One sentence that throws the problem of evil out of the window.

[Catholic_Lady]

Catholics are free to believe in either an allegorical or literal interpretation of the Old Testament. In my Catholic school, we were taught as though it were all allegory, and that's the stance I continue to take.

Let's suppose for arguments sake that God's voice sounded from the skies and told Abraham to kill his son, and then told him not to.

I'd say Abraham's culpability is mitigated due to the fact that he was obeying God Himself. He certainly didn't *want* to do it, but felt backed into a wall when, heck, God Himself is telling him to do it. His thinking was "well God gave me this child when i asked Him for one, now He is asking for the child back." While I completely disagree and wouldn't do the same thing in a million years, I wouldn't guess that Abraham has an evil heart for it, either.

Then by that logic, if Hitler thought he was doing Gods will, doesn't that absolve him of any blame? Whether or not he believed it, in many instances he profiled himself and his movement Christian, catholic even, and doing the lord's bidding. Could've been lying and manipulative about it, , but he could have honestly been convinced that what he was doing was God's work. I'm pretty sure he thought it was necessary and right, in his mind in any case. And even if he didn't believe he was followign the lord's command, by profiling his movement as such those in the Nazi party under him who believed in the Christian God found justification for their actions. They probably did heinous things whilst believing it being a holy cause.Just like the crusades of old or even muslim terrorism today.

Or look at it this way. If Abraham had been mistaken. If the devil, supposedly the greatest cheater and lying monster (though created purposefully such by God but that's a rant for another day) had convinced Abraham he was God and that he ordered him to sacrifice his son; would Abraham's culpability still be mitigated? After all, in his heart as honest as could be, he'd still think he was following divine guidance.

If Hitler was insane and hallucinating and hearing a voice telling him to kill millions of people, his culpability probably would be mitigated as well. Id say for reason of insanity. Which is why, as i said, i cant say for sure that hes in Hell. I can make a guess, but cant claim anything. But I highly doubt that was the case. He may have claimed he was doing Gods work in order to get followers or whatever, but I highly doubt he genuinely heard a voice he believed to be God's telling him to kill people.