The problem of evil II...

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The Book of Job is the classic text in the Old Testament where the problem of suffering is explored in extended detail. It attempts, if not to answer, at least to respond to, the problem of evil, by telling this story:

Job is blessed with great wealth and a happy and healthy family. He is devout and virtuous in his private life, and charitable to all, especially the needy. But God allows Satan to test Job; in quick succession Job's cattle, his sheep, his camels and his slaves are killed by raiders, and his ten children die in a freak accident.

Job mourns and weeps, but accepts his misfortune, saying "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

God now allows Satan to attack Job himself, giving him a disfiguring disease. His wife urges him to "curse God, and die", but Job refuses. "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"

Four friends, hearing of his misfortunes, come to support him. The first three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar) believe that God is just. For them, God is a rewarder of good and punisher of evil. There is no room in their understanding of God for suffering to have any purpose other than retribution.. Job's suffering must be a deserved punishment for sin They berate Job for refusing to confess his sins.

Job insists that his suffering cannot be accounted for by his sins. He still refuses to curse God's name but, rejecting what his friends say, he calls for a response from God himself.

At this point Elihu, the youngest of Job's friends, speaks. He condemns the approach taken by the three friends, but also argues that Job is laying too much stress on God's righteousness, and too little on his loving character. Elihu describes God's power, redemptive salvation and absolute rightness.

Elihu's role in the story is to prepare for the appearance of God, who now intervenes in response to Job's call.

God describes the experience of being responsible for the world, and asks if Job has had the experiences that God has had. Job shares the world with countless other creatures, with lives and needs of their own. The young of some creatures hunger in a way that can only be satisfied by taking the lives of others. Does Job even have any experience of the world he lives in? Does he understand what it means to be responsible for such a world? Job admits that he does not, and asks God for forgiveness.

In an epilogue, God condemns Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar (but not Elihu) for speaking wrongly of God's motives and methods, commands them to make sacrifices and tells Job to pray for their forgiveness. He then restores Job to health, giving him twice what he had before (including ten new children). Thereafter Job has a long, prosperous and holy life and a happy death.

What are we to make of this?

The question "why does Job suffer?" is never actually answered. Only one answer is really considered - that suffering is essentially a punishment for sin - and that is decisively rejected. If there is a message in the Book, it is that Job should not look for an answer; it would be beyond him to grasp it, if offered.

The American theologian John Yoder, who was never afraid of offering a difficult answer to a difficult question, builds on this idea by attacking the whole idea of theodicy, as the "justification of God". Yoder ask, who are we to justify or evaluate God? What criteria do we use? Why are they the right criteria? Yoder doesn't deny the apparent conflict between our idea of God and the reality of evil, but he thinks it's wrong to try to explain it away in our own terms. Anger at God, he thinks, would be a more honest, and more loving, response than metaphysical exercises designed to reconcile two irreconcilables in terms that we can understand. We are called to have faith in the loving God despite the reality of evil, not to re-imagine God in some way that enables him to fit within the limits of our own minds along with the reality of evil. It diminishes not only God but also us to try to offer a neat answer to this apparent paradox.

But all of that offers stark comfort for someone struggling with suffering in their own lives, seeking to turn to God for support while being tested as Job was tested.

The Incarnation

Christianity offers a further perspective. The Incarnate Christ does not answer the problem of evil for us. But, what is more important and more valuable, he shares the problem with us. As a man he suffers, and as a man he grows through that suffering to become all that he was destined to become. So God is not just the God who allows me to suffer; he is the God who shares the human experience of suffering with me. We may be unable to comprehend God's purpose in suffering, but God can and does share our experience of it.

There is no greater suffering than watching the suffering of someone you love. Every good marriage, every profound friendship, learns this at some cost. You know that if one of you suffers, the other will want to assume that suffering, if it could be done. Any parent watching the suffering of a child knows the same feeling. Paul points this out: "Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Rom 5: 7-8). God's love for us is unimaginably generous, and it leads him to the cross. This is a big part of whatever lesson the inescapable reality of suffering has to teach us.

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Photo Credit: Animation by Brian Coyne. The hands are adapted from artwork by Sieger Köder.

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Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

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