I am reading Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright. He is talking about Job right now and he says this and I wonder what all of your responses would be. It will help be familiar with the story of Job from the Hebrew Scriptures, since both quotes are discussing the theology of that book:
"We are invited to look at Job's torment, and his questions with the priviledged knowledge that this is not a contest between Job and God (who, knowing himself to be innocent believes God to have made a terrible blunder) and his would-be comforters (who, confident that God doesn't make mistakes assumes somehow Job must be guilty) think it is. It is also not--not straighforwardly--a contest between God and Satan, as a dualist might imagine. No, it is a contest between Satan and Job. Satan is trying to get Job in his power, to demonstrate that humans are not worth God's trouble, while Job for his part continues to insist both that God ought to be just and that he himself is in the right" (p.69)"
...and in response why Job starts over in life on earth instead of going to heaven after his trials..
"The question is about God's moral governance of this world not about the way in which we should leave this world behind and find consolation in a different one. That is the high road to Buddhism, not to biblical theology." (p. 70)
2 comments:
I actually find that Job is about God's total sovereignty over his creation, and that we cannot figure Him out via nice theological formulas such as "something bad happens => someone sinned", or "something bad happens, but I am innocent => God is not just". His purposes are so much bigger than what we can see is the point. God clearly uses satan as his sinful servant in this case.
What we learn is to trust in God Himself, and not in theological formulas about how God works.
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