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From: nemo@rochester.UUCP (Wolfe)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Job
Message-ID: <6009@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 11:07:50 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.6009
Posted: Thu Jan 31 11:07:50 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Feb-85 04:10:47 EST
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Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
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> 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.
Yes, you're right here.  I don't really God as putting Job down so much as
challenging his ability to comprehend the workings of God. Job had been 
complaining about God as though He was a judge or the government, ie: like
a man.  God seems to remind Job that He is not.
>   - 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.
Agree.
> 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.  
Agree again.
>  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.  
Excellent point. (*'s mine)
> (for Job) 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.)"
OK. 
> 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).  
Hmmm.  I didn't know that.
> For another, it
> doesn't really answer the question of why God would allow Evil.  
True.
> 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.
Even to the point of Christ's (and Job's) despair.
> 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.  
Sin as a denial of God (and in some sense, the inner  self) is fundamental
to several systems of belief, including mine.
> In Christ, God has come down into the muck to join us. 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.
Good point, which I had forgotten.
>  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.
Interesting - I'll have to check this out also.
> 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. 
Mine, too, but then, that has never held anyone back on the net :-)
>  If anyone out there is knowlegable in the philosophy of
> religion, I would be interested to watch a discussion on this point.  
Me, too.  I would like to see the approaches taken by other religions/
philosophies on this question as well.  For instance, isn't there a saying
from Buddhism that says that anyone can call good good, but the enlightened
call bad good?
> I would not like to start yet another series of flames, however.
Second the motion.  I hope you didn't take my previous comments a a flame.
Thanks for taking the time to make a thoughtful reply.
Nemo