Job is a complicated, surprising and, I think, often misunderstood book. It is classified as a work of theodicy – that is, a work that grapples with the problem of evil given the posited existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent deity. But I think this is a fundamental misconception. The book is not a work of theodicy – it’s a rejection of theodicy. It doesn’t answer the question of why bad things happen to good people; it says that this is the wrong question.
The only people in the Book of Job who attempt to provide a theodicy are Job’s comforters. They think they understand the way the world works. The good are rewarded and the sinful are punished. If Job is suffering, he must have done something to deserve it. If he refuses to acknowledge this fact, that’s arrogance, which is more proof that they are right and he deserves his suffering.
By contrast, the Book of Job itself opens with a scene that should be considered blasphemous. God tells Satan, who’s been busy walking the earth like Caine in Kung Fu, to consider his servant Job. Satan considers him, but isn’t impressed: yes, he’s good, but that’s because God has been good to him. So Satan and God make a kind of bet: God lets Satan punish Job, as a test, to see if Job will keep his faith in adversity.
Now, I say this should be blasphemous, because at no point does God suggest that there is some value to Job, or to God, or to anybody in Job’s suffering. Satan is God’s prosecuting attorney. God thinks Job is deserving of favor; Satan’s job is to prove that he isn’t. In order to give Satan his fair chance, God is willing to visit wholly undeserved punishment on Job. But there is no larger purpose. The only purpose of the test, so far as we can tell, is to find out the result of the test.
It’s useful, I think, to imagine the Book of Job beginning with an argument between, say, Zeus and Hera. We have no expectation, reading stories about Zeus, that he will be portrayed as primarily concerned with our welfare. The Greek gods were jealous, petty, capricious, vain. But they are also powerful, and noble. If they made a bet about a mortal, and put him through numerous trials, just to see if he could overcome them, that would make perfect sense. They wouldn’t worry about whether they were being fair. They would be giving the mortal a chance, by passing the test, to earn their favor, and thereby become a hero – because that’s what a hero is: someone who passes these kinds of arbitrary trials.
In the Greek value system, the worship of gods who behave in this fashion makes perfect sense. The Greek gods were not worshiped because they were good, or because they loved us. They were worshiped because they were powerful. In the Israelite framework, though, and in the subsequent Jewish and Christian traditions that spring from it, this is inadequate. In monotheism, the character of God determines the character of reality itself. A monotheist who worships God simply because He is powerful is, effectively, worshiping power itself, in a kind of spiritual fascism.
This, then, is the question that the Book of Job asks: not why bad things happen to good people, but rather given that bad things happen to good people, how should we relate to God – why, and how, should He be worshiped?
Job, the character, goes through a series of stages over the course of the book. First, he holds to his faith even as he loses everything. His wife advises that he kill himself (“curse God and die”) rather than continue to endure; he rejects her advice. But eventually, it is too much for him, and he cries out to God, demanding an explanation. He doesn’t accuse God of injustice. He accuses him of not explaining His justice adequately so that Job can understand it, and know why he is suffering.
Visited by three comforters, Job is told over and over that he must have done something, and that he should repent to be forgiven. His refusal is interpreted as arrogance, but he doesn’t care. He has searched his soul. He doesn’t see how he deserves the punishment he is given.
And then, God Himself speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, and says, basically: who do you think you are? What aspect of My creation do you actually comprehend? From the daily miracles of mundane natural phenomena to exotic monsters like Leviathan and Behemoth (“the beginning of the ways of God”), God takes Job on a tour of creation, and says, basically, I did all that, and you’re asking me to justify how I treated you?
And Job repents. But it doesn’t end there. God tells Job’s comforters that Job was righteous, and they were sinful for telling Job that he did something wrong to merit his suffering. And then God gives Job a new family, new wealth, etc. His earthy favor is restored.
How is this an answer to Job’s question? How is it an answer to what I think is the Book of Job’s question? As an answer to Job’s question, it’s a non-sequitur. Job asks: how is my suffering just? God replies: why are you asking me that? Look at the splendor of my creation! In other words: that’s the wrong question. The Book of Job is asking: if worshiping God doesn’t prevent suffering, and if God’s justice cannot be comprehended, then why worship God? And why follow His commands?
I just want to endorse this.
And note that, as a Christian, what leapt out at me while reading, was that this reading of Job made me think of nothing so much as this. God’s answer to Job is inadequate—cannot be adequate—because the real answer is “I suffer with you” and that answer would have been incomprehensible to Job. (It is, of course, rigorously speaking, still incomprehensible to anyone. Incarnation is a mystery, after all.)
