The Book of Job

“The problem of evil, the main obstacle to monotheism in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is the task of attempting to reconcile all the bad things that seem to occur in the world with the belief that God, an all-good, all-powerful, and all-loving deity, exists.”  (from Philosophy:  An Introduction Through Literature by Kleiman and Lewis, 1990)

As a Freshman in college I took Introduction to World Literature. One of the required readings was from the bible, the book of Job.  What followed was a reawakening of my then dormant religious curiosity.  From prior Sunday school experience, I had characterized the bible as a series of myths, fables and fairy tales, much of which stretched the limits of credulity.  But Job was different.  It offered no easy answers, no easy outs.  Instead, it posed difficult, seemingly unanswerable questions. As author William Safire (1929—2009) said, “I started my journey into this book with doubt in my faith and have come out with faith in my doubt."

Imagine the courage of those who many centuries ago chose to include Job in scripture.  They were unafraid to question belief.  They must have believed religion would inevitably be strengthened, not weakened, by wrestling with this troubling story.  The book of Job made it possible for me to question, to doubt, and once again bring religious study into my life.

God is the most problematic character in Job.  God is the magisterial creator whose works and whose ways exceed human understanding.  But God is also a god who treats human life as a toy and an experiment, a god that could as well be Zeus, the powerful, amoral, vain and all too human god of the Greeks. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1875—1961), wrote about Job, noting God’s duality.  “God is at odds with himself . . . He is total justice, and also its total opposite . . . (toward Job) God displays no compunction, remorse, or compassion, but only ruthlessness and brutality.”

I too wonder about God’s duality.  IF, as it says in Genesis, we are created in God’s image; and IF as rabbinic sages tell us, we are created with a dual nature, the inclination to do good and the inclination to do evil; then does it follow that God too must have a dual nature?

Job dares to demand from God an answer.  Unquestioning acceptance of his situation is intolerable.  He craves knowledge and seeks explanation.  Job, in his personal suffering, wants to know “Why?” God responds by challenging Job to look beyond self to a greater whole, a whole beyond human grasp.  Job’s appeal to God is answered magisterially but also evasively.  Nevertheless, in the end, Job is redeemed for having questioned.  He is rewarded for having sought an honest relationship with God.

The book of Job offers a response to blind faith, orthodoxy and fundamentalism.  Job’s three ‘consolers’ are the voices of dogma.  They speak the prevailing beliefs of their time. God reprimands them for giving Job conventional, pious, and ultimately errant responses regarding the cause of his suffering.  Maybe they were chastised for lecturing Job on God’s behalf when, as friends, they should have offered comfort.  Maybe their duty at that moment was not to God, but to their suffering fellowman.

The book of Job probes from many perspectives, often arguing back and forth within itself.  It offers no answers.  It refutes complacent self-assuredness.  Job, written in antiquity, speaks to modern man:

We must not accept blindly.

We must not preach literally.

There may be no answers.

It is every generation’s obligation to ask the questions.