In an interview, the late John Frame, professor of systematic theology and philosophy, distinguished between two aspects of “The problem of Evil”:
1) On an intellectual and philosophical level, it seems illogical that God could allow evil to exist if He is both all-good and all-powerful.
2) In addition, evil is a problem at an existential level because of the weight of emotional tension that we experience when we or those close to us suffer.
- How the logical tension led Job to increasingly question God’s goodness was treated by chapters 12, 21 & 24. In Job’s prayers, his emotional anguish is tangible e.g. in Job 7, 10, 13:20-28, 14.
- But do the following chapters provide any answer at all? Or is the point that Job instead found “a deepened relationship with God” without an answer? Did Job finally ‘see’ God and humble himself without an intelligible and satisfying answer (42:5)?
Clueless when we darken God’s counsel
38:1 affirms that there is an intelligible answer, even though shrouded by riddles:
- “to answer” (hebr. anah) means to answer graciously by an oracle, 12:4; 23:5 (cf 1Sa 7:9; 1Ki 18:37), i.e. the very opposite of when God refuses to answer (1Sa 14:37; 28:6).
- God’s answer came “…out of the whirlwind”: Not soothing or entertaining, but unsettling, because hurricanes smash whatever is not drawn into the center and lifted up. “…from the north “: A metaphor for heaven, as in 37:22; cf Ezk 1:4; Isa 14:13
- 38:2 The question “Who is this…?” sounds at first glance as if Job were brushed off. But he was not. God knew Job and was pleased with him (1:8), and no assault by Satan could change this.
- “Who is this…” is not asking Job to discover his ‘identity’*. It states what is wrong with him: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” The problem is not that there is no counsel. The problem is that God’s counsel falls on deaf ears:
- Even Job who excelled all others in piety was work in progress, ‘chosen’ not because he was perfect, but to be made perfect (Jn 13:18; 15:16; 1Thes 1:4). Although he knew about the Redeemer, Job did not yet heed and believe God’s counsel of OT promises about Him. Instead, Job still listened to the ‘Common Sense Retribution Theology’ channel hosted by his ‘friends’, a forerunner of the Salvation By Works Broadcast (SBWB) of the Cults United corporation. As a result, Job’s vision still remained too blurry to recognize, understand, and believe how we are redeemed, i.e. that the means to get there is Christ’s shameful death on our behalf, and our dying with him then and there (cf Mk 8:23-24; 29-39).
- In other words, Job is not asked to exchange SBWB theology for agnosticism or mysticism. He is asked to understand and believe what God has made known of His will in intelligible words: Though no one could have conceived this plan of salvation, it was first foretold and then fulfilled as promised. And among the things that God made known, one is that He deserves our trust also in matters that remain sealed, as explained earlier by Elihu.
- 38:3 “…I (God) will question you (Job), and you make it known to me”: If we ignore what God already has made known, if we remain indifferent to that light or reject it, we are not yet let off the hook: We still owe an explanation of why we crave justice and why we cannot live with only the law of the jungle. However, when left to itself, reason can find no rational foundation to justify this thirst. Protesting against oppression by evildoers and against indiscriminate natural disasters turns out to be more absurd without God than with faith in Him, because in a cosmos without God ruled by chaos, the very concept of “injustice” itself has no objective basis other than the law of the strongest.
- Accusing God thus solves nothing: Atheism cannot better explain than theism how any effort at ‘doing right’ can possibly be meaningful in a world stricken by afflictions. To the contrary: All that atheism can ‘achieve’ by questioning the existence of God and his justice is to make evil look like a natural necessity, as a pretense that rebellion against God is ok and that we are accountable to no one: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (Isa 22:13).
- Agnosticism is no different; it is only another (and even cheaper) attempt to escape God’s question (v3), now by burying the head in the sand to not face the absurdity of our thirst for justice and the resulting inevitable despair. But God cannot be muted: “I will question you, and you make it known to me!”
Until here, Job’s struggle therefore shows: Far from providing a solution, our own attempts to explain how life could be relevant even when it is marred by injustice and suffering are doomed. In reality, these attempts are the very cause of our despair once their futility dawns on us.
What can be known of God’s superior wisdom by studying His creation
Job himself rejected atheism: “The counsel of the wicked is far from me!” (21:14-16, and comment on 35:7-8). But Job’s story shows why self justification – i.e. the rebellion of unbelief mentioned by Elihu (34:37) – is bound to suspect God of injustice and thereby invite atheism (as it did in church history).
Chapters 38-39 (part 1 of God’s answer) address this by taking us with Job on a tour to consider first how infinitely greater God’s wisdom and justice must be than our own, if they are unsearchable and incomprehensible. The tour begins with due consideration of God’s visible creation of the earth:
- 38:4-7 Earth is neither a god nor eternal. God is. And God is its architect, not chaos. The universe is not mindless noise. It joyfully sings God’s praises.
- 38:8-11 Even the breakers of the sea, and floods and rains, as terrifying as they are at their worst, are not beyond God’s control.
- 38:12-15 Every new dawn of light reaches earth as prescribed by God, both literally according to His laws, and metaphorically to enlighten and transform hearts (vv13-14, cf 2Cor 4:6)
- 38:16-21 contemplates our limitations below and above us: As the depths of the ocean, so impenetrable are the gates of death to us. We cannot go beyond to get even a sneak peek (v17). And if you have a clue of the vastness of the earth (v18), from where do you think light is coming? Have you been around those countless years ago? And what do we know about the places of darkness where even light gets trapped (v19)? **
- 38:22-30 Also the water cycle, and whether it makes lands fertile or hardened, or whether snow and frost disrupt war plans is not a matter of chance, nor at the whims of evil spirits. It is in God’s hands.
- 38:31-33 Same for the heavenly bodies: The forces that positioned them are not random. Phenomena that may appear chaotic to us do so only because we neither issued nor understand their ordinances.
- 38:34-38 God commands the clouds and even the paths of lightnings***. In like manner, he imparts or withholds wisdom and understanding, v36. Were it not so, it would be futile to pray for such wisdom (Ja 1:5).
- 38:37-41 He does this, not for us to fancy that knowledge can make us like God, but to understand why it cannot: As we begin to see by now, we destroy the ecology and the climate that sustains its equilibrium, if God permits, while their origin and upkeep are God’s gift.
* Contrary to pop-psychology, the Bible teaches that a Christian is both a saint and a sinner: E.g. James who called his readers ‘beloved brothers’ was not shy to also address that same group as sinners (Ja 4:8); Paul wrote of himself “…sinners, of whom I am the foremost”, not of whom I was the foremost (1Tim 1:15); and Jesus did not hesitate to address even Peter as Satan (Mk 8:33), even on the occasion immediately after Peter confessed saving faith (Mk 8:29). They apparently don’t share the concern of those who reject such humble realism as an unhealthy lack of self-esteem.
** While some claim that the Bible foresaw modern scientific insights and others ridicule it as non-scientific altogether, it is noteworthy that fundamental questions about the age and structure of the universe and the origins and fate of light are asked here non-dogmatically and with poetic wonder. It expresses the expectation at the root of all science that such questions should be pondered, even when answers are still unknown to everyone, also to the inspired authors and heroes of the Bible. The size of the globe was eventually deduced by Eratosthenes around 240BC from the length of shadows at different distances from the equator.
*** Far from making God obsolete, the discovery of the laws of nature confirm that even lightnings cannot do as they “please”, but that all things must obey the laws of the ultimate Law Giver.
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