One of the most interesting, and yet, most difficult texts in Scripture is Job. Whether or not one reads it as actual history, it presents to us one universal question, why do innocent (or just) people suffer in the world? After exploring various potential answers, the text says that the real answer is beyond us, that there are too many variables involved, variables which only God alone knows, which is why God alone knows the answer. We must have faith that God has made it so that things are the best they could be, that whatever ways we would do things differently, they would lead to something worse, due to the variables we do not know or understand. While we can and should recognize the truth of this, even if the way this answer was presented might not be the kind of way we would present it today, there is much to it which does not satisfy us. We would like for things to make sense, and so even if we accept the premise, we still ask questions, we still try to get as great a grasp of the situation which we can. And this is fine.
We can and should ask such questions, but we must do so humbly, recognizing our own limits. When we do so, we will find ourselves answering the question of suffering in a variety of ways, finding that we will discern some little element of the truth in the process while also realizing that what we attain is only a small portion of a greater truth which transcends us. Indeed, the way we engage the question will lead to particular conclusions, sometimes ones which contradict what we will discern in and through other ways of engaging the question; such a contradiction only points to the fact that trying to answer the riddle of suffering leads to antinomies, that is, paradoxes which demonstrate the truth lies beyond human reason can establish for itself.
Job points out that we must reject those who would undermine the question of suffering by suggesting no one is righteous, and so no one unjustly suffers: those who would present this solution to the question of suffering only mock the suffering of the innocent. Job, after all, is a righteous man. Even if we want to say no one is fully and absolutely righteous, and so recognize that Job, like everyone else, was imperfect, he was just enough to be declare righteous by God (cf. Job 1:8). Whatever imperfections could be found in his life, they did not justify the sufferings he experienced. Far from it. He was righteous. He loved and obeyed God, and even in the midst of all his sufferings, he would not curse God. This does not mean Job did not question his experiences. He most certainly did, though he would also stoically accept that his life, and all in it, was the gift of God and so also accepted that God could deal with him as God chose (cf. Job 1:20). His questioning of his situation, and of God, did not go against his acceptance of that fact: he did not turn against God, but only wanted God to explain to him why he was going through such grave suffering. He only wanted what we all want: he wanted to understand where justice could be found in the midst of his trials and tribulations. God granted him that question, just as God grants all of us that question too. This is why the book of Job is monumental, it points out that we can be faithful to God, righteous even, and still have questions and doubts (indeed, the doubts often come out of such fidelity). Believers can have faith, they can love God, they can agree that God must be all-good, all-loving, and yet find themselves wondering why God, if God is such, allows things to be as they are. Often, those who have the greatest love for God as the ones who also want to know and understand the answers to this question the most.
God, of course, does come to Job, and responds to Job in a way which might seem to the reader to be a non-answer. For what God points out is the greatness of the divine nature, of the things which God can do which Job can’t. But there is more involved in the supposed non-answer than meets the eye. What we have from God can be said to be a form of apophatic theology. Apophatic theology deals with theological questions, not by way making affirmative declarations, such as “God is just,” but by way of denial, by removing all that is false from our view of God, such as saying “God is not hateful,” so that what is left, after all denials have been made, is the truth itself. God rejects the bad advice and theological speculations of Job’s friends; it is not surprising that God does this, for not only do their arguments go against God’s true nature, their solutions would create dangerous ideologies which would have us look to the wrong factors in order to determine what is just or unjust, or who is good or not good. For their answers would suggest that those who are not suffering, those, indeed, who have power and authority and use it to make others suffer, must be good, and those who they cause to suffer must be bad. What more could a tyrant want than such a justification for their rule? Rejecting their claims is necessary if we want to understand justice, and so the book of Job makes it clear, we must reject all such theodicies because of the evil they would end up promoting. From this, once again, we can see the apophatic nature of the text, for we come to know God, and with it, the justice God established in the world, not through positive assertions, but through denials, cleansing ourselves of all the ideologies which get in the way of knowing and experiencing the truth for ourselves. The more we construct answers, the more we will have to deconstruct all that is wrong in those answers, so that we can then determine what remains and use that for our understanding of God.
It is in the preservation of creation, and God’s permissive will, we can find another way to explain suffering in the world. It is also a solution which the book of Job hints at from the very beginning, a solution which is so obvious that we forget it is a part of the book itself. This is shown in the way Job suffers, not because of what Job has done, but because God has given the devil some freedom to act has he wants in regards to Job: the devil is free to harass and hurt Job and his family. This permission of God is connected to the freedom God has given to all creaturely subjects to act as they choose; though such freedom is real, it is, of course, also limited, as the potential of creatures is limited. But within those limits, much can be done, and people acting with the freedom given to them can and will hurt themselves and others with it. We have been given freedom, and so with that freedom, some people will follow after the example of the devil and use their freedom to hurt others. While there is truth in this formulation, ultimately, it also raises questions, questions such as why God would give us freedom if it means it will create such suffering in the world. The normal answer, which we can see contains truth even if it leads to an antinomy, is that such freedom produces a greater good, even with the suffering which comes out of it, than there would be in a world without such freedom. Perhaps the text hints at this by showing how all that the devil is allowed to do leads to Job’s greater righteousness, greater holiness, that his trials and tribulations make Job greater than he was before them, but this does seem like a small consolation, not only for Job, but for his family as well (since many of them died as a result of the devil’s actions).
The book of Job, therefore, provides many ways to look at the question of suffering, rejecting many of them, while giving a relative affirmation to others. It recognizes the question of suffering is important, and so it can be and will be asked by those who are just, those who believe in and have faith in God. This is what makes the book, despite whatever tragedy is found in it, to be so attractive to many believers. It says that we are not in the wrong, indeed, we do not have to see ourselves as rejecting God, when we have such questions. Indeed, it can be said that the more righteous we are, the more that question will arise. The question is not the problem. Even trying to wrestle with it and provide conventional explanations is not the problem. The problem is when we try to answer it in an absolute fashion, because we can’t. And if we are not careful, the answer we give might just hinder, instead of help, those who are just. This is why we should recognize and give a caveat with all our answers, the caveat which is found in apophatic theology, and this is the caveat which we can and should take out of God’s answer to Job.
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