Who's In Charge Here (Part Two)?

This may be a good place to rehearse the various excuses for God.  God didn’t actually inflict the suffering.  God merely permitted it.  No, that’s not quite right.  In fact, God invited the controversy in the heavenly court by issuing a direct challenge to the Accuser.  Job is thus a pawn in this celestial wager at God’s instigation.  The reader will have to decide how much comfort there is in knowing that God merely permitted the Accuser to attack rather than seeing God participate directly in the attack on that blameless and upright man. 

The Biblical text plays with this ambiguity early on in Job’s story.  The accuser notes that God has showered Job with material blessings.  “But stretch out your hand now,” the Accuser suggests in Job 1:11, “and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”  It would seem that the Accuser acknowledges God’s power in this setting, that it is God who will inflict the damage on Job if any is to be inflicted.  

God has a different proposal.  The Accuser will be given the role of the Inflictor.  “Very well,” God sighs, “all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand again [Job]” (Job 1:12).  So, who is it that does the dirty work on this job?  It would seem that the Accuser causes the actual damage to Job’s family, servants, livestock and property.  But it is God who authorizes the action.  In our world, we don’t want authorities to give away responsibility simply by issuing orders or turning a blind eye to what will happen.  Do we wish to give that sort of free pass to God at this point?

It would seem that the book of Job does not wish to resolve that dilemma but rather to leave it hanging.  Of course, we can cheat a bit and suggest that since God is all-knowing, God knows how it will all turn out in the end.  Isn’t it wonderful that Job will end up with even more than he had to begin with!  More land, houses, livestock—perhaps better children and a quieter wife as well.  Certainly God is simply preparing Job for a better life in the future.  Isn’t that comfort enough? 

Tell that to the original sons and daughters, servants and cattle in the story.  Bill Cosby talks about a fictional conversation with his father.  In anger his father says to him, “Don’t think I’m all that worried about you.  I’ll take you out and make five more just like you.”  Frustrated parents have giggled with guilt over that line for years.  But healthy parents know that it’s an empty threat.  Do you think that one child is as good as another?  Would you settle for replacements and be fine with the previous losses?  Again, the reader can decide.  But I would not be fine with that.  I don’t find people to be interchangeable with one just as good as another.  Instead, each person is a unique and irreplaceable creation.  The book of Job does not seem to share that perspective.

Certainly an all-powerful God would be able to manage the demonstration of Job’s purity and piety without all the carnage, don’t you think?  If not, then it seems that God’s compassion—God’s steadfast love and mercy—is called into question in the narrative of Job’s life and loss.  

The God we meet in the book of Job seems to be capricious and petty, self-impressed and self-absorbed.  The Accuser seems to be the one who is able to develop a bit of sympathy for Job.  After all, it is the Accuser who wonders just how much meaningless suffering one person can stand.  God has no such questions about the limits of human endurance in the midst of pointless pain.