Few objections against God in general and Christianity in particular are raised more frequently than the question of why a god who is good and sovereign allows bad things to happen to good people. The question of undeserved adversity is addressed specifically by the book of Job.
Job’s opponents explained adversity simply by the supposedly free will and its self-inflicted guilt that calls for God’s just judgement.
Does that sound familiar? For example, Eliphaz claimed from the start: “Who, being innocent, has ever perished, 4:7?” And Zophar: “If you direct your heart right… (all will go well)”, 11:13-19. Or when Bildad asked: “Upon whom does God’s light not rise, 25:3?”, the assumption is that everyone only gets what they deserve for wrongful choices against the moral light with which human reason is endowed naturally.*
However, the book repudiates these adversaries and their theology in general (42:7), and their notion of free will in particular. Job’s own reply to Bildad was in essence:
Think about who ‘inspired’ that idea!
Job 26:1-4 (paraphrased)
And elsewhere, Job asked: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?”, 14:4. And of God, Job asserts in 12:14-21 that “…He takes away the discernment of the elders”.
Attacks on the notion of free will are also fielded by the mysterious character of Elihu who is introduced only after everybody else has shut up to then give him four entire chapters (32-37): “God is the first cause of all things”, 34:13-15; and “God’s judgements – symbolized by snowstorm, frost and whirlwind – accomplish His decrees“, 37:11-13.
God’s own answer to Job sounds similar, e.g.: “The wicked are denied their light…”, 38:15, and chapter 39 describes in no less than 7 metaphors how God rules sovereign over every evil, yet without being complicit.
So what is the message of this book?
We know the plot, the legendary framework: The archetype of a respected and fabulously successful father and businessman without fault, who is commended even by God himself:
Have you seen my servant Job, that there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?
Job 1:8
Is this how God himself defines a good “job”?** So it seems. But then the devil shows up and is allowed to test the heart:
- Why is it that men love God? What is their true motive?
- Isn’t it all a give-and-get bargain, a business relationship?
- Isn’t all religion an evolutionary rudiment in the winding of the brain? A human projection of a superhuman father figure who must affirm us: Good Job, well done”? What is it but wishful thinking that good behavior must be worth the effort and earn some reward?
And so Satan’s accusation continues: “How can you call this love, if we only love those who love us? How difficult is that? What if we would test with a little adversity what is behind this Sunday face? Will you let me?”
From there, everything is taken away from Job, and the rough going begins, and for a long time:
“Job’s suffering as an innocent party was not the main focus but was introduced only as a means of isolating and intensifying the question of the proper basis of man’s relationship to God.”
Gregory W. Parsons, The Structure and Purpose of the Book of Job, Bibliotheca Sacra 138 (550)(Apr. 1981) 139-57
Almost 30 chapters in all, first in prose followed by one dialogue after another in poetry that is hard to translate. And what are they even talking about? Who is supposed to understand any of that? Is this an ancient myth that only served some disappointed exiled scribes to spin a couple of contradictory theories about God and the world, why they suffered, and why they themselves stubbornly continued to believe in God, apparently against all evidence? If that is what they did – why should we look for any conclusive answers here, of all places? Or if the point is as simple as a cursory internet search might suggest (a man who is suffering only to discover that there are no answers), why doesn’t the Bible give us a short summary instead?
* The belief of Bildad and of his friends was that God only pays back everyone in this life what their own (free) choices deserve. Even if Job cannot be convicted of any known or secret sin, he must at least be guilty of being born by a woman (v4). Guilty he must be or else God would not inflict such punishment. Little did Bildad know (let alone preach) that God had already declared Job righteous (1:8; 2:3).
** According to NAS Exhaustive Concordance and Brown-Driver-Briggs, the Hebrew meaning of the name Job is uncertain, whereas Strong’s concordance suggests that the name may derive from ayab (hated as an enemy). Interestingly, Job’s ‘friends’ actually turn out to be the only ones who counted him as an enemy of God. They did so because he began to openly question their belief system. They were not the last who regarded this as an assault on God himself. How they thus served the ‘prince of this world’ will be explored later (Job 39).
Bibletogetherblog 