Did God Cause Hitler's Actions?

[Soulsnaxx]

Did God ordain Hitler to do what he did? Has God predetermined salvation for some people and damnation for all the others. The consistent Calvinist would answer yes to both questions. Bible-teacher Steve Gregg discussed this topic with a caller to the Narrow Path Radio program.

This link will take you to a brief video version of that discussion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51hD6-uhheE

[CThomas]

As apparently the last guy on Earth who doesn't think one or the other side of this controversy is obviously correct, I would take issue with the caller. Presumably the caller draws a fundamental distinction between (1) ordaining Hitler's decisions and conduct, which he thinks is heresy, and (2) creating Hitler knowing that Hitler would freely choose to engage in the conduct and failing to interfere with those decisions when God could easily do so, which the caller thinks is perfectly fine. What is the basis for this distinction? In both cases the result is the same for the victims of Hitler, of course. I thought that one of the ordinary non-Calvinist explanations for justifying (2) was that God values the free agency of Hitler enough that it outweighs the harm associated with Hitler's actions. If that's the answer in justification of (2), then I don't see how the non-Calvinist can consistently argue against (1), because (1) is susceptible to the exact same kind of justification, namely, that God values something else sufficiently highly to warrant ordaining Hitler's decisions. That something would obviously not be the same thing as in the case of (2), i.e., it would not be the decision to permit the exercise by Hitler of his free choices, but what reason is there to say that that is the only possible sufficient reason, as opposed to something else?

I would also take mild issue with the tenor of Steve's response to the extent that he discusses the treatment of Calvinistic views as heresy in the early centuries of the Church. Steve has elsewhere been very outspoken -- and I think correctly so -- in criticizing the exclusionary tendencies of the Church during these centuries. These people would excommunicate you for having slightly different views about the precise verbal formulations of highly abstract theological questions. And then the other group would un-Church the first guys. I know Steve was not arguing that Calvinism is heresy, and did say that he did not hold that view, but in doing so he also said that perhaps he was being too soft on the Calvinists.

CThomas

[steve]

CThomas,

I agree that the church became too anal about many minor doctrinal disagreements, and wrongly defined fellowship on the basis of these minor issues. However, I think that trend became problematic only after the advent of creedalism, in the fourth century. Prior to that, church fathers often identified what they regarded as heresies, but I don't think there was much formal disfellowshipping over them (I could be mistaken). It was the church fathers prior to the fourth century who often argued most strongly against the views that were later normalized by Augustine. They believed that the idea of God ordaining all things (including sin) belonged to a heretical sect called Manichaeism. This was a sect to which Augustine belonged before his conversion, and many see his inclusion of these doctrines into his Christian theology (which was the beginning of what we call Calvinism) as a merger of his former and his latter religious associations. I try to avoid calling anyone "heretics," and that would include Calvinists.

[CThomas]

I'm happy to stand corrected. I'm educable, albeit a little slow sometimes.

CThomas

[Paidion]

If God kills people, and was responsible for the killing and starving of the Jews in 70 A.D., I don't see any reason why He couldn't have been responsible for the Holocaust as well, and had chosen Hitler as the instrument for the same.

Aaron (Art) Katz (now deceased), a well-known Christian Jew, and much sought-after speaker, believed the Holocaust was God's punishment of the Jews. Some Jews hated him for stating this belief publically. Art resided at and led Ben Israel, a Christian community near Cass Lake, Minnesota. I have attended the camps for several decades at Ben Israel where Art ministered, and have marvelled at the spiritual power of this man of God. Indeed, that is where I met my wife, Jepne. In the story of his life Ben Israel: Odyssey of a Modern Jew Art recounted his conversion experience as an unbelieving atheist and former Marxist seeking the meaning to life, and how he was finally apprehended in Jerusalem by the God of Israel.

Some say that God chose Judas to deliver Jesus up to death, but if Judas had refused, God would have chosen someone else to kill His Son.

Personally, I don't see God as having killed His Son. Rather "God so loved the world that He gave His Son...". He gave His Son up to those who actually killed Him, in order to redeem the world through Him, "that whoever entrusts himself to Him should not perish (or undergo destruction) but have lasting life."

Obviously God "allowed" the destruction of the Jews in 70 A.D. in the sense that He did nothing to prevent it. The same with the Holocaust. God brought about some good out of both events. But there were also negative results. For example, there was a huge number of Jewish people who became atheists as the result of the Holocaust. I understand their thinking was, "God could not have done such heinous acts toward His chosen people. There must not be a God."

[CThomas]

Of course, God Himself causes the deaths of every person who has ever been born one way or another. (All right, with the possible exception of Elijah or what have you.) I've never understood atheists who charge God with "genocide" for decreeing the deaths of people in the Old Testament, but who never seem to realize that God decrees the death of everyone else just as surely, albeit sometimes at more advanced ages. It seems to me that charging God with "murder" is a category mistake along the lines of accusing someone of theft for taking property that belonged to him in the first place. A person may be guilty of murder because he has no right to take the life of another, but God has given us our lives in the first place and is obviously entitled to -- and most assuredly will -- take them back at whatever time and in whatever manner He sees fit.

CThomas

[Paidion]

Of course, God Himself causes the deaths of every person who has ever been born one way or another.

How do you know this? How do you know that God didn't simply create life in earth, and that sin brought death into the world as the Scripture affirms, and that now death comes "naturally" to each person (unless someone kills the person, or he is run over by a vehicle, or killed in some other way. (Floods, Tsunamis, earthquakes, death from animal attacks, etc. have become "natural") Even what we call "death from old age" is death which results from body parts wearing out: heart, circulatory system, disease, etc. With all these causes of death, why would we assume that God caused their deaths?

If a murderer kills your wife, would you believe that God caused her death? If so, why blame the murderer? Was he not simply God's instrument to bring about your wife's death?

[CThomas]

Sin is certainly the reason for the introduction of human death, but I'm inclined to take at face value passages like Romans 1:32, which seems to say that the deaths of people as a general matter are the consequence of God's decree. Even though this passage isn't talking about all of humanity, it certainly seems to make a general point about God's role in the relationship between the act of committing sin and the resultant fact of death for humans. More generally, even apart from particular scriptural references showing this, my point was really a moral one. I think there is simply a conceptual error going on when someone ascribes moral infirmity for taking lives to the one who created and bestowed the lives in the first place. Who says that if God creates lives He is therefore morally obligated to keep them living forever in an Earthly incarnation rather than keeping them there for a finite time?