Goodness paper quotes

The second essay considers the incongruity between the goodness of (ultimate) reality and the reality of radical evil, particularly the unthinkable atrocity of the Nazi Holocaust. How do you reconcile your deepest theological convictions (e.g. the belief in a benevolent God) with the horrors of Auschwitz? How does the abundance of radical evil in the world affect your theology ? What are our responsibilities in the face of violence, trauma, injustice, genocide, and the moral ambiguity of (human) existence? 

We 

We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.

Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence

Memorable quotes:

• Cohn  - PG 14 - burning children quotes
• Killer - 78 & 89;6 & 7,  9, 70, 85, 92, 
• The inner struggle of Eli when his father is dying - urge to be with him, the fear that holds him away in the final moments. 
• Judith Plaskow - Coming of Lilith -
• pg 134 - "Once God becomes Goddess...she is connected too exclusively with the so called female virtues - nurturing, healing, and caretaking, and is cordoned off from the savagery of the world."
• pg 135 - "A number of Feminist writers and religious thinkers have begun to articulate a fuller and more complex account of the divine than the notion of a "nice" female God allows for...Unless the God who speaks to the feminist experiences of empowerment and connection can also speak to the frightening, destructive, and divisive aspects of out lives, a whole side of existence will be severed from the feminist account of the sacred."
• .... The distruction of God, killing of innocence, etc, "seems to point to a profoundly important dimension of human existence." - 135
• "I do not believe in a God who stands outside of our history and manipulates it and who therefore can be charged with our moral failures" - 135
• "The goddess as energy of the universe, responsible for life and death and rebirth" -136
• Rubenstein - Chapter 1
• https://unitedseminary.instructure.com/courses/1396/files/62809?module_item_id=31313
• [is there] something in the logic of Christian theology that when pushed to an extreme justifies, if it does not excite to, the murder of Jews. - 5
• Testified - only one who did....After the war.... devoted to healing and reconciliation. - 5
• he too was guilty, in fact it was a guilt to be shared by all peoples - 6
• pg 7 & 8... blaming the jews for making themselves easy targets for hitler and then not changing afterwards. 
• pg 12 underlined.
• Rubenstein - Chapter 8
• Rabbi Wessermann -  Wessermann also saw promise of redemption in the misfortunes. Indeed, he argued that the more intense the suffering of the people, the closer the advent of the messiah" pg 159
• Ignaz Maybaum - the world can only hear and respond to God's call in the language of death and destruction. 164
• Maybaum - Hitler was sent by God to do what the "progressives" [of the west] should have done but failed to do. This meant that the work of creative destruction had to be carried out at an infinitely greater cost un human suffering. - 165
• The traditional chrisitan response... its because youre not christians; the only wway to escape this suffering and divine retribution is stop being jews and become christians. - pg 169
• Is Spirit Cold and unfeelings? - Today I no longer consider the cosmos "cold, silent, unfeeling." at the very least, insofar as man is a part of the cosmos and is capable of love as well as hate, the cosmos cannot be said to be entirely cold and silent. - pg 172
• Definition of religion -Religion is more than just a system of beliefs; it is also a system of shared rituals, customs, and historical memories by which members of a community cope and celebrate the moments of crisis in their own lives and the lives of their inherited community. - pg 173
• Religion is not so much dependent upon belief as upon practices related to the life cycle and a sense of shared historical experience. -174
• Rubenstein Chapter 9
• Fackenheim - "Insisting that the jewish people must respond to this shattering challenge with a refirmation of God's presence in history, Fackenheim acknowledged that it is impossible to affirm God's saving presence at Auschwitz. Nevertheless he insisted that while no "redeeming voice" was heard, a "commanding voice was heard""... survive and have faith despite this otherwise hitler wins again. pg 180
• The passion and psychological power of this position is undeniable.  - 181
• Fackenheim - Muselmanner: the person who is dead while alive. (pg 184)
• Those who rebelled and refused to become muselmanner were the first to beguin to mend and restore faith. 185
• The first act of resistance was the simple decision, against all odds, to survive, and if worst comes top pass die the death of a human being. The second was to grasp the "logic of destruction." This is difficult enterprise because there is always danger...that what is understood will be accepted, at least in thought. Fackenheim therefore insists that thought must be accompanied by active resistance. - 186
• Resistance was "both a way of being and a way of thought"....authentic thought existed only among the resisting victims. 186
• Cohn-Sherbok
• pg 128
• pg 134!!!!!

Possible outline:

1.  My Theological convictions
1. What is Evil? - is it the absence of love? no. I would kill out of love. I would kill out of grief turned to hatred. Perhaps the Nazi's killed out of grief turned to hatred. Exerting control over another's free will?  Does that make parents evil to their kids? Causing harm for selfish reasons - my own definition. But even that falls short - is the lion evil for eating the zebra? When does it get a pass? (Survival. Survival is not evil.) Excessive harm caused for selfish reasons?
2. Spirit - is it good or evil? --- Spirit. Not God.  - quote on unfeeling cpt 8. Purpose behind suffering -- the will to survive... leading into my own experiences. 
2. My own experiences of Evil 
1. Knife attack - was that evil? his intentions were, but his motivations were unknown. I doubt he was a serial killer with a need for death.. perhaps a gang initiation and it was down to survival? That is of coarse he didn't intend to rape me. 
2. Rape/Sexual assualt - can there be any non evil behind this? It is not born out of sexual desire but rather to exert control and feed the ego. It is solely born of evil intent - whether actual harm was intended or not - harm is caused for selfish reasons. This is in my experiences - not to mention far worse examples had by others. 
3. Where was spirit in these cases? -- Commanding voice. 
3. In reference to the holocaust
1. Christianity's role as a religion
2. Humanity's role - selfishness, grief, hatred , love of country, survival, fear
3. God's role - Spirit's role
4. Does this change how I feel about evil and Spirit? No. But it validates how I feel about humanity. Which in itself is a theological conviction of mine. 
4. What are our responsibilities in the face of violence.
1. Facing Reality: We all like to think we would hide ann frank... until a gun is pointed at your children. We all like to think that when you hear the panicked buzzer at midnight you would let in the girl fearing for her life. There are some that would - when I hear a scream I go look. When I saw a black kid pulled over I pulled over too in the parking lot... but would I do that on the highway? Would I run to help someone whos been stabbed with the attacker still there?
2. What do we do when we listen to our survival instincts and do not help in the moment? How do we help after?
3. How do we wrestle with the guilt of subconsciously contributing to evil? (wars in congo, child labor in other countries)
5. Closing
1. Evil is a human trait
2. Spirit is impartial and has nothing to do with it
3. The gods can help and guide as best they can but at the end of the day they cannot control us
4. Suffering serves a purpose - sometyimes that is to teach us what to avoid, so,etimes its to teach us that we will survive (knife, assault, etc), sometimes its to bring us closer to the divine itself. In desperation we are the most open. -- chapter 8 & 9.
5. All we can do - is heal and do better. AND NOT BLAME THE VICTIMS. This is what sparks my desire to be a chaplain - definition of religion and how this makes me want to be a religious leader. (My inherited community will be wherever i get a job). 
1. Pg 132 Cohn