Unit 8: The Book of Job: The Problem of Evil... Part One

Unit 8:  The Book of Job:  The Problem of Evil and the Aesthetics of the Sublime--Part One

Weekly Assignment:

Read:  Bible, King James Version: The Book of Job

Read:  King James Bible Commentary, Job:  Introduction, Outline, and Commentary

Read:  The Bible as Literature, Chapter V

Introduction:

The Book of Job introduces two separate but ultimately related topics: first, the logical problem of evil--that is, if one assumes the existence of a benevo­lent deity, then why do bad things happen to good people?  Second, the aesthetics of the sublime-that is, why do we derive pleasure from artistic representations of terrifying or destructive things?

The Problem of Evil and the Aesthetics of the Sublime

I.  Job and the problem of evil.

            A. We begin in Job 1: 1;

           

            "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose namewas Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil."

Job, a perfectly just man, is not a Jew and is from a land that has no special covenant with God. He is made to suffer undeservedly, and he asks-why?

            1. There are two types of evil in Job, the first being moral evil.

            2. The second type of evil is natural evil, or the evil that is the result

            of natural occurrences.

            B. Proverbs, and other books of Israelite history, assumed that good is

            rewarded and evil is punished; therefore, whoever suffers must have

            sinned. Defeat in battle, or disease, is a sign of sin.

C. Job's friends offer this same opinion to Job as he is suffering. They tell him to repent whatever he has done to end his pain and return to his life of prosperity. As Zophar says in the second part of Job 4:6; "Know there­fore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.”

D. Job, however, is aware of his virtue and knows his suffering is unmer­ited. In fact in Job 1:8, God affirmed Job's virtue: "And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?"

            E.  God’s reply debunks the myth that evil begets evil.

            F. In Chapter 10, Job considers what he would say to God about his suffering:

            I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou

            con­tendest, with me.

            Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the        work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?

            Hast thou eyes of flesh? Or seest thou as man seeth? (Job     10:2-4, KJV)

Job concludes his interrogation of God's purposes in Job 13:15; "Though he slay me, yet willi trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him."

G. Robert Frost's play The Masque of Reason consists of a dialog between Job, his wife and God. In this play God says to Job:

                        GOD:   I've had you on my mind a thousand years to thank you someday                           for the             way you helped me establish once for all the principle There's no                             connection man can reason out between his just deserts and what            he gets. (II. 47-51)

Job's wife complains about this, saying,

All You can seem to do is lose your temper when reason-hungry mortals ask for reasons. I did my wifely duty. I should tremble!   Of course, in the abstract high singular There isn't any universal reason; And no one but a man would think there was. You don't catch women trying to be Plato. Still there must be lots of unsystematic stray scraps of palliative reason.  It wouldn’t hurt You to vouchsafe the faithful. (II. 54-61)

H. What Job and his wife are getting at is that God's reply from the whirlwind (Chapters 38-41) does not answer Job, but teaches him (in the poet Robert Frost's phrase) to "submit to unreason."

Then the LORD answered Job out of  the whirlwind, and said,

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Where wast thou when I laid the foun­dations ofthe earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Whereupon are the foundations there­of fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof;

When the morning stars sang together, and all of the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:1-7, KJV)

Yahweh is setting up the smallness of humanity instead of answering Job's question. He goes on in Job 38:26, stating he causes "it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilder­ness, wherein there is no man." Yahweh implies the presence of man only once in this chapter, in speaking of the eagle, "Her young ones also suck up blood: and where the slain are, there is she." (Job 39:30).

I. In Job God is referring to his part in cre­ation, but it is unlike other earlier biblical accounts of creation where man is the perfection of creation. Psalm 8 had addressed God:

For thou hastmade him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:5-8, KJV)

J. As if in direct response to the praise in Psalm 8, God displays his incompre­hensible power by describing to Job the amoral strength of his creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan, in Job 41:

Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?

Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?

Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?

Shall the companions make a ban­quet of him? shall they part him among the merchants?

Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?

(Job 41:1-7, KJV)

And God goes on to say that though man can't control Leviathan, God can.

            Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is

            under the whole heaven is mine. 

I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his compley proportion. (Job 41:11-12, KJV)