On Job and The Web of Existence
I recently read a great blog post by Matthew McCracken on Job and the evil that God brings upon him. Citing a commentary found on the AUFS blog, Matthew focuses on one verse in particular found in the prologue of Job:
“…all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him.”
It’s this “narrative concession” which leads him to employ a radical theological reading and eventually conclude that “God is evil. God is dead.”
Matthew is a great writer and great thinker, but to me this conclusion gets rid of the wrong thing.
The book of Job, to me, is less about the ontology, sovereignty and/or benevolence of God, and more about the largeness, connectedness and intricacies of the universe of which we are only a small part (Job, 25-27). Certainly, human suffering as a theoretical problem is also a question that arises in this story, but the answer(s) I draw from the pages of scripture are not that God is evil, or dead but that, when things are viewed from another perspective other than our own, we can begin to see that, perhaps, there is no such thing as “evil” at all.
I’ve written before about why I strongly believe that “evil” is not the proper diametric for “good” and why I do NOT think the term “evil,” as a label in regard to people or nature, is very helpful, so I won’t get into that too much here. Suffice it to say that my recipe for dealing with “evil” is a mixture of Privatio Boni, process theology and evolutionary/naturalistic perspectives.
I do want to examine exactly what happens to Job in this story, though, because I think it helps prove my point that there is no such thing as “evil.” If taken out of context, and examined for what they are on their own, these “supernatural divine punishments” seem very much like things we would see everyday on the evening news, i.e. although they are terribly sad and devastating, these are definitely not things we would classify today as “supernatural divine punishments” but unfortunate natural occurrences. Here is a list of afflictions Job faced:
The Sabeans steel all his oxen and donkeys and kill the servants tending to them (Job 1:15)
Who are the Sabeans? I honestly don’t know, but if they’re stealing they have to have a reason, right? All I’m saying is that there is a story here that we’re not privy to.
The sheep, and the servants tending them, are consumed in a fire (likely started by lightning) (Job 1:16.)Lightning is a natural, atmospheric occurrence. It’s produced in thunderstorms when liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide, and build up large electrical fields in the clouds. Sad that the servants and sheep died, though.
The Chaldeans steel the camels and kill the servants tending them (Job 1:17.)More people steeling and killing. A story as old as time.
Job’s seven sons and three daughters are killed as the brother’s house (whom they were at for feasting) fell on them from a horrendous wind (Job 1:18)Another atmospheric, natural disaster. Terribly sad.
Job is covered with hideous boils and festering sores (Job 2:7)This sounds pretty bad. Obviously there was no urgent care or Dr. Brauner’s soap (cures everything!) back then, otherwise Job could have gotten those festering sores taking care of!
His wife, three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) and Elihu speak harshly against him (not a divine punishment, but worth mentioning.)If I had a nickel for everytime someone spoke harshly against me…
And in the end Yahweh comes down and lectures Job for verging on speaking poorly of Him.
I have to admit, if looked at in this way (out of context), Matthew’s conclusion is made all the easier: God is dead. But I, unlike Matthew, do not dismiss natural and process readings of this story, and I would suggest, like John Cobb, that God does not control what happens in the world. God is always confronting a real world that is not of God’s choosing. God works for the best possible outcome of course, but it may be that none of the possible outcomes are good. All of them may include a great deal of suffering, and this suffering may be most severe with those who deserve it least.
In essence, what I see happening in the Book of Job is all of the worst possible ingredients coming together at one time to gang up on one person. This is absolutely overwhelming. And as we well know, when the web of existence, and all the bad things we experience in life, have become too big for us to comprehend, when life turns rotten, when all of those aspects and ingredients of “evil” gang up on us at once, it’s completely understandable (and actually healthy) for one to lift their fists to the sky and curse the name of God for bringing such “evil” into our happy, oblivious little worlds.
Evil is indeed out there. I all my years, I have seen the face of evil and it is real. But animals and plants are excluded, only people create real evil.
I hear you, Tricia. I understand where you're coming from too. It took me a long time to finally give up on believing in a malicious force called "evil." I write about that here: http://turridesign.com/blog/evilorlackthereof
I guess, eventually, I had to examine my anthropology: do I think humans are inherently "good" or "evil?" The answer I came to was both, to some degree, but I decided that humans are mostly "good," i.e. we are not born "stained" as a result of some "original sin" and in need of "saving." Cobb says it best: ...evil results from a mixture of good intentions, ignorance, and sin. It is also profoundly brought about by the power of the past in each moment of human experience.
As I say in my blog post about the lack of evil, I come to this conclusion not because I don't take evil seriously, but because I take it all too seriously.