In your last letter you touch on the book of Job saying how it portrays suffering humanity in the light of a capricious god. The book of Job has often been raised as a condemnation of the unfairness of God and the unfairness of creation because of the unwarranted suffering of mankind.

The book of Job is interesting for a number of reasons. It is the only book of the Old Testament centered on a gentile, Job. The book raises some important points about creation, about God, and about man.

Science focuses on the material constituents of the world whereas scripture’s concern is something else. If we look at the book of Genesis, we repeatedly hear the comment that ‘it was good’. This evaluation is not only a moral assessment; it also underlines the main theological concern with creation and that is its order. The world, as science has clearly shown, is not chaotic but it displays a behavior which can be perceived through reason and rationality. And this also raises another important consideration and that is – how man relates to nature.

In the book of Job, we have a man who has led an exemplary life and yet he is stricken with inexplicable illnesses in his body. His comforters resort to the usual explanations that evil befalls man because of some fault committed by man. Their universe is deterministic and very controlled and they cannot see beyond the horizon of a universe in which evil is always punished and good is rewarded.

In a sense the question that is being explored in the book of Job is the statement repeated in the book of Genesis – it was good. We read this statement in a moralistic sense of a faultless creation which is without sin but that is not what this statement principally refers to. Creation, is also, at its heart and meaning, ordering and containment. When it is stated that creation is very good what is being said is that creation is very functional, it is fulfilling the function for which it was created. The focus of attention in the creation narrative is not necessarily the beginning of the material universe – important as that may be – but creation of order and relationship.

For Job the central concern is that creation has escaped God’s control and is chaotic – it is no longer ‘very good’. Job challenges God by claiming that God is not in control of nature and hence the capriciousness of nature expressed through the unwarranted suffering of Job. Job’s friends offer a simplistic and deterministic view of nature. You have sinned and now you suffer and that is the end of it. They display a disconnect with wisdom which is a deeper understanding what nature is and how it is related to God and to man. Job challenges not so much his pain and suffering as a distorted interpretation of his suffering.

The book of Job is as much about thirst for real wisdom and the inhuman and threatening otherness of matter as it is about undeserved suffering. The book of Job is a call for man to learn other ways of thinking about creation than only in relation to the human predicament. The dynamics of nature are such that they are not totally predictable but neither are they totally chaotic. It is humanity’s concern to discern the wisdom that is there behind the façade of nature.

In a sense, in the book of Job we see a humanity removed from the centrality of concern in nature but a new role is defined for humanity and that is to understand nature and to relate to nature. The experience of pain arises because of the clash of human hope and aspirations when confronted with the freedom of nature. But what we have to continually keep in mind is that the cosmos is not decaying and breaking down – it is undergoing something different. The universe is not dominated by chaos. Rather it is pregnant with new possibilities and giving birth to them causes pain.

Many things which we consider as destructive are in fact constructive and necessary for our very survival on this earth. Thus the movement of tectonic plates allows mountains to form and it allows oceans to be the proper size for the benefits of the biosphere. Plate tectonics are part of the ecosystem enabling it to absorb carbon dioxide and increase the generation of oxygen. But it is also these plate tectonics that cause earthquakes and tsunamis which result in destruction and death.

It is interesting that in Job 5:22 it is said that man will be in covenant with the stones of the field. The word used here for covenant is berith the same word that is used for the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. We tend to think of the drama of creation involving two main actors – man and God. But what the book of Job underlines is that there is in fact a third participant and that is nature. Nature itself has a ‘freedom’ that impacts on human life and this impact can be ambivalent. As an illustration of this, there is a protein that is involved in keeping the fertilized cells together at gestation and without this protein, babies would not be able to develop and be born. And yet, it is this very protein that can bring on childhood leukemias. Thus control and chaos are woven into the very fabric of nature and we cannot extricate ourselves out of it or escape from it.

Our relationship to nature is indeed very complicated but we are learning how to deal with these complexities and one of the most important weapons that we have in our arsenal is science. There is an apocryphal story in which God is asked why he allows all these diseases to pollute his creation. And God’s answer is that yes, these diseases are a blight, but He has also provided cures in nature and it is up to us to discover them. It is interesting that roughly one third of our medication come from plants and even many antibiotics come from bacteria. We need to discover them, modify them for our purposes and use them to benefit mankind.

What man lacks is wisdom and it is this lack that makes nature seem even more hostile. Creation is powerful but it is also precarious and sometimes unpredictable. Earthquakes point to chaos and disorder and yet if we look at the orderly progression of stars we are struck by the wisdom that underlies their movement. What is pointed out to Job is that he is out of covenant with the world. He, and we, need to realize that nature plays a much more central role in creation as opposed to the background that we assign it. Man must draw up a new covenant with animals and even with inanimate creation. God asks Job point blank: do you determine the laws of heaven (something of a challenge to scientists)? Can you establish its rule on earth? This challenges the arrogance which claims to know much more than it really does and leads to alienation of man from nature.

There is an interesting image given in the book of Revelation. The structures that are described there speak of the foundation of buildings as being above the earth calling on us to see in a deeper fashion so that we perceive what underlies creation. In the new creation we will be able to discern the foundation of nature more openly and clearly. There is also an interesting image in the book of Job about going below the mountains to get a grasp of what lies at the base of creation. This understanding is achieved through growth in wisdom and this is what Job is called to do – grow in wisdom. Wisdom is to be found in a deep understanding of the world and this is what Job is urged to do as opposed to the simplistic and erroneous prescriptions of his ‘comforters’.

But the problem of pain and death and evil still haunts creation. And this is also addressed in the book. We are living in the ‘Saturday time of waiting’ and it is difficult and demanding of us. The shadow side of creation – for whatever reason – is permitted for now by God but it will be unnecessary in the new creation. Creation now is out of sorts with man and with the Creator. The ‘Sunday’ will come and creation will be perfected. It is through the Resurrection that creation is vindicated just as Jesus was vindicated in his Resurrection. The power of the Resurrection lies in its undoing of death and this is the way we fundamentally think of the Resurrection, but also, and more importantly, it is an affirmation of all of creation which indeed is now seen as ‘very good’. Any system or explanation of existence, whether religious or secular, without paying respect to creation as a whole, is incomplete and paints the world as wasteful and an encumbrance. And it is with reference to the Resurrection that God answers Job in his anguish. It is the Resurrection that Job glimpses through his eyes of faith and he is finally answered and satisfied.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas