I recently finished reading through most of the book of Job. I must say that Job completely confounds my entire conception of God, and makes me think through the rest of the Old Testament in an entirely new light.
In the beginning of the book, God brags about his servant Job to a mysterious figure called "the Satan" (according to Wikipedia). Whether this figure is Lucifer, or some sort of divine prosecutor is apparently in question. Regardless, the horrific result of the conversation is clear: Satan accuses Job of worshipping God out of selfishness (or, perhaps, out of a sort of twisted gratitude), and God gives Satan free reign over all of Job's possessions, and later over Job's body as well (with the caveat that Satan may not kill Job). The rest of the book describes an incredibly destructive and painful torment, with Job understandably confused and bitter.
The most interesting part of the book for me, however, occurs at the end, when God "answers" Job's confused questioning. Rather than offering any explanation, God simply sidesteps Job's questions and seems to accuse Job of a lack of faith. God's argument is essentially that He is all-powerful and Job should not question God's right to do anything He wants to. This is hardly the conception of divine justice I had when I came into the book.
Indeed, one could be forgiven for concluding that, far from possessing any sort of justice in the human sense of the term, God simply does what He pleases. Why does He do what He does? His answer seems to me like a cop-out--"I'm bigger than you, you wouldn't understand." While I certainly realize that I can never understand God, the complete lack of an explanation of any sort, no matter how nebulous, quite frankly leaves me feeling beyond perplexed.
In search of answers I look first to the rest of the Old Testament. There I find only more questions. God's mercy is tempered by an iron fist, which we see more often than not. I see Joshua ordered by the supposedly merciful God to slaughter men, women, and children. I see a man concealing idols, and his entire household swallowed up, with no mention of how involved they were. "The sins of the father are visited upon the third and fourth generation."
Yet, I also find God bearing with sinful Abram, after not once but twice he lies about his wife in a heavy-handed attempt to save his own skin. I find a God Who suffers through Josephs's arrogance and teaches him how to behave--through slavery and torment. I see God blessing Israel over and over--while they are doing what He tells them to.
So, the question remains: just who the hell is this crazy, schizophrenic God that I so readily give my allegiance to?
This duality in God's nature becomes even more confusing when I fast forward to Jesus, and see His "good" side so much more clearly. In fact, Jesus is so much closer in so many ways to my prior conception of God, that He seems to be a much different person from the God who essentially destroyed Job's life. He's severely harsh on religious oppressors, and blindingly merciful to the sinful people who flock about Him. He has a no-nonsense attitude towards huge crowds that are just looking for a good time. I see very clearly a loving, powerful strength.
But most confusing of all, I follow Jesus as He heals people. In stark contrast to His dealings with Job, it seems that God cares about human life on Earth, after all.
Philip Yancey postulates that the miracles Jesus performed were a sort of foretaste of what was to come. They were done to show what Jesus' kingdom was all about--creation rather than destruction, mercy overcoming vengeance. Jesus did not really ease the overall level of suffering on Earth--even His death and resurrection were aimed at eternal rather than temporal bliss.
This begs the disquieting question, which is the obvious and logical question that the book of Job poses: does God really give one bucket of swill what my life is like on Earth? Complicated questions of free will aside, is He so concerned with my soul that He is willing to completely disregard my fleshly body?
Don't misunderstand me. I am mostly content with my life--simply living in the United States means that I have very little cause to complain. My question is not necessarily one of complaint, but a deeper question of God's character, as well as a deeper look into this grand failed experiment we call Life.
Looking back over what I know of God, I would say that the answer has to be a qualified no. I think that what may at first glance appear to be a cop-out at the conclusion of Job, in reality is the key to the question at hand. God has much bigger and more important things to worry about than caring for my one short, tiny life amongst the swarming billions who live on this planet. In fact, God not only has to worry about my life, but the lives of everyone who lived before me, and everyone who will live after me. It's not a matter of God being spread too thin; it's a matter of perspective.
I wonder if this is why Job was comforted by God's words; he almost stopped caring about his life and just let God do what He will, because there was nothing Job could do about it. God does what He wants and offers no explanation. We can try to rationalize, to make sense of it all, and quite possibly go mad doing so, but the end result is that God does what God does. The only choice we really have is whether we're with Him or against Him.
It's enough to make you think twice about praying for an "A" on an exam that you didn't study for.
Kudos to anyone who reads all of this. :) I realize I'm a pretty verbose writer.
2 comments:
hey man, just read this (not all of it tho - so no kudos :( :) Awesome thoughts. It's wierd to think of God doing things just because He's God - that he embodies goodness and therefore his decision will automatically be good. Scary, indeed. But that's what faith is all about, I guess.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoyed reading through them. You hit on some pretty tough questions, ones that demonstrate that you are reading the scripture like an adult and not like a child anymore. Yancey has another book, The Bible Jesus Read, in which he comments on the Old Testament and how it may have impacted Jesus and how Jesus may have understood it.
But I think you hit on it with the word "perspective". Even with other people, I think we sometimes confuse not liking someone's decision with not understanding it. Sometimes, even if they told us why they did something, we still wouldn't like it. God doesn't seem very concerned with getting our approval, contrary to our US presidents who check their approval ratings constantly. In that sense, Jesus does seem to reflect God in the OT--he wasn't very concerned with them liking him or approving of what he did or said.
I also think the truth emerges and is revealed progressively as we go through the scripture. We look back at men like Abram and think, wow, it would be great to have God talk to you directly, but don't think about how tough it would be to have no scripture and so little history to build your faith upon. The world was a different place then. Even our secular culture has grown out of some of the barbarism sin brought into the world, seeing it as ultimately foolish. God led us forward, but didn't skip ahead. We see hints of Jesus, but we weren't there yet--the curtain hadn't been torn.
But with all that said, I struggle with the same questions and reach pretty much the same unsatisfying answers. I think that maybe what Job found comforting was not so much the answer, but that God spoke to him, heard his complaint. And in Jesus, Job's accusation got met. We may not understand what it's like to be God, but he does now understand what it's like to be human. And so while the answers may not be satisfying, I can find faith because He spoke to me too: "But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son . . ." (Hebrews 1:2)
Post a Comment