Hugh Nibley
“I went on a mission quite shortly after World War I, of all times, in German towns, and everybody had the same story. Nobody would believe anything. They wouldn’t accept religion because God would not allow that [the atrocities of war] to happen. Their sons were in the war. Where I stayed first, Mrs. Bauer had a seventeen-year-old boy who was killed in the war. She said, ’Why? What was he guilty of? Why should God [punish him]?’ They said, ’There is no God; he would never allow that sort of thing.’ Would he allow the holocaust? Would he allow the fire raids and things like that of World War II? Well, it is not God who is being tested here. It is men who are being tested here. We say he has failed to pass our test. We are not giving tests to him.” (Teachings of the Book of Mormon, 2:345)
"In a remarkable letter to Pahoran, governor of the Nephite lands, the prophet-general, Moroni, gives answer to a question every soldier’s mother is asking: ’Will God permit a righteous boy to be slain on the field of battle?’ Some of the Nephite parents must have been asking the same question…Why does a just God permit the innocent to be slain?
"Again the Book of Mormon gives answer. God will not take away from men their free agency. Men may abuse their free agency. They may in its exercise become carnal, sensual, and devilish. They may make war on their neighbors and put the innocent to death, but interfere with that free agency and the whole purpose of life is frustrated, and progress is ended…During the missionary work of Alma and Amulek in the land of Ammonihah, they were arrested and forced to witness the burning of those whom they had converted:
’And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.
But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand, for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.’ (Alma 14:10Alma 14:11Alma 14:10-11.)
“Alma’s answer goes to the heart of the problem. God will not interfere with the free agency of his children that his judgments may be just, nor can we expect him to stop wars and evil in our day for the same reason.” (William E. Berrett, A Book of Mormon Treasury: Selections from the Pages of the Improvement Era, p. 281-2)