinarian?” demanded the old dog. “If the Owner was all-knowing and all-powerful, couldn’t he keep us from having to endure such suffering?”

“Well certainly,” agreed the pups.

“Then why doesn’t he? If he loved us, wouldn’t he keep the Veterinarian away? In fact, why is there even a Veterinarian at all? It is obvious that the existence of the Veterinarian is in¬compatible with the existence of the Owner. Either that, or the Owner is not powerful, or else the Owner is not good. There is no way of reconciling the existence of the Owner in the traditional sense with the obvious reality of the Veterinarian.”

It is absolutely impossible for the dogs to ever understand why the Veterinarian is necessary, or that the Veterinarian is actually an element in the Owner’s love for them. Certainly this is not a perfect analogy, but just as the Veterinarian is nothing but horrible for a dog, perhaps the why of the existence of evil, the reality of suffering, and all that entails is simply beyond our comprehension. That it seems so “obviously” incompatible with the nature of God or even the existence of God does not mean that it necessarily is.

Evil is an intractable problem. It is very difficult to solve, given the allowance of freedom. An analogy may illustrate this. Censorship is a bad thing. Pornography is a bad thing. We would like to keep pornography out of the hands of children. How do you avoid censorship and protect children at the same time? In a very small way, this helps illustrate the sort of dilemma facing God when we think about the importance of freedom and the inevitability freedom gives for individuals to make appalling choices.

Finally, in relation to the question of evil and the difficulty some think it creates for simultaneously allowing the existence of a good, all-powerful deity: if there is no God, is the problem of evil thereby eliminated? Would the non-existence of deity improve the human condition? Is the Holocaust now more bearable if there is no God?

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)

If I’m alone in that valley, then this life really sucks.

But I don’t think I’m alone.

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