Fellowship Discussion Summary 3/15/2025

Addendum: “Where Was God?”

The Holocaust, Theodicy, and the Question That Won’t Go Away

Renaissance Ministries | March 2026

An addendum to “When Belief Confronts Belief: The Otranto Martyrs, Iran, and the Fire We Need”

“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.”
— Job 13:15

Introduction: Charlie’s Jewish Friend

During our March 15 fellowship discussion, Charlie Gutierrez shared an encounter that haunts anyone who takes faith seriously:

“I have one of my customers, an old Jewish woman. We get into conversation, and she says, ‘If there was a God, how could the Holocaust have happened?’ It was very personal to her. And I have twenty or thirty seconds at the most. What do you say? Two, three sentences?”

This is the question. Not an abstract philosophical puzzle, but a cry from someone for whom six million deaths — including perhaps her own family — is not history but memory. Not statistics but faces. Not argument but accusation.

Charlie pressed us: “What would Jesus say? Jesus would have given some pithy, clear, at least a redirection. What would He have said?”

We wrestled with this for nearly two hours. We did not find a two-sentence answer. But we found something perhaps more valuable: honesty about how hard this question is, and a framework for engaging it with integrity.

This addendum explores the problem of evil — specifically as raised by the Holocaust — and offers what we believe is a Christian response. Not a complete answer (we don’t have one), but a faithful response.

Part I: Why This Question Matters

The Hammer and the Wedge

Dr. Thomas Abshier opened our discussion by identifying the strategic use of this question:

“Philosophy 101 at UCLA — that was one of the major themes of the class. And of course, the purpose of going through it was to prove there’s no God, so they could send you out in the world as good secularists. It’s an indoctrination thing. Philosophy uses this particular issue as a hammer, as a wedge, as a way of prying people away from their faith.”

He’s right. The problem of evil is the most potent weapon in the atheist arsenal. Richard Dawkins leads with it. So did Bertrand Russell, David Hume, and countless others. The argument seems devastating:

If God is all-powerful, He could prevent evil
If God is all-good, He would want to prevent evil
Evil exists
Therefore, either God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or does not exist

The Holocaust makes this argument visceral. Not just “evil exists” but this evil — systematic, industrial, targeting children, carried out by a supposedly Christian civilization against God’s chosen people. If God exists, where was He when the gas chambers operated?

Why We Cannot Dodge This

Some Christians avoid this question. They change the subject, offer platitudes, or retreat into mystery too quickly. This is a mistake.

First, because real people are asking. Charlie’s Jewish friend isn’t playing philosophical games. She wants to know how faith is possible after Auschwitz. If we cannot engage her question, we have nothing to offer her.

Second, because the question is legitimate. Scripture itself raises it. The Psalms are full of “How long, O Lord?” Habakkuk demands to know why God allows the wicked to devour the innocent. Job protests his suffering for 37 chapters. The Bible does not treat this question as impertinent.

Third, because our own faith depends on it. If we cannot hold onto God in the face of radical evil, our faith is shallow — a fair-weather religion that collapses when tested.

Part II: The Search for a Short Answer

Charlie’s Challenge

Charlie kept pushing us: “What is a little paragraph that I could tell my Jewish friend that would have turned her head at least to question her assumption?”

We tried various approaches.

Susan Gutierrez offered a two-prong response:

“God created man to have free agency. Part of the consequence of man having free agency is that sometimes men choose horrible things to do. But there will be a point at which those kinds of evil things can no longer be done. This is just a short period of time. The Holocaust was horrible, horrible — but allowing this place where we can do good and evil, both, where we can choose, that was necessary for God to see who was going to choose good.”

And:

“God’s provided commandments that if we follow them, we will not just be able to be abused… His commandments protect us against evil men and evil spirits.”

Charlie himself suggested an alternative approach:

“I think I should have said, ‘Only a God could have created someone as beautiful as you’ — which hopefully would at least balance it out. Because we don’t live in a world of solely Holocaust. We live in a world of astonishing creation and beauty, including one another. Maybe that would level the playing field.”

Leonard Hofheins argued we must first establish God’s existence:

“The only issue is, is there a God? If there’s a God, then there’s evil, because God is good. And if there is no God, that’s evil. God didn’t create evil, but can control it, because He is God, because He is good.”

The Uncomfortable Question

Then Armond Boulware asked what no one else would:

“Could the Holocaust have been avoided if the people were obedient to the Word of God?”

Susan immediately resonated: “That is exactly what I was thinking.”

This is dangerous ground — it sounds like blaming victims, like Job’s friends who insisted his suffering must be punishment for sin. But Armond and Susan were pointing at something different: not that Holocaust victims deserved their fate, but that civilizations that abandon God’s ways become vulnerable to catastrophic evil.

The Jews of Europe did not cause the Holocaust. But a Europe that had abandoned biblical faith — that had embraced secular nationalism, racial ideology, and worship of the state — created the conditions for it. The perpetrators were the product of a post-Christian civilization.

This doesn’t answer the theodicy question, but it reframes it: the Holocaust was not God acting; it was humans acting in God’s absence.

Dr. Abshier’s Assessment

After all our attempts, Thomas offered a sobering conclusion:

“I think Charlie’s request is unreachable. I think it’s asking for magic. I don’t think it’s possible. What’s required is a transformation of a culture. It’s an ecosystem. An entire belief system that permeates society. And if you don’t have that, it’s like bringing something nobody’s ever seen and saying, ‘This is the answer,’ and there’s no context for it. I just don’t think it’s reachable. It won’t be complete. It won’t be convincing. It won’t make the change right there.”

He’s probably right. The two-sentence answer may not exist — at least not one that resolves the question intellectually. But perhaps that’s not what Charlie’s friend needs. Perhaps she needs presence, not proof.

Part III: What the Bible Actually Says

The Book of Job

As Charlie’s Grok search revealed, the Bible’s primary engagement with the problem of evil is the Book of Job. Here is what Job teaches:

1. Suffering is not always punishment for sin.

Job is introduced as “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1). God Himself calls Job’s suffering “without reason” (Job 2:3). When Job’s friends insist he must have done something wrong, God rebukes them (Job 42:7).

This is crucial. The Holocaust victims were not being punished. The infants in the gas chambers had committed no sin. Any theodicy that implies otherwise is not biblical — it’s the error of Job’s friends.

2. God does not explain why.

When God finally speaks to Job (chapters 38-41), He does not answer Job’s questions. He does not explain the reason for Job’s suffering. Instead, He reveals Himself:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.” (Job 38:4)

God’s response is not information but encounter. Not explanation but presence. He essentially says: “You cannot understand My purposes. But you can know Me. And knowing Me is enough.”

3. Trust is required without understanding.

Job’s final response is not “Now I understand why I suffered.” It’s:

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6)

Job repents — not of sin that caused his suffering (there was none), but of demanding an explanation God never promised to give. He moves from theology about God to relationship with God.

Other Biblical Themes

The Grok search Charlie shared identified several other biblical approaches:

The Fall and human responsibility (Genesis 3). Evil entered through human rebellion, not divine creation. Much “epic evil” — genocide, Holocaust-scale atrocities — stems from human choices that God permits rather than overrides.

God redeems evil for good (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28). Joseph to his brothers: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” This doesn’t make evil good. It means God weaves even the worst into His purposes.

The Cross. The greatest evil (the torture and murder of the innocent Son of God) becomes the greatest good (salvation for humanity). God does not explain suffering from a distance — He enters it.

Suffering produces growth (Romans 5:3-5). “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” This is not a complete theodicy, but it’s one strand of biblical teaching.

Evil is temporary; justice is coming (Revelation 21:4). “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” The Holocaust will be answered. Every perpetrator judged. Every victim vindicated.

What the Bible Does NOT Say

The Bible never claims:

Evil is an illusion
Suffering is always deserved
God owes us an explanation
We can fully understand His purposes in this life

Instead, it repeatedly points to:

Trust over understanding
Relationship over explanation
Hope in God’s character even when His methods are mysterious
Future justice that will make all things right

Part IV: Modern Theodicies — A Critical Survey

Charlie’s research uncovered the major post-Holocaust theological responses. These deserve careful assessment.

1. The “Death of God” Response

Richard Rubenstein (After Auschwitz, 1966) argued that the Holocaust shows the biblical covenantal God is “dead” or never intervened as thought. Jews must build a secular or demythologized faith focused on human meaning and survival.

Assessment: This is intellectually honest but spiritually devastating. If Auschwitz disproves God, then evil wins — not just in 1945 but eternally. The victims died for nothing, and there will be no justice. Rubenstein’s position is coherent despair.

2. The Limited God Response

Harold Kushner (When Bad Things Happen to Good People) and Hans Jonas propose a God who is not classically omnipotent — who cannot prevent all evil because He has limited Himself to allow genuine creation and human freedom.

Assessment: This preserves God’s goodness at the cost of His power. But a God who cannot stop evil offers cold comfort. And it conflicts with Scripture’s portrait of a God who parts seas, raises the dead, and will one day make all things new.

3. The Hidden Face Response (Hester Panim)

Eliezer Berkovits argues that God is all-powerful but deliberately “hides His face” to preserve human moral freedom. The Holocaust is the horrific price of that freedom — God refuses to override it, even for atrocities.

Assessment: This is closest to the biblical framework. It takes both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility seriously. It acknowledges mystery without abandoning faith. The difficulty: it still leaves us asking why this much evil was permitted.

4. The Commanding Voice Response

Emil Fackenheim argues that Auschwitz issues a new “614th commandment”: Jews must survive as Jews, remember the victims, not despair of God or humanity, and refuse to hand Hitler posthumous victories by abandoning faith or peoplehood.

Assessment: This is profound practical wisdom. Despair would let evil win. Faith, survival, and memory are acts of resistance. But it sidesteps the theoretical question — it tells us how to respond to the Holocaust, not how to explain it.

5. The Protest Response

David Blumenthal and Elie Wiesel advocate protesting God like an abused child protests a parent — acknowledging the injustice without abandoning relationship. In Wiesel’s Night, the hanging of a child prompts the question “Where is God?” — answered by “He is hanging here.”

Assessment: This captures the raw honesty of faith under pressure. It’s essentially the posture of the Psalms of lament. The danger is that protest can curdle into rejection. But protest within relationship — what the Psalms model — is deeply biblical.

6. The Anti-Theodicy Response

Emmanuel Levinas and others argue that theodicy is immoral after “useless suffering.” Any attempt to “make sense” of Auschwitz risks trivializing it. Silence, memory, and ethical action are the only appropriate responses.

Assessment: There’s wisdom here. Glib explanations are obscene. But complete silence abandons the field to atheism. We can acknowledge mystery while still affirming that God exists, is good, and will bring justice.

7. The Suffering God Response

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Jürgen Moltmann, and others emphasize that God has “pathos” — emotional involvement with His creation. God suffers with His people. The Cross reveals divine solidarity: “God was in Auschwitz.”

Assessment: This is the distinctively Christian contribution. We do not worship a distant deity unmoved by suffering. We worship a God who became flesh, was tortured, and died. The Cross is not an explanation of evil but God’s entry into it.

Part V: A Christian Assessment

What We Can Say

1. Evil is real, and God hates it.

We do not minimize evil or pretend it’s illusory. The Holocaust was monstrous. God is not indifferent to it.

2. Evil originates in creaturely rebellion, not divine creation.

God did not create evil. He created beings with genuine freedom, and some — angelic and human — have used that freedom catastrophically. The Nazis were not puppets of God; they were rebels against Him.

3. God’s permission of evil does not equal approval.

God allows evil without endorsing it. Why He permits the degree of evil He does is genuinely mysterious. But permission is not causation.

4. The Cross is God’s definitive response.

God does not explain evil from heaven. He enters it on earth. In Christ, God suffers with victims, not as spectator but as participant. The Cross is not theodicy as theory but theodicy as action.

5. The Resurrection is God’s definitive promise.

Evil does not have the final word. Death is defeated. Justice is coming. Every victim will be vindicated; every perpetrator will be judged. If there is no God, there is no justice — the Nazis win. If there is God, justice is certain.

6. We walk by faith, not by sight.

We do not understand God’s purposes in permitting the Holocaust. We probably cannot understand them this side of eternity. But we can trust His character — revealed supremely in Christ — even when His methods are mysterious.

What We Cannot Say

We cannot say victims deserved it.

This is the error of Job’s friends. It is monstrous when applied to children in gas chambers.

We cannot say we understand why.

We don’t. Any claim to fully understand God’s purposes in Auschwitz is presumptuous.

We cannot say it was “worth it” in some cosmic calculus.

We can say God will redeem evil for good (Romans 8:28). We cannot say the good outweighs the evil in a way that makes evil acceptable. The Holocaust remains horrific even if God brings good from it.

We cannot say faith makes the question go away.

It doesn’t. The question persists. Faith is not the absence of questions but trust in the midst of them.

Part VI: Susan’s Testimony — When Faith Seems Impossible

During our discussion, Susan Gutierrez shared something personal. Charlie introduced it:

“My wife became an anti-Christ for 18 years because of a very similar objection. She never stopped believing in God. She just thought He had screwed up the universe.”

Susan explained:

“I thought that there was a creator, because all of creation is so amazing. And either it was the God of the Bible, and He really messed up, and He is to blame for everything that’s wrong — or it’s another God who created us and left us alone to solve our own problems. And I didn’t know which it was. But I certainly didn’t think the God of the Bible was a just God, the way that He’s portrayed. That being said, I hadn’t read the Bible. That wasn’t very fair of me.”

Susan’s journey took 18 years. It wasn’t a two-sentence argument that brought her back — it was, as Charlie said, “completely God’s Spirit, working on her, talking to her.”

This is important. The problem of evil is not primarily an intellectual puzzle to be solved. It’s a spiritual wound to be healed. Arguments can help clear obstacles. But transformation requires encounter with God Himself.

Susan’s story also illustrates something else: honest doubt is not the enemy of faith. She wrestled with God for 18 years — like Jacob at the Jabbok. And like Jacob, she was eventually blessed.

Part VII: The Rapport-Confrontation-Change Framework

Dr. Abshier introduced a framework from his counseling practice that applies to engaging this question:

“Rapport is the first thing you do. Confrontation is the next thing you do after you’ve understood where they’re at. And change is the next thing you do after you’ve confronted them about the need to change and they agree.”

Stage One: Rapport

Charlie embodies this. As Thomas observed:

“Your particular way is soft and it is very endearing. People just open up with you because of it. You have embodied rapport to a level that most people don’t.”

When someone raises the problem of evil — especially from personal pain like Charlie’s Jewish friend — the first response must be presence, not argument. Listen. Acknowledge the horror. Don’t rush to explain.

Charlie’s instinct was right: “Only a God could have created someone as beautiful as you.” This doesn’t answer the question, but it establishes connection. It says: “I see you. I’m with you. We’re in this together.”

Stage Two: Confrontation

After rapport comes gentle challenge. Not aggressive argument, but what Thomas called “tentative confrontation”:

“You say, ‘It sounds like what you’re saying is this. It seems like the implication I see of that is this.’ And so they confront their own problems by me being the external voice.”

For the Holocaust question, confrontation might look like:

“It sounds like you’re saying that if evil exists, God cannot. But what if evil’s existence is actually evidence for God — that there’s a standard being violated?”
“You’re asking where God was. That’s exactly what the Psalms ask. Would you be interested in how the Bible wrestles with that question?”
“The Holocaust was human evil — Germans, collaborators, bystanders who did nothing. Where was humanity?”

Stage Three: Change

Change happens when someone sees a new possibility. They may need time — Susan needed 18 years. They may need encounter with God, not just argument.

But the goal is clear: not just intellectual assent but transformation. Not just answering the question but meeting the Questioner.

As Charlie put it: “My experience is that people feel most free to change after they’ve been understood.”

Part VIII: Connecting to the Fire at the Center

The Holocaust as Lost Fire

The original essay argued that Western Christianity has lost its fire — its zeal, its willingness to suffer, its absolute commitment. The Holocaust is connected to this theme.

Nazi Germany was a post-Christian civilization. German Protestantism had been hollowed out by liberalism. The German churches — with noble exceptions like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church — largely capitulated to National Socialism.

A church on fire would have resisted. A church that genuinely believed would have hidden Jews, spoken truth, accepted martyrdom. Some did. Most didn’t.

The Holocaust happened in part because the church had already lost its fire. The civilization that perpetrated genocide was one that had abandoned biblical faith for racial ideology, national worship, and secular power.

This doesn’t answer why God permitted it. But it illuminates a pattern: when civilizations abandon God, catastrophic evil becomes possible. The restraining influence is removed. The parasites take over.

The Parallel to Today

Leonard Hofheins connected this to our current situation:

“Islam is a war religion, and we have to be ready for that. You can’t kumbaya that. The time for that is over.”

Armond Boulware concluded our discussion:

“What I’m seeing is we’re being prepared to fight the fight. Because Islam is a religion of war, and we have to be ready for that.”

The Holocaust emerged from a civilization that had lost its fire. Are we in danger of the same? If Western Christianity remains lukewarm — unwilling to speak, unwilling to suffer, unwilling to confront evil — what catastrophes might we enable?

The Otranto martyrs had fire. They chose death over apostasy. The German churches mostly lacked fire. They chose accommodation over resistance.

Which will we be?

Part IX: What We Can Tell Charlie’s Friend

We don’t have a two-sentence answer. But here is what we might say, depending on the moment and the relationship:

If She Needs Presence (Rapport Stage)

“I can’t imagine what your family went through. The Holocaust was an unspeakable evil. I don’t have easy answers, but I want you to know that I take your question seriously — and I take your pain seriously.”

If She’s Open to Conversation (Early Confrontation)

“You know, the Bible itself asks your question. There’s a whole book — Job — about a righteous man who suffers horribly and demands to know why. God never gives him an explanation. But He does give him something else: Himself. Job ends up saying, ‘My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.’ I don’t think the answer is information. I think it’s encounter.”

If She’s Wrestling Seriously (Deeper Confrontation)

“The Holocaust was human evil — Hitler, the SS, the collaborators, the bystanders who did nothing. The question ‘Where was God?’ might also be ‘Where was humanity?’ Where was the church? Where were the righteous? Some did resist — Bonhoeffer, Corrie ten Boom, others. But most didn’t. Maybe the Holocaust shows what happens when civilization abandons God, not what happens when God abandons civilization.”

If She’s Ready for the Gospel (Change Stage)

“Here’s what I believe: God didn’t stand at a distance from the Holocaust. In Jesus, God entered human suffering. He was tortured and murdered. He knows what it is to be abandoned and killed by evil men. And He rose again — which means death and evil don’t have the final word. Every victim will be vindicated. Every perpetrator will face justice. That’s not a complete answer, but it’s what I hold onto.”

Charlie’s Approach

Or we could follow Charlie’s instinct: “Only a God could have created someone as beautiful as you.” Point to the beauty that still exists. The fact that she survived. The fact that she can still ask the question. The fact that good persists despite evil.

Sometimes presence is more powerful than argument.

Part X: Discussion Questions for the Fellowship

On the Problem of Evil

How do you personally wrestle with the problem of evil? Has there been a time when suffering made faith difficult for you?
Which of the modern theodicies (death of God, limited God, hidden face, commanding voice, protest, suffering God) resonates most with you? Which seems least adequate? Why?

On the Holocaust Specifically

Armond asked whether the Holocaust could have been avoided if people were obedient to God’s Word. How do you respond to this question? Is it blaming victims, or pointing to something important about civilizational faithfulness?
Susan wrestled with God’s justice for 18 years. What finally brought her through? What does her story teach us about engaging people who doubt?

On Engaging Others

If someone asked you Charlie’s question — “If there was a God, how could the Holocaust have happened?” — what would you say? What should you not say?
Thomas argued that a short answer is impossible — that transformation requires a “whole ecosystem” of belief. Do you agree? If so, what’s the point of trying to answer at all?

On the Fire Connection

The essay argues that the Holocaust emerged from a civilization that had lost its Christian fire. Do you see parallels today? What are the warning signs?
What would it look like for our fellowship to have the kind of fire that resists evil — both the courage to speak and the wisdom to engage?

On Personal Application

Do you know anyone wrestling with the problem of evil? How might you engage them using the rapport-confrontation-change framework?
How has this discussion affected your own faith? Your own understanding of suffering?

A Closing Prayer

Almighty God, we stand before the mystery of suffering — the Holocaust, the Gulag, the killing fields, the countless quiet tragedies that never make history books.

We do not understand why You permit such evil. We confess that we cannot reconcile Your goodness with the gas chambers, Your power with the graves of children.

But we trust You anyway. Not because we understand, but because we have seen You in Jesus — entering our suffering, bearing our sin, dying our death, and rising again.

We pray for those who cannot believe because of what they have seen or endured. Meet them in their pain. Send them people who will listen before they argue. Give them glimpses of Your beauty in the midst of horror.

We pray for ourselves — that we would have fire enough to resist evil, courage enough to speak truth, and love enough to weep with those who weep.

We pray for justice — that every victim of the Holocaust and every victim of evil throughout history would be vindicated, and every perpetrator would face Your righteous judgment.

And we pray for hope — that we would hold fast to the promise that You will wipe away every tear, that death and mourning will be no more, that You are making all things new.

Until that day, give us faith to trust what we cannot see.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.”
— Psalm 27:13-14

Source Material: March 15, 2026 Renaissance Fellowship discussion; Charlie Gutierrez’s Grok research on the problem of evil and modern theodicies; Susan Gutierrez’s testimony; “When Belief Confronts Belief” (original essay); Christos AI Theological Grammar.

Related Christos Content: “When Belief Confronts Belief: The Otranto Martyrs, Iran, and the Fire We Need”; “The Fire at the Center” (Theological Grammar, Part V); “The Parasitic Mind and the Wood Cricket Church” (Fellowship Discussion on Gad Saad).

Appendix: Quick Reference — Modern Theodicies

Approach	Key Thinker	Core Argument	Strength	Weakness
Death of God	Rubenstein	The Holocaust proves the biblical God is dead	Intellectually honest	Abandons hope and justice
Limited God	Kushner, Jonas	God cannot prevent all evil	Preserves God’s goodness	Undermines God’s power
Hidden Face	Berkovits	God hides to preserve human freedom	Takes both sovereignty and freedom seriously	Why this much evil?
Commanding Voice	Fackenheim	Auschwitz commands Jewish survival	Practical wisdom; refuses despair	Sidesteps theoretical question
Protest	Wiesel, Blumenthal	Protest God without abandoning Him	Captures raw honesty of faith	Can curdle into rejection
Anti-Theodicy	Levinas	Theodicy is immoral; act ethically instead	Avoids glib explanations	Abandons field to atheism
Suffering God	Moltmann, Heschel	God suffers with us; the Cross	Distinctively Christian; profound	Still doesn’t fully explain “why”

Theodicy – Rationalizing God’s Existence and the Holocaust