Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!hedrick From: hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Job Message-ID: <456@topaz.ARPA> Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 00:44:49 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.456 Posted: Thu Jan 31 00:44:49 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 07:25:08 EST References: <5758@rochester.UUCP> <437@topaz.ARPA> <5970@rochester.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 87 I'm terribly sorry. In my attempt to be brief, I was misleading. Normally I try to avoid replying to answers, except in private communications to the sender. But I made enough mistakes in this one that I had better make an exception. First, I certainly agree that it makes sense to discuss major issues. I, too, am getting tired of certain exchanges on this list. I thought my tongue was obviously enough in my cheek that I did not need )%$, or whatever the symbol is. Second, I obviously did not say quite enough about what I believe the final confrontation between Job and God means. I think you take it that God was putting Job down. I don't see it that way. Job asked for God to come down and fight like a man. God did that. Of course he overawed Job, and left Job in the dust, but one would expect that any direct encounter with God would do that. Consider the positive aspects: - Job asked for his day in court. He got it. God takes him seriously enough to answer him. - Job's friends claimed that if God ever confronted Job, it would turn out that Job was guilty of terrible sins, and so there would be a negative judgement. While God impressed Job with his power and all that, he did not bring all of Job's sins home to him and condemn him. While there is some strong language used, Job is nowhere actually condemned. - the only actual judgement is that Job spoke the truth about God, whereas his friends did not. In 42:2-6, I consider the crucial part to be vs. 5. Job's answer is that he is allowed to see God face to face. I do not take v. 6 so seriously. I understand why Job is overawed by God and considers that he is a worthless thing by comparison. But that is just his reaction. In vs 7, God does not share that negative judgement. Again, I don't claim to have the message tied up nice and neat. I don't think that is possible. I don't think the author of Job thought it was possible. But I think the answer involves Job coming to realize that it is more important for him to come to know and trust God than to get an intellectual answer to suffering. I claim it is in Chap 42 that Job shows that he realizes that. From the section on Job in the Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary: "In the outcome, through the dark night of anxiety and despair, Job has encountered the answer to his predicament. The answer Job finds is no theoretical or philosophical or moralistic solution to his problem, but an experience. The vision spoken of is not, of course, the actual sight of ... God ... What is meant is that for him hearsay has now been transformed into firsthand personal confrontation with the God who, on the last frontier of Job's existence, bestows on him a new power in a new way. (I strongly recommend that you look at the Interpreter's Commentary (*not* the Interpreter's Bible) for more detail on this interpretation of Job.)" Third, the thing that Christianity adds is not that the bad guys roast in hell. For one thing, Christianity didn't add it. It was there in first century Judaism (though it was not a majority view there). For another, it doesn't really answer the question of why God would allow Evil. The thing that Christianity adds is that God came down to suffer with us. This may not impress people who want an intellectually satisfying answer to the problem of Evil, but it is very important to the way Christians actually deal with suffering. From Paul on down through Christian history, Christians consider their suffering to be their sharing in Christ's carrying of the whole world's suffering. There is a considerable similarity between Job (at least my view of Job) and what Christians think happened in Christ. How did Christ's coming deal with the problem of sin, i.e. with the broken relationship between us and God, due to our failures? He did it by involving himself in the human condition. My view of the Atonement is that Christ's actions benefit us to a large extent by the simple fact that it involves God directly in the world. Sin causes a problem because God is holy, and so when we become unholy we separate ourselves from him. In Christ, God has come down into the muck to join us. Not that he himself sinned, of course, but he put himself voluntarily into the same position that sinners find themselves. So not even our sin separates us from him any more. Job is consistent with this in the sense that it also has as its main point restoring a relationship with God. The other major aspect of the atonment is vicariousness. Christians believe that Christ actually bore the consequences of our sin. Charles Williams has the most intriguing set of ideas on this subject. they are best presented in his novel Descent into Hell. In it, he claims that the laws of the universe include some components that many people do not see, one of them being that people can actually carry each other's pain and suffering. He believes that this is something to which all Christians are called, and which Christ only initiated. His novel is is quite disturbing and thought-provoking. Of course this doesn't get rid of the philosophical question as to how a good God can allow suffering. I still think that question is worth pursuing, but I am going to avoid commenting on it. It is outside my area of (even amateur) expertise. There is a good summary of the alternatives, as currently held by various Christians thinkers. Much to my chagrin, I can't put my hand on it. I have a dim recollection that it was edited by John Hicks. If anyone out there is knowlegable in the philosophy of religion, I would be interested to watch a discussion on this point. I would not like to start yet another series of flames, however.