HOLOCAUST APOLOGETICS:
Undoing the Death of God
by Barry Leventhal
"In fact, if there were no God, the Nazis could not
have been
held accountable for their evil deeds, for there only
would have been deeds, not evil deeds."
|
*
SYNOPSIS
Some Jews doubt
God’s existence; others vehemently deny it. Much of the Jewish objection to
belief in God stems from a specific occurrence of evil, namely the
Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million Jews in Nazi-occupied
Europe. There is a more basic problem, however. Before anyone can begin to
discuss the question, “How could a good God rightfully allow evil?” he or
she must first explore the question, “How can a human rightfully define
evil?” This second, more basic question involves a task that is impossible
without God. Respected Holocaust historian Elie Wiesel likely faced these
same issues as he struggled to resolve his own dilemma concerning whether to
believe in God as a post-Holocaust Jew. Examining these questions in light
of his experience may help us present evidence for the existence of God to
other Jews who are wrestling with a similar existential conflict.
Those of us who have tried to share the biblical case for the messiahship of
Jesus with our Jewish family or friends have been interrupted at times with
the same bitter, angry reaction: “There is no way that I will investigate
whether Jesus is the Messiah. I don’t even believe in God! Since the
Holocaust, it is impossible for a Jew to believe in God!”
Whenever nonbelievers raise the problem of evil in evangelistic
conversations, they effectively erect a wall or barrier against the gospel.
When they focus on the problem of evil in the hideous form of the Holocaust,
as many Jews do, they reinforce that wall considerably. When they react to
the Holocaust with staunch religious atheism or existential struggle, they
fortify that wall even further against the gospel, making it a formidable
evangelistic obstacle for the Christians who are trying to reach them. The
common spiritual reaction of existential struggle displays itself most
clearly in the life and writings of Eliezer (Elie) Wiesel, the great
historian of the Holocaust. Like many Jews who share this plight, he is torn
between his denial of God’s existence and his own sense of God’s existence.
Understanding Wiesel’s struggle can nurture our compassion toward Jews who
experience similar angst. Studying the reasons for believing in God despite
such evil may strengthen our ability to help erode the wall in their hearts.
As we gently dismantle this twice-buttressed wall of resistance, we will be
able to present the gospel lovingly and effectively to the Jewish people.
GRASPING THE PREVALENCE OF RELIGIOUS ATHEISM
The most well-known Jewish atheistic theologian is Richard Rubenstein. His
words testify to his ongoing struggle over the existence of the God of the
Jewish Scriptures: “I am compelled to say that we live in the time of the
‘death of God’. . . . the thread uniting God and man…has been broken. We stand in
a cold, silent, unfeeling cosmos, unaided by any purposeful power beyond our
own resources. After Auschwitz, what else can a Jew say about God?”1
Elsewhere, Rubenstein adds, “More than the bodies of my people went up in
smoke at Auschwitz. The God of the covenant died there.”2
Radical Jewish theologians such as Rubenstein are not alone as they wrestle
with the loving God of traditional Judaism and the sickening horror of
shocking evil. As even Orthodox rabbi Irving Greenberg writes, “To talk of
love and of a God who cares in the presence of the burning children is
obscene and incredible; to lean in and pull a child out of a pit, to clean
its face and heal its body, is to make . . . the only statement that counts.”3
Jewish theologian Seymour Cain adds that the Holocaust is a “stumbling
block,” and “whatever may be the case with Christian theologians, for whom
it seems to play no significant generative or transformative role, the
Jewish religious thinker is forced to confront full face that horror, the
uttermost evil in Jewish history.”4
Messianic believer and theologian Jakob Jocz notes, “Auschwitz casts a black
pall upon the civilized world. Not only . . . man’s humanity . . . but God himself
stands accused. Jews are asking insistently: Where was God when our brothers
and sisters were dragged to the gas ovens? . . . Faith in the God of Israel
. . . is . . . a
challenge, but after Auschwitz it is an agonizing venture for every thinking
Jew.”5
FACING THE CHALLENGE OF RELIGIOUS ATHEISM
Christians must be prepared to deal with this issue. Some may think it
sufficient merely to fall back on the famous Chasidic saying forged in the
flames of the Holocaust, “For the faithful, there are no questions; for the
non-believer, there are no answers.”6 Falling back on clichés or ignoring
this challenge to the existence of God, however, is inexcusable for those
who are committed to the saving message of the gospel. As Peter, the Apostle
to the Jews, exhorted us,
Sanctify [the Messiah] as Lord in your hearts,
always being ready to make a defense [Gk. apologia] to everyone who asks you
to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and
reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are
slandered, those who revile your good behavior in [the Messiah] will be put
to shame.7 ~ 1 Peter
3:15–16) ~ |
It is worth noting Peter’s admonition that we must make our “defense” with
“gentleness and reverence.” This is especially true with Jewish atheists,
because there are two kinds of religious atheism that the convulsions of the
Shoah (Holocaust) have induced, and both need to be handled with respect.
The first kind of Holocaust-induced atheism is an emotional atheism that
arises out of the depths of a hurting heart. It does not and cannot respond
to logical reasoning, especially if it began too close in time to the
traumatizing event.8 This kind of atheist needs pastoral love, patience, and
prayer, as well as a listening ear and a sensitive heart.
The second kind of Holocaust-induced atheism is a belligerent atheism that
arises out of the foolishness of an arrogant heart. “The fool [Heb. nabal]
has said in his heart, ‘There is no God Psalms 10:4; 14:1; 53:1); in a
senseless and rebellious posture (i.e., nabal), he or she refuses to submit
to the truth (Romans 1:18-32). This kind of atheist needs a loving, logical,
and firm encounter with the truth of the Word of God and the convicting
ministry of the Holy Spirit (cf. John 16:7–11; 2 Timothy 2:24–26; 3:16–17;
4:1–5; Jude 3, 17–23; etc.).
UNDERSTANDING RHETORICAL STRATEGY
In developing a Holocaust apologetic, we must begin with a rhetorical
strategy. For example, if I were an attorney attempting to win a case, I
would do everything I could to get someone from the opposing side to testify
on behalf of my client. In other words, I would begin with what my audience
already accepts, then connect the information back to what I want (here,
what God wants) them to understand. This was the rhetorical strategy of the
apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost, when, with a holy boldness, he
lovingly reminded his hostile audience about God’s promise of a latter-day
outpouring of His Spirit through the Jewish prophet Joel (Acts 2:14–21). In
a sense, this apologetic approach could be termed “pre-evangelism” (see,
e.g., Romans 9:1–3; 10:1), because it may earn us the right to be heard on
further matters (e.g., messianic prophesy, Jesus’ death and resurrection,
justification by faith, etc.).
THE PAIN OF ELIE WIESEL: CONFIRMING WHAT JEWS ACCEPT
We can begin, then, with the case of esteemed Holocaust historian Elie
Wiesel, himself a Jewish survivor, whom Jews already accept as perhaps the
most well-known and respected voice of the Shoah. Once we connect his
dilemma to their own, we can point them to his apparent resolution of the
dilemma and help them understand the likely reasons for that resolution.
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 to a religious family in the village of Sighet,
Transylvania. He received a traditional Talmudic education, studying with
the Chasidic rabbis in the village. In 1944, the Nazis deported all of
Sighet’s Jewish inhabitants to various concentration camps. Wiesel’s mother,
father, younger sister, and other relatives were murdered. His two other
sisters survived.
Wiesel During the Holocaust
Wiesel described his life during the Holocaust in his earliest and most
profound work, titled Night. He described a hanging that he witnessed when
he was 16 in these well-known paragraphs from that work:
[The head of the camp] had a young boy under him…a child with a
refined and beautiful face. . . .
One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the
assembly place. . . . SS all around us, machine guns trained: the
traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains—and one of them, the
little servant, the sad-eyed angel. . . .
All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting
his lips. . . .
The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks were
placed at the same moment within the nooses. . . .
“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked.
At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.Total
silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting. . .
. We were weeping. . . . Then the march past began. The two adults
were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the
third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still
alive. . . .
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and
death, dying in slow agony before our eyes. And we had to look him full in
the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was
still red, his eyes not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?”
And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is - He is
hanging here on this gallows.”9 |
Many believe these lines to be some of the most poignant descriptions ever
written about the Holocaust. The immediate impact of these events on the
young Wiesel was emotional atheism. He believed that his God died.
Many Jews believe that evil won out and that God died in the Holocaust. That
settles the quandary for them, but it didn’t settle it for Wiesel. His
bitter experiences during those horrific years of the Holocaust did not
deprive him of belief in God once-and-for-all. Wiesel’s progression of
thought on this issue may provide valuable insight for those Jews who suffer
the same kinds of existential confusion as he did over their own religious
atheism.
Wiesel After the Holocaust
It appears that further reflection and the passage of time forced Wiesel to
adjust some of his perspectives on the Holocaust. He recorded this shift in
his lesser-known and more-reflective pieces. We shall note only three
examples from these writings, although there are several that bear similar
testimony.
In a journal article, Wiesel affirmed that any genuine protest against
God—such as those of Abraham (Genesis 18), Moses and Aaron (Exodus 5, 32; Numbers
16), Job (Job 13, etc.), David (Psalms 10, 13, etc.), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 12; Lamentations
3, etc.), and Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1) - must come from within the covenant context,
not from without. Specifically, he stated, “The Jew . . . may rise against God,
provided that he remains within God.”10
Later, in a television interview, Wiesel propounded the following thought:
“For a Jew to believe in God is good. For a Jew to protest against God is
still good. But to simply ignore God, that is not good. Anger, yes. Protest,
yes. Affirmation, yes. But indifference to God, no. You can be a Jew with
God; you can be a Jew against God; but not without God.”11
Finally, Wiesel testified to his own ongoing struggle with God when he
declared, “To be a Jew is to have all the reasons in the world not to have
faith . . . in God, but to go on telling the tale . . . and [having your] own
silent . . . quarrels with God.”12 The emotional Wiesel refuses to embrace the
painful reality of the God of his tradition; the rational Wiesel, like Jacob
of old, grapples with God as a living Being, seeking blessing for himself
and his people.
Why would Wiesel withstand all of this existential tension? What would drive
someone like Wiesel to maintain his theism when religious atheism seems to
be more viable? It is important to have your Jewish loved ones consider why
he does not yield, as perhaps they do, to a hard-core religious atheism.
There are several possible reasons; the two discussed in the remainder of
this article are based on the implications of atheism.
IF THERE WERE NO GOD: GRANTING WHAT JEWS ASSUME
It is likely that Wiesel ultimately refused to abandon God altogether
because he was able to envision the logical consequences of his
Holocaust-induced religious atheism. To begin our case for God’s existence
during and since the Holocaust, we must lovingly nudge our Jewish friends
toward those same logical conclusions. In other words, we must ask, What
would be some of the inevitable consequences of persisting in the belief
that there is no God or that God really did die in the Holocaust? A rational
exploration of these consequences may cause our Jewish friends to reevaluate
their atheism.
Consequence Number 1: Illegitimate Law
Laws do not come from nowhere. They must come from lawmakers or lawgivers.
If there is no God, laws must come from humans; that is, they must be
derived from the best and worst proposals of humankind. To embrace atheism
is to embrace a world without any transcendent Lawgiver.
Without a transcendent moral Lawgiver there can be no transcendent moral
laws, and the people who govern or control therefore will be the elite who
are in power, either the consenting majority or the empowered minority or
individual (e.g., Hitler and the Nazis). As Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)
observed in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, if there is no transcendent
rule or reign of law, that is, “if there is no God, all things are
permissible.”
So it was in the dark days of the Judges, when there was no king in Israel;
everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). Evidence
of this in our own day is clearly manifest: public opinion reigns supreme.
Gallup and his polls have replaced Moses and his laws!
In this kind of relativistic Holocaust kingdom, who could successfully argue
that six million Jews were any better or any worse than six million ants
crawling on the ground? The Nuremberg Laws would seem to beg this question!
Without any higher or transcendent laws from a transcendent Lawgiver, the
Nazis would have had every right to pass any kind of laws they deemed
necessary against non-Aryans (so-called vermin), whether dictated by Adolph
Hitler or approved by the majority of Germans, including the German State
Church. Without God, they would have been beyond any kind of moral
accountability. It would have been their perfect right, privilege, and
responsibility to determine for themselves who and what had meaning,
purpose, and value;13 indeed, a world without a transcendent Lawgiver is a
world that is devoid of any true meaning, purpose, and value.
In such a Holocaust kingdom, it makes perfectly good sense to destroy the
undesirable (e.g., the Jews, the Gypsies, the political dissidents, the
homosexuals, etc.) before they destroy the desirable (i.e., the Aryans).
Auschwitz was the logical outcome of such a humanistic, relativistic
worldview.14 Without the moral restraint of a transcendent set of laws from
a transcendent moral Lawgiver, anarchy inevitably will result (see, e.g.,
Romans 1:18-32; 1 Timothy 1:8-11).
It was, ironically, the “higher” laws of the Hague and Geneva Conventions,
used in the Nuremberg and other International War Tribunals, that served to
convict and punish the Nazis for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide.15 These two modern war conventions were born
out of the Middle Ages and grounded in biblical worldviews that were
committed to a transcendent moral or natural law, to which all men were
accountable.16
Contemporary historian Robert G. Clouse not only verifies these historical
underpinnings of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, but maintains that many
of the framers of these conventions were themselves strongly committed to a
Christian worldview:
There was a strong Christian influence that led to international
gatherings such as the Hague Conferences. . . . From these meetings
came decisions that limited the nature of war, protected the rights of
prisoners of war, affirmed the need to care for the sick and the
wounded, promised protection of private property and guaranteed the
rights of neutrals.17 |
For example, statesman, jurist, and historian Hugo Grotius
(1583 - 1645), “the father of international law,” who laid the foundation for
all modern war conventions, was also a committed Protestant commentator on
the Bible. Grotius wrote his treatise on the law of war in part because he
believed that nations share “a common law of Rights,” but yet had observed
that “all reverence for divine and human law was thrown away, just as if men
were thenceforth authorized to commit all crimes without restraint.”18
This transcendent moral law is nothing less than the universal law of God
“written on human hearts” (Romans 2:14-16; cf. Acts 17:22-31).19 Western
society still finds that law, which accords with a biblical worldview,
entirely and conveniently pertinent to matters such as modern war tribunals,
despite the fact that it has abandoned that worldview. It is virtually
impossible, then, even if we attempt to deny the divine Lawgiver Himself, to
deny that His laws are written on our hearts. We expect, even demand, that
others live by them every day, even if we don’t live by them on a daily
basis.20 Wiesel appears to understand that it is
important to remain committed to the divine Judge and Lawgiver, as Abraham
did when he proclaimed, Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? (Gen.
18:25). Perhaps Wiesel believes this because he knows the serious
consequences of atheism, the second of which follows.
Consequence Number 2: Whimsical Morality
Like laws, morals and ethics do not come from nowhere; they come from moral
and ethical determiners. Any set of morals that is not transcendently based,
that is, determined from outside the human frame of reference, of necessity
must be determined from within the human context. This means that any moral
or ethical system derived from such a godless world must be relative to its
very core. We, accordingly, could not talk about “morals” (i.e.,
prescriptive norms: what people ought to do), but only about “mores”
(descriptive norms: what people actually do).
Philosopher Norman Geisler states this dilemma as follows:
How would you know that the Holocaust is ultimately wrong [or
evil] unless you knew what was ultimately right? If you don’t have an
absolute standard for right, you can’t say that [the Holocaust] is
absolutely wrong. That’s just your opinion, and somebody else’s
opinion could be, the Holocaust was the best thing in the history of
mankind.21 |
Geisler and Turek make this same point
in relationship to Hitler’s actions and the Nuremberg War Tribunal:
When the Nazi War criminals were brought to trial in Nuremberg, they were
convicted of violating the Moral Law (which is manifested in international
law) - the law that all people inherently understand. If there was no such
international morality that transcended the laws of the secular German
government, then the Allies would have had no grounds to condemn the
Nazis. . . . without God to provide an objective standard of right and wrong,
people set the rules. And if people set the rules, there is no objective
moral standard by which to evaluate Hitler’s actions against those of, say,
Mother Teresa.22 |
To those who say that everything is relative and that there are no moral
absolutes, Geisler counters, “You can’t make everything relative unless
you’re standing on the pinnacle of your own absolute.”23
If God is removed from any system in which all moral values derive from Him,
then His removal inevitably must result in anarchy (Romans 1:18–32). Even
Jewish death-of-God theologian Richard Rubenstein is forced to grant this
point: “Murdering God . . . is an assertion of the will to total moral and
religious license.”24
Historian Paul Johnson points out that the relativistic morality of the
Nazis grew out of the existential philosophical notion of obeying the “iron
laws” that were created by the state25 instead of the absolute moral laws
that were taught in the churches:
Hitler . . . appealed to the moralistic nature
of many Germans . . . [who desired to live ‘morally’ but did not possess any] code
of moral absolutes rooted in Christian faith. . . . Marx and Lenin translated
[this philosophy] into a class concept; Hitler into a race one. Just as the
Soviet cadres were taught to justify the most revolting crimes in the name
of a moralistic class warfare, so [were] the [German] SS . . . in the name of
race.26 |
Johnson also observes, in a frontal way, that if we cut “the umbilical cord
[from] God, our source of ethical vitality would be gone. . . . we humans are all
Jekyll and Hyde creatures, and the monster within each of us is always
striving to take over.”27 In other words, morality without God is Macbeth’s
“tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”!
In states of relativism, it does not matter who the moral ethicist is or
what his or her particular view is.28 All of these systems leave one in the
moral abyss determined by those in power at the time. Whether it is Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832) and his relative utilitarianism (i.e., one should act so
as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number in the end), or
Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991) and his relative situationism (i.e., everything
is relative to the situation and the only thing required in any moment is
love), or any other approach leaving the divine perspective out of the
formula, we are left in the hands of those who have enough power to
determine for us what is the moral truth at any given moment. Hitler and the
Nazis, as well as most of the rest of Germany’s population, certainly were
convinced that their solution to “the Jewish question” was the greatest good
for the greatest number in the long run (i.e., Bentham) and that they were
carrying out the most loving acts of ethnic cleansing in that particular
situation (i.e., Fletcher).
CONNECTING WHAT JEWS ACCEPT TO WHAT THEY DON'T
When our Jewish friend or colleague protests in a vehement moral outrage
that there has been no God since the Holocaust, it is imperative that we
lovingly remind him or her that such a moral outrage, if it is to be valid,
must be grounded in the very existence of God, His transcendent law, and His
absolute morality. Otherwise, it is ultimately groundless emotional ranting.
We must help our Jewish friend recognize, along with Elie Wiesel, that the
consequences of denying God’s existence are far worse than accepting it,
even after the Holocaust. In fact, if there were no God, the Nazis could not
have been held accountable for their evil deeds, for there only would have
been deeds, not evil deeds. There can be public opinions and private
viewpoints, but without God, there can be no legal or moral accountability
for one’s actions.
God has commissioned us to help our Jewish friends and colleagues recognize
this reality. And just maybe, along with this recognition, some of them
might even be open to discussing the messiahship of Jesus.
DOING APOLOGETICS TO THE GLORY OF GOD
The aim of apologetics, like everything else, ultimately is to glorify
God.29 As the Westminster Shorter Catechism rightly affirms: “Man’s chief
end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” God is committed to our task:
When we fully depend on Him and prayerfully seek to dismantle the wall that
is buttressed by the evil of the Holocaust and the dissonance of doubt, God
will work in and through us with the Jewish people - to His glory. After all
is said and done, including our allowance for the place of divine mystery
(Deuteronomy 29:29), Isaiah’s confession concerning the Jewish people is still
true: In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His
presence saved them; in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He
lifted them and carried them all the days of old (Isaiah 63:9).
NOTES
1. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz:
Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 1966), 151–53.
2. Richard L. Rubenstein, “Auschwitz and Covenant Theology,” The Christian
Century 86 (May 21, 1969): 718.
3. Irving Greenberg, “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity,
and Modernity after the Holocaust,” in Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?
Reflections on the Holocaust, ed. Eva Fleischner (New York: KTAV Publishing
House, 1977), 41–42.
4. Seymour Cain, “The Questions and the Answers after Auschwitz,” Judaism 20
(Summer 1971): 263.
5. Jakob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ after Auschwitz: A Study
in the Controversy Between Church and Synagogue (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House, 1981), 23, 34.
6. Azriel Eisenberg, ed., Witness to the Holocaust (New York: The Pilgrim
Press, 1981), 628.
7. All Bible quotations are from the New American Standard Version.
8. See Robert M. Hicks, Trauma: The Pain That Stays (Grand Rapids: Fleming
H. Revell, 1993). See also Orthodox Jewish apologists Gershon Robinson and
Mordechai Steinman, The Obvious Proof: A Presentation of the Classic Proof
of Universal Design (New York: CIS Publishers, 1993).
9. Elie Wiesel, Night, trans. Stella Rodway (New York: Avon Books, 1960),
44, 74–76.
10. Elie Wiesel, quoted in Emil Fackenheim, Richard H. Popkin, George
Steiner, and Elie Wiesel, “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future: A
Symposium,” Judaism 16 (Summer 1967): 298–99.
11. Elie Wiesel, quoted in Alice L. Eckardt, “Rebel against God,” Face to
Face 6 (Spring 1979): 18.
12. Elie Wiesel, “Talking and Writing and Keeping Silent,” in The German
Church Struggle and the Holocaust, ed. Franklin H. Littell and Hubert G.
Locke (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1974), 277.
13. See Norman L. Geisler and Frank S. Turek III, Legislating Morality: Is
It Wise? Is It Legal? Is It Possible? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1998).
See also Norman L. Geisler, Christian Ethics: Options and Issues (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).
14. Moral philosophers explain that every evil power in history has employed
two sets of tactics to perpetuate the moral wrongs that they have
instigated. In Nazi Germany, there was one to condition the soldiers that
the Jews really deserved to be exterminated (to force them to view the Jews
as evil and as vermin), and another to condition the non-Jewish population
that the Jews required deportation (to force them to suppress all questions
about the fate of the Jews). See J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The
Case for Natural Law (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 156; and
What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide (Dallas: Spence Publishing, 2003), 192–97.
15. For the use of these conventions in the post-World War II tribunals and
“The Crystallization of the Principles of International Criminal Law,” see
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972 ed., s.v. “War Crimes Trials.” See also Gideon
Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem (New York: Holocaust Library, 1966); Adalbert
Rückerl, The Investigation of Nazi Crimes, 1945–1978: A Documentation,
trans. Derek Rutter (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1980); and Bradley F. Smith,
Reaching Judgment at Nuremberg (New York: New American Library, 1977).
16. For background on these conventions, see Percy Bordwell, The Law of War
between Belligerents: A History and Commentary (Chicago: Callaghan and Co.,
1908).
17. Robert G. Clouse, ed., War: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1981), 23. See also Bordwell, 28–49.
18. Grotius, Prolegommena, par. 28; quoted in Bordwell, 30–31.
19. See C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001),
17–39 (this section originally published as The Case for Christianity in
1942); C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 2001,
originally published in 1944); and J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart.
20. See Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be
an Atheist (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 169–93.
21. Carey Kinsolving, “For Christian Apologist, God Speaks in the Voice of
Reason,” The Washington Post, July 3, 1993, Metro Section, B7. See also
Norman L. Geisler, The Roots of Evil (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1978).
22. Geisler and Turek, Legislating Morality, 20, 63–64. See also Geisler and
Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, 176.
23. Kinsolving, B7.
24. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz, 20.
25. Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties
(New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 296.
26. Ibid.
27. Paul Johnson, The Quotable Paul Johnson: A Compilation of His Wit,
Wisdom and Satire, ed. George J. Marlin, Richard P. Rabatin, and Heather
Richardson Higgins (New York: The Noonday Press, 1994), 20.
28. For an overview of approaches to ethics, see Norman L. Geisler, Options
in Contemporary Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981).
29. See John M. Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God (Phillipsburg, NJ:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1994).
*
Barry Leventhal is the
Provost of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews,
North Carolina, Director of its Master of Theology program and
Distinguished Professor of Church Ministry and Missions.
"Holocaust
Apologetics" may be read in its
original form at the Christian Research
Institute website at
http://www.equip.org/articles/holocaust-apologetics,
from where it is republished by permission. It first
appeared
in the
Christian Research Journal,
volume 28, number 4 (2005).
For further
information or to subscribe
to
the
Christian Research Journal,
go to:
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