Half-Life

I keep hearing that William Lane Craig said that the Holocaust was a good thing because it was God's plan to have the Jews gain more strength, courage and all that stuff.

But, by that reasoning, Hitler shouldn't be talked about so negatively as God was just using Hitler to act out his plan of "helping the Jews."

Do Christians like Craig believe Hitler should be praised and have all blame removed?

Hamlet

I can't believe I'm responding to this piece of garbage you call a thread, but it in no way follows that if God produces good out of the evil of a creature then the evil of that creature is praiseworthy. (This message board used to have such a higher quality of participants.)

Half-Life

But, Dr. Craig says it was God's plan for the Jews to have courage.

Hitler can't do anything BUT start the Holocaust if it was God's plan.

Riley Stone

This does bring up an interesting question, though (which is pretty much the same kind of question we've been discussing in the thread about Craig next door)---what is it, specifically, about what Hitler did during the Holocaust that Christians think is "evil?" It can't be that Hitler killed people, since Christians (including Dr. William Lane Craig) say it is not only acceptable to kill people in certain circumstances but that Christians are morally obligated to kill people (including little children) if God tells them to do so.

And it can't be that Hitler tortured the Jews since according to the Bible, torture, in itself, is not evil. (It's only evil when God doesn't order it.)

So what exactly is it about what Hitler did that Christians think is so evil? Is it that he killed and tortured people without getting permission from God first? And if this is what he did that was so "evil," is this any worse, in the eyes of Christians, than a person stealing a car or telling a lie without first getting permission from God to do so? It seems to me that if, according to Christians, the only objective moral standard that Hitler violated was to disobey God, then how is one form of disobedience any worse than another form of disobedience?

If the only "objective rule" in a classroom is that the teacher be obeyed, then Johnny's failure to obey the teacher when she said to raise his hand before speaking is no worse than Tommy's failure to obey the teacher when the teacher said not to crack Sally over the head with a baseball bat. It seems to me that if Christianity is true, then the behavior of Hitler during the Holocaust was no worse than the behavior of a man who steals a pencil from his co-worker. And if Christianity views genocide, torture, and the stealing of a pencil from a co-worker as behaviors that are equally "evil" and reprehensible, then this, I think, is a rather sad commentary on Christian ethics and morality.

Half-Life

but, how can Hitler disobey God if it was God's plan for the Jews according to Mr. Craig?

If the Holocaust never happened, what would Craig say? Nothing, so God would be in the clear and free of blame and still existing with no problems.

But, the Holocaust did happen, so what does Craig say? That it was God's Plan for the Jews to gain courage.

God can't lose according to apologists no matter what he does or how he acts.

sourdough

just how th F do you gain courage if youre FRIED or starved or tortured to death!?

GenesisNemesis

Furthermore, I wonder if Craig is a Zionist, or a "closet Zionist"... :wide:

simongc

well my understanding that a lot of Vatican Insiders did ; and a lot of Senior Nazi's were spirited out of Europe at the end of WWII with the assistance of some allied personnel which would indicate a fair bit of concurrence .

Steven Carr

The evil was *necessary* for the good, in the view of William Lane Craig.

All 6 million Jews had to die in Craig's view , for God to be able to produce the good he did out of it. If only 5 million Jews had died, God's plans would have been thwarted....

According to William Lane Craig, God has chosn the world with the optimal amount of suffering necessary for the maximum amount of good.

It is the same with abortion.

If just one baby is not aborted, the amount of good in the world will go down.

You have to laugh at Craig's justification of evil.

peanutaxis

It might have been my fault. I loosely quoted him in that other thread. I went to a Q&A session where he was answering Q's the other day. But you've got a rather extreme version there (purple monkey dishwasher). I'm certain that he would be quite adamant that what Hitler did was wrong. But his statement about the 'problem of evil' was more along the lines of ~'evidently suffering is part of God's wise plan'.