Where was God when Hitler and Stolin were in power? I've been so stuck on that. I cannot believe that those poor people weren't praying and asking for help and mercy. Does the Bible explain that? I always pray for the US and World. But, I am not better than those that were starved, murdered and tortured. Can someone explain that for me? BTW, I do realize that those two horrible times were not the only ones. And that Christians and Jews continue to be persecuted.
I will share my understanding of the Bible's explanation of evil, which is sometimes cited as constituting a stumbling-block to belief in the NT God for some people.
The problem is reconciling God’s power and love with the fact of evil and its consequence. A person—even a theist—might think that God would not permit evil, suffering and hell to exist. People who are mystified by evil and repulsed by its punishment do not realize that the essential aspect of being a human rather than a robot or subhuman creature is MFW, which is what enables a person to experience love and meaning. This is what makes humans different from animals, whose behavior is governed mainly by instinct. This is what it means to be created in God’s image (GN 1:26-27; robot or responsible)?
God could not force people to return His love without abrogating their humanity. If God were to zap ungodly souls, it would be tantamount to forcing conversions at gunpoint, which would not be free and genuine.
If God were to prevent people from behaving hatefully, then He would need to prevent them from thinking evilly, which would make human souls programmed automatons. Even if God were to prove Himself to skeptics by means of a miracle, they might believe for awhile and then as their memories began to fade they would probably think that God had died and revert to their former doubt—necessitating an endless string of miracles (recapitulating the story of the Israelites on the way to Canaan after the exodus from Egypt).
However, for reasons we may understand only sufficiently rather than completely,
God designed reality so that experiencing His presence is less than compelling, so that even Jesus (God the Son) on the cross cried out “My God [the Father], why have you forsaken [taken God the Spirit from] me?” (MT 27:46, PS 51:11) This phenomenon is sometimes called “distanciation”, because we experience God as distant from us and “unknown” (ACTS 17:23), even though He is close or immanent, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (ACTS 17:28). Distanciation is not forsaken.
God’s normative means of conversion is persuasion rather than coercion (MT 12:39, 24:24, 1CR 1:22-23). This is seen very clearly in Jesus’ lament over the obstinacy of Jerusalem (MT 23:37). Two unusual theophanies included when God appeared to Moses (in a burning bush per EX 3:2-6), whom God wanted to establish the Jewish lineage for the Messiah (OT), and to Saul/Paul (as the resurrected Jesus in ACTS 9:3-6), whom God chose to establish the NT church of Christ. Miracles are rare (not normative).
Moral free will (MFW) only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in cursing, death and hell (DT 30:19). This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. The Spirit of God is good: love, peace and joy (GL 5:22-23). Therefore, whoever rejects the Lord is spiritually separated from Him (IS 59:2) and thereby chooses the evil or satanic spirit of hatred, strife and misery and reaps the just consequence called “hell” in the afterlife (GL 6:7-9, HB 9:27-28). These options were presented by Moses to the Israelites (DT 30:19), and Jesus referred to this fundamental choice in terms of a fish or egg versus a snake or scorpion (LK 11:11-13). Life… or Curse? (GN 3:24, RV 22:1-2)
God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (GN 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1JN 3:8) and humanity (RM 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship. Sin: ignoring God/God’s Word. God loves a cheerful giver (2CR 9:7), which means He desires people to cooperate with Him happily because of love and gratitude for His grace rather than to cower before Him because of fear of hell. Love must be evoked; it cannot be coerced. And again, when souls sin or do NOT choose to love God freely, it is perfectly just (loving and logical) for them to reap the appropriate consequence (GL 6:7-9) or hell.
Why would anyone choose to believe otherwise?
Only God knows why people choose atheism. It is a mystery stated by Isaiah, which is cited by Jesus (in MT 13:14-15): “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused.” Apparently, this callous attitude demands God to nullify faith/MFW and thereby abrogate the essence of humanness by performing miracles in order to prove He exists (MT 12:39, 24:24, JN 20:29 & 1CR 1:22). In other words, atheists presume to know better than God; they want to usurp divine authority to determine what is best or good, but they may one day (at the eschaton per RV 20:15) wish they had admitted the possibility that God has ordained this mortal life on earth for the purpose of people proving to Him who is worthy of (qualified for) eternal life in heaven (cf. RM 2:5-8 & 2CR 13:5; heart/mind: hard or open?).
Such
evil people punish/torture themselves by experiencing delayed karma, just as those who experience appropriate justice during this earthly existence also punish themselves or reap what they have sown and send themselves to jail. This view makes souls responsible for breaking the rules rather than blaming evil on the judges (or Judge) who enforce the rules. The purpose of earthly punishment is to promote repentance, but the reason for retribution in hell is to attain justice. It is difficult to imagine, but somehow even someone as evil as Hitler will receive perfect justice, perhaps experiencing the agony of the millions of deaths he caused in accordance with the principal of “eye for eye” (MT 5:38), after which their souls are destroyed forever (per JN 17:12, RM 9:22, GL 6:8, PHP 3:19, 2THS 1:9 & 2PT 3:7).
Apparently, souls who are saints or saved sinners in heaven retain the freedom to sin by rejecting God, which Satan and his minions are indicated to have exercised (in LK 10:18, MT 25:41, JUDE v.6, cf. EZK 28:15-19). However, the decision made freely on earth (because of distanciation) is confirmed rather than negated or nullified by attaining proof and vindication in heaven.
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