WM: I have not read this Job book. But I know the story of Job, and I’ll tell you what I think about Job.
And Job lost all without complaining or cause -- sons, daughters, livestock, all destroyed, and yet Job sinned not. Some say that we should learn a lesson of patience and contentment under wrong and misfortune. That’s what the Preacher delivering the sermon typically concludes is the message. Wrongs will be righted in the hereafter on Judgment Day. But I think that it is not good to submit patiently to wrong, or to rest contented under misfortune. I urge that it is far manlier to resist wrong, better far to carefully investigate the causes of wrong and misfortune, with a view to their removal. Contentment under wrong is voluntary submission under oppression, and (in my opinion) is not the virtue some would have it to be.
In Job there is some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this drama called Job, is heartless to the last degree. The children of Job are killed to settle a little private wager between God and the Devil. Sort of like a Greek myth, humans are playthings of the Gods, subject to their whims and diversions. Afterward, Job having remained firm, other children are given in the place of the murdered ones. Nothing, however, is done for the children who were murdered. So we are just pawns, bystanders in a cosmic struggle between good and evil then?
Glad you mentioned the melancholy Dane. One of my favorite passages from Kierkegaard is:
One sticks one’s finger into the soil to tell by the smell in what land one is: I stick my finger in existence — it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?
Repetition (1843), Voice: Young Man
Skiguy: I look forward to your answer. I’m Episcopalian now. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the liturgy inside the old stone small Gothic church.It somehow fosters a contemplative mood in me; maybe it is the medieval mood. I have the parish Priest over for dinner once a month. We discuss these weighty theological and philosophical matters long into the evening. So far, these questions have not been resolved.
Like you, it gets my hackles up when I hear Christians lamenting all the violence in Islam. Have they ever read Joshua? Methinks not. If that is an accurate portrayal of the will and actions of God, then He is a God to be feared and dreaded, not loved. Sort of like a kidnapper pointing a gun at your head telling you that if you don't tell him you love him, then he'll kill you. Sure, you'll tell him you love him (anything to get him to put the gun away), but you won't really mean it down deep inside. And you will be awfully uneasy about His presence.
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