Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: John_Graves@cellbio.duke.edu (John Graves) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Job Message-ID: Date: 7 Mar 91 09:07:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Duke University Medical Center Lines: 51 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) writes in the midst of a long article about God's relation to pain and suffering: > Why all this suffering? Why does > God allow all of this to happen? Or does this suffering too represent a > part in God's greater plan? I refer the reader to two passages in which God through the prophets takes responsibility for both good and evil. Isaiah 45: 5-7 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do not know me, 6 so that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. 7 I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things. and Lamentations 3: 37-39 37 Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? 39 Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins? In Isaiah there is no direct reason given for God creating woe. Lamentations seems to imply that bad things happen as a punishment for sins. The whole story in Job seems to contradict this. Maybe this is because there are two separate themes running throughout the Bible. One theme is that expressed by Job's friends. God punishes sin and sin is the cause of punishment (the Mosaic Covenant). The other theme, expressed by God to Job is that man cannot know the reasons why God does something. God and his actions are greater than human understanding. This is why Jesus is a new Covenant, man no longer must follow the law or the covenant with Moses in order to be not be punished since it is only by the grace of God that one is spared from pain and suffering. God does however reward Job for his loyalty, just as he rewarded the Patriarchs and David. Paul proclaims the Davidic Covenant rather than the Mosaic Covenant by declaring that works are not necessary just faith. John Allan Graves Unitarian Universalism Duke University An inclusive religion! and all its components () including the Divinity School, \__/ disavow anything I say. II