Book review: “Night” and the problem of evil

If I were still a believer, I would have credited what I am about to share as some sort of divine revelation. Since I’m not and since what I am about to share pecks very large holes in the belief of a caring, all-powerful God, I will merely call it a coincidence.

This evening, I was thinking about how I wanted to begin my review of “Night” by Elie Wiesel — “A slim volume of terrifying power,” according to The New York Times — which recounts Wiesel’s experiences while under German imprisonment in the [[Auschwitz]] concentration camp and elsewhere.

At this point, some may say: “Have you not read this before? I read that in high school.” No, somehow, I’m not sure how, this one slipped by me. It was mentioned in passing conversation one day a couple months ago, so I decided to get a copy.

Moving on, for anyone who doesn’t know the story, “Night” tells the story of a young Elie Wiesel, who after living through hellish conditions and watching his father waste away (ungracefully die, heartlessly carried away and tossed away with the other bodies as if he was a mutt) in Nazi concentration camps, returns from captivity with his faith shaken to the core.

I had an introduction for this review already in mind and was ready to begin typing when it occurred to me that, perhaps, I should consult John Loftus’ “Why I Became An Atheist” because I remembered that he included two chapters titled, “The Problem of Evil” in his book. I had not remembered this from my prior reading of Loftus’ work, but he actually begins these two chapters with a quotation from “Night.” I thought that was quite coincidental. Following is the quote from “Night” Loftus selected.

Recalling the day he arrived at the Birkenau Nazi camp, Wiesel writes:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget  those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.

Never.

And Loftus picks up with this:

The problem of evil is known as “the rock of atheism.” Michael Martin considers this problem so significant that out of 476 pages of writing and defending atheism, there are 118 pages in his book on this one issue alone, which is a quarter of his book! ((Michael Martin, “Atheism: A Philosophical Justification“))

“Night” is an easy read in word only. As you follow Wiesel and his family as the Nazis begin clamping down on his hometown of Sighet in what was then Transylvania, creating a ghetto in Sighet and eventually deporting thousands of Jews to concentration camps across the region, you learn that Wiesel, once a devout Jew who read his Talmud daily, was slowly losing his faith as he witnessed atrocity after atrocity, not the least of which was eternal separation from his mother and the death of his father.

As the prisoners traversed the European countryside in cattle cars, transported as if they were livestock and hopping from one camp to another, the Jews were barely given enough food to live and many died along the way, their bodies simply tossed to the side of the road at each stop.

Wiesel recalls one instance where human beings, pushed the point of severe starvation, fought like animals over a piece of bread:

I saw, not far from me, an old man dragging himself from the struggling mob. He was holding one hand to his heart. At first I thought he had received a blow to his chest. Then I understood: he was hiding a piece of bread under his shirt. With lightning speed he pulled it out and put it to his mouth. His eyes lit up, a smile, like a grimace, illuminated his ashen face. And was immediately extinguished. A shadow had lain down beside him. And this shadow threw itself over him. Stunned by the blows, the old man was crying:

“Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me … You’re killing your father … I have bread … for you too … for you too …”

He collapsed. But his fist was still clutching a small crust. He wanted to raise it to his mouth. But the other threw himself on him. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it. He didn’t get far. Two men had been watching him. They jumped him. Others joined in. When they withdrew, there were two dead bodies next to me, the father and the son.

I was sixteen.

I thought this scene was made all the more shocking because Wiesel reveals his tender age at the time. Although the prisoners often endured cold and harsh weather conditions, oftentimes, the sun was shining, and if a prisoner merely looked up, his heart could be brightened by the clear and bright sky. But one only had to look around to notice the stark contrast between sunny day and the dark path of disease, famine, suffering and death that was being cut across Europe. Like Albert Camus in “The Stranger,” Wiesel points out this striking and nearly unbelievable paradox between the sun and an unforgiving sky.

Believable or not, it happened, and 6 million Jews, God’s supposed chosen race, were herded up like cattle, tortured, starved, beaten, stripped from their families, worked to the bone and gassed, their lifeless bodies thrown into pits like so many of their brethren. Perhaps they were the lucky ones. Unlucky was Wiesel, who witnessed live infants being tossed into the furnace. And it was this image, among all the others, that struck me the most about “Night.” This was the only book that I can recall that summoned nightmares the night after completing it.

And where was God in all of this? Wiesel asks the question numerous times in the book, and we can formulate only one answer. In 1940s Europe, God was nowhere to be found, the skies were silent and Adolf Hitler, who promised to exterminate the Jews, was the only one who actually lived up to his promise. Believers will likely say that all those bad things happened to the Jews (“Bad” being a decided understatement) because we live in a fallen world, where we can expect all kinds of nasty things to happen to humans since we live under the curse of Adam. Thus, slavery, the Salem Witch Trials, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina and Sept. 11, 2001 can all be explained away because of the curse, and God can shirk responsibility for all of it. Fine, but only a monster can watch infants be tossed into furnaces while still alive and not intervene if he had the power to do so. And, if he exists, he did indeed watch it with folded arms. If he did not watch it, he is not omniscient.

So, we are now forced to deal with an impasse. Here again, I’ll pick up Loftus:

So the extent of intense suffering in the world means for the theist that either God is not powerful enough to eliminate it, or God does not care enough to eliminate it, or God is just not smart enough to know what to do about it. The stubborn fact of intense suffering in the world means that something is wrong with God’s ability, or his goodness, or his knowledge. I consider this as close to an empirical refutation of Christianity as is possible.

Thus, whether we consider the case of human beings being treated like cattle in mid-19th century America or humans being, again, being treated like cattle in 1940s Europe, as portrayed in “Night,” believers must face these two questions: how can God be all-loving and watch his creation suffer every form of ridicule and human depredation and how can he be omnipotent with all the power in the universe to end such suffering or see that it doesn’t begin in the first place? Even more, suffering to his supposed chosen race of people?

No book that I have ever read brings these questions to the forefront with such brutal honesty. And I think it may be for that reason that The Times used the words “terrifying power” to describe this short, but seismic cattle car ride through the bowels of man’s darkest hour.

[rating: 4.5]