Agamben

The confusion between law and morality and between theology and law has had illustrious victims. Hans Jonas the philosopher...who specialized in ethical problems, is one of them...when he received the Lucas Award in Tuhingen, he reflected on the question of Auschwitz by preparing for a new theodicy, asking, that is, how it was possible: for God to tolerate Auschwitz, A theodicy is a trial that seeks to establish the responsibility not of men, but of God. Like all theodicies. Jonas's ends in an acquittal. The justification for the sentence is something like this: "The infinite (God) stripped himself completely, in the finite, of his omnipotence. Creating the world, God gave it His own fate and he became powerless. Thus, having emptied himself entirely in the world, he no longer has anything to offer us; it is now man's turn to give. Man can do this by taking care that it never happens, or rarely happens, that God regrets his decision to have let the  world be." The conciliatory vice of every theodicy is particularly clear here. Not only does this theodicy tell us nothing about Auschwitz, either about its victims or, executioners; it does not even manage to avoid a happy ending. Behind the powerlessness of God peeps the powerlessness of men who continue to cry "May that never happen again" when it is clear that 'that' is, by now, everywhere.

   Gorgio Agamben: REMNANTS OF AUSCHWITZ