JOB AND THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING Lecture by Irv Esbitt
at Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition Part II - The Christian Age Thursday - February 16, 2006
Monotheism is the catalyst for questioning the presence of evil and suffering. The Greeks and other civilizations viewed that there were many gods and that proper ritual would appease a particular god who controlled a specific part of the material world. To prevent storms sinking your ships, proper ritual observation of the sea god was required. If a storm came up that sank your ships, then you must have not carried out the proper rituals. With monotheism, an explanation as to why the one and only God permitted tragedy became an ongoing issue and problem in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The unknown authors of Job present a prevalent universalist conception of a central theme i.e., innocent suffering and God’s justice. There is another theme in that even God can do bad things and has a “fiend susceptible side”. The setting and characters are all non-Israelite and concerns mankind's ultimate faith in a supreme being. Is virtue in this world a function of reward and punishment or does there exist the possibility of disinterested righteousness?
Job’s Satan (hebrew ha-satan) is a heavenly prosecuting attorney and an adversary. Ha-satan disappears from the story after the opening dialogue with god and is presented as a respected member of the heavenly court.
As a result of the calamities dealt upon job, his comforters provide insight in the common understanding of the prevailing wisdom tradition i.e., God keeps order in the world: the good are rewarded and the evil punished. Traditional view-suffering must be the consequence of sin.
In the tanakh, job is the last time God speaks directly to a person. Job questions God (Job's audacity) but demonstrates Job's profound faith. Two translations of Job 19:25 - “but as for me, I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand up over my dust at the last” and “but I know that my vindicator lives; in the end he will testify on earth”. Job wants God to leave him alone but on the other hand he can’t stop talking to God about his suffering.
The author of job is not denying the right to question, but suggests that intellect and reason alone is not capable of dealing with imponderable matters as evil and the problem of suffering. With Job’s assistance, God’s just, kind self wins out over God’s cruel, capricious self as it did previously after the flood. With faith the world seems more just than unjust, and God still seems more good than bad. Inadequate answers to the problem of innocent suffering vary and include retributive, disciplinary, probative, eschatological, redemptive, revelatory, ineffable and incidental. Job ends with an overwhelming note not of redemption but of reprieve.
Job may be the first existentialist in questioning the seeming isolation of humanity in a hostile universe and discovering that there are no answers. If people will serve God without thought of reward or punishment then religious faith will outlast any eventuality.
Job is included in the tanakh as a testament of Jewish recognition of humanity made in God’s image with a good inclination (hebrew yetzer ha-tov) and an evil inclination (yetzer he-ra). God works in mysterious ways and humanity can legitimately wonder and then argue with God and ask why. This is the covenant between God and humanity. Covenant is the biblical word for the relationship between God and humanity, which can be stretched and strained but never broken.
Isaiah 45:6-8 so that they may know, from east to west,
That there is none but me.
I am the lord and there is none else,
I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe-
I the lord do all these things.
Covenant - an agreement by which two contracting parties freely enter into a special kind of relationship (e.g., of solidarity, friendship, obedience, etc.). Between man and God, confirmation is by rituals symbolizing the union of partners.
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