Apologetics for the Masses - Issue #13

Was Hitler Right?

How would you answer that question? You would say, “No,” right? I mean, of course Hitler was wrong to kill all those people in the gas chambers. Who in their right mind would say otherwise?

But, here’s the thing. If there is no such thing as truth, at least in the moral sense, then by what standard does someone say that Hitler was wrong? Think about it.

Have you ever heard someone say, “Truth is whatever you make it?” Or, “You have your truth and I have my truth?” Or something else along those same lines?

Do the people who say these things ever stop to think about the consequences of what they’re saying? I don’t think they do.

And what are those consequences? Well, let’s look at just one: If there is no such thing as objective truth, then that means there is no such thing as God, the Author of truth. Many people would agree that there is no God. But, if there is no such thing as God, then there is no such as morality, at least, not an objective right vs. wrong kind of morality.

Without truth…without God…morality is simply whatever each individual person, or each group of persons, defines it to be. Homosexuality…moral for one; immoral for another. Abortion: moral for one…immoral for another. Same sex “marriage”…moral for one; immoral for another. And on and on it goes. Is there no objective morality? Is there no objective truth?

So, I am going to show anyone who does not believe in God, or who does not believe in objective moral truth, why they are wrong. And I will do so by answering the question above: Was Hitler right?

I want to start off, though, by asking another question: Why do we, as human beings, have value? If you’re Christian, you may already know the answer to that question. But, how does the “world” answer the question of, “Why do we as human beings, have value?”

Why do we, as human beings, have value? Or, do we have value? All of you have heard about the mass extermination of the Jews that Hitler and the Nazis carried out in the 30’s and 40’s that we now refer to as the Holocaust. Would you believe me, then, if I said that not a single human being died in the concentration camps? Not one single human being died in the concentration camps!

How can I say that? I can say that because by German law that existed at the time, Jews were legally considered “not fully human.” They were classified as a “sub-human” species. Legally speaking, they were “non-persons.” One group of people passed laws that said another group of people were not really human beings. So, I say again, no human beings died in the concentration camps. Am I right or am I wrong? Is that true or not?

I can just see some of you shaking your heads to tell me that I’m wrong. Well, if you don’t believe in objective truth, you can’t tell me I’m wrong. But, okay, let’s say that everyone who died in the concentration camps were human beings. So what? Why should we care? What value are they to us? Again, the question I am trying to get at here is, how is it that our lives have value? How do we determine whether or not any given human life has value?

Do we have value only if we can be productive, if we have a job, or if we serve some useful purpose? Do we have value only if someone else thinks we have value? Do we have value only if we have an IQ of 100 or higher? Do we have value only if someone else loves us? Do we have value only if our “quality of life” meets some arbitrary standard set by others?

Well, I maintain, and I think most of you will agree with me, that we have value simply because we are alive…that human life has inherent value. In other words, simply because it is human life, it has value. But, what is my basis for saying that? It is this: we have value as human beings because God gives us value…He gives us value by His love for us.

We don’t have value because we are productive. We don’t have value because we are useful. We don’t have value because someone else thinks we have value. We don’t have value because we have an IQ of 100 or higher. We don’t have value because another human being loves us. We don’t have value because we have some arbitrary level of “quality of life.” We have value, because God loves us. Any other line of reasoning leaves an opening for someone, somewhere, at some point in time, to declare somebody else as having no value…which is exactly what happened to the Jews in Europe 70 years ago.

This is why people who do not believe in God cannot offer any objective reason for saying that they themselves have value as human beings. The “world” cannot answer the question as to why we as human beings have value, because according to the world, we don’t have any inherent value. We are just random, meaningless, accidents of nature.

Without God, everything becomes subjective…merely one person’s opinion versus another person’s opinion…and the strongest person’s opinion prevails. Without God, might, in essence, makes right. I’ve talked to atheists before and I’ve asked them if what Hitler did to the Jews was wrong. And they answered that of course it was! Then I asked them, why? Why was it wrong for Hitler to kill six million Jews? Essentially, all they could answer me with was, “Well, it just was.”

All they had to back their viewpoint was their own subjective opinion. They could not give me one objective moral argument for why the Holocaust was wrong. Without God, you can’t make an objective moral argument that the Holocaust was wrong. In fact, without God, you can’t make the case that any killing is wrong. Without God, you can’t make the case that the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center were wrong, that murder is wrong, that stealing is wrong, that rape is wrong, or any other such thing is wrong. After all, without God, we are just animals, and no one says that one animal killing another animal is morally wrong.

We have value because God loves us. Period. That is an objective moral standard. Any other argument that attempts to give value to human life, and leaves God out of the equation, ultimately boils down to someone’s subjective opinion. We don’t have value because I say we do, or you say we do, or because anyone else says we do…we have value because we are loved by our Creator.

Which means Hitler was wrong if, and only if, truth exists. If, and only if, God exists. If God does not exist, then might makes right and Hitler was the mightiest in Germany at the time, so he had every right to do what he did. But, if God does indeed exist, then there is indeed such a thing as truth. Objective…moral…truth. And we need to be doing everything in our power to find that truth and live by that truth.

Next Month: Is there truth in religion?

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