Where was God in Auschwitz? Can there be any God, at least any good and omnipotent God, if such hellish evils exist? After posing this question in all honesty and depth, the first chapter refutes several theories, some of them quite venerable, that deny existence to evils, reduce evils to some unreality or mere lack of good, or declare them to be an indispensable part of the best possible world. The book seeks to establish the errors of these attempts to tame the ferocious reality of evil and refutes some of their assumptions. At the same time, it recognizes and defends the important truths contained in three of these four classical attempts at "taming evil." Thus resisting any playing down the ferocious reality of evil, it offers a critical analysis of the Augustinian, Thomist and Leibnizean defenses of God in front of evil but defends the parasitic character of evil, thus rejecting any Manichean dualism. The second chapter explains the atheist argumentation against God based on the horrific reality of evil. Recognizing the reality of awful evils seems to lead to a logical contradiction between 3 propositions each theist holds true: 1. An infinitely good God exists. 2. An omnipotent God exists. 3. Evils exist. The only option that seems to be left to a serious philosopher after Auschwitz is atheism, or denying either that God is good or that he is omnipotent, which many atheists consider a dishonest "polite atheism." The third chapter shows that there are many evident and some possible hidden good reasons for God's allowing the evil of pain to occur for the sake of immense values that are dependent on the free will of persons. The only key to understand causes and reasons for suffering lies in the even greater evil: moral evil, and in moral goodness that overarches the evils in the world. The atheist cannot refute the many reasons for suffering that philosophy detects in the complex interrelations between pain and moral evil. While this audacious book demands that philosophy stretches itself to its very limits in order to apprehend meaning even in Auschwitz, it does not claim a self-sufficiency of human reason in confrontation with the mystery of evil, nor does it preclude that only far higher values accessible solely to religious faith can provide an ultimate answer to where God was in Auschwitz and to why he permits evil. While they are hidden from mere human reason, the atheist cannot refute these higher reasons and can understand their possibility, and also for this reason the construction of an atheist conclusion from Auschwitz and other atrocities fails. The final chapter copes with the challenge, based on the evil of manifold human errors, against a God who is Truth itself. It liberates God from the claim that He made human errors about the most important things inevitable or that some errors that no human person can avoid are such great evils that no higher goods (such as trust and interhuman love) can justify permitting their occurrence. Chapter 4 assesses critically important contributions of René Descartes but offers an original answer to any atheist challenge to the veracity of God. The book ascends to the very heights of a philosophical answer to its great question: Can God exist if Auschwitz exists? Without a rationalistic claim of comprehending fully the mystery of evil, Seifert carefully distinguishes between admitting unsolvable mysteries about evil in relation to God and disproving God's existence. A Socratic wisdom and silence in the face of the question "where was God in Auschwitz?" must be sharply distinguished from the proud and untenable claim of having refuted the existence of an infinitely good and omnipotent God through the reality of Auschwitz and of countless other evils. This book is a substantially corrected, revised and simplified text published 2016 as "Does the Reality of Evil Disprove the Existence of God?". It addresses itself to all readers who long for a reply to its question.
About the Author: Josef Seifert, b. 1945, married, six children and 5 grandchildren. Ph.D. in philosophy 1969; Habilitation at the University of Munich 1975. Founding Rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality Liechtenstein(IAP) 1986; Full Professor of Philosophy at the IAP (1986-2004); at the IAP-PUC (Chile)(2004-2012); at the IAP-IFES, Granada, Spain (2011-). Author of 31 philosophical books in German, English, Italian, and Spanish (many of them translated into other languages), and 360 articles in 12 languages. His published books and articles deal with questions of epistemology, logic and theory of truth, methodology, game theory, philosophy of medicine and science, ontology, metaphysics, philosophy of God, philosophical anthropology (body-mind problem, life, death, genders, love and marriage, homosexuality, "brain-death"), ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion. His best known books include KNOWLEDGE OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH (German, 1972), BODY AND SOUL (German), BACK TO THINGS IN THEMSELVES (Routledge 1987, 2013), BEING AND PERSON (Italian, 1986, English Dec 2016), WHAT IS LIFE? (1997), TRUTH AND PERSON, THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT TRUTH (2009, German), CHESS-PHILOSOPHY, (1989), in German), TRUE LOVE (2015), HILARIOUS PHILOSOPHY. JOHANN NESTROY: THE FUNNIEST AUSTRIAN PHILOSOPHER. (German, 2016). CONOCIMIENTO DE DIOS POR LAS VÍAS DE LA RAZÓN Y DEL AMOR (2013). THE ABSURDITY OF RELATIVISM. LIBERATION FROM ITS DICTATORSHIP. (German, 2016) He is considered by many to be the leading representative of realist phenomenological philosophy today. Honors/distinctions include: Honorary Member of the Medical Faculty of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago (since 1993) Recipient of EU (European Community) Medal of Merit and Recipient of the EU Order of Merit (Ordre de Mérite) 1997, for the Founding of the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality Liechtenstein and for philosophical work of "highest European Standards". "Austrian Cross of Merit for Science and Art 1st Class" 1999. Dr. honoris causa (FUS), 2007. Director of 2-Year Research Project "The Philosophical Concept of Health" with the Swiss National Fund for Science and Higher Education, 1998-2000. Director of 2 Year Research Project on Human Free Will and Brain Science (2000-2012) with FONDECYT CHILE. Under the pen-name Melchior B. author of 5 short stories and a novel (not yet published). For 10 years President of the Liechtenstein chess club.