Hope for the Hurting

Given our experience with unjustified suffering, does the world make sense? Can we find a rational explanation for our suffering, or must we live with despair? Moral philosopher Susan Neiman raises the question we all struggle with. The Book of Job, she finds, maintains all three assertions put forth by Epicurus. (See previous blog) Epicurus asked,”If God is omnipotent and benevolent, how does Evil exist?”

Searching For An Answer

Job’s friends move from a position of compassion in Chapter 2 to argument to stating their opinions in Chapters 4-5. But they begin attacking Job in Chapter 15. Because God is omnipotent and benevolent, they insist, Job’s suffering derives from his sin. Although they sacrifice understanding Job’s experience, their world is rational. Neiman notes the similarity between Eliphaz’s reply to Job and the Epilogue. “When disaster strikes [God] will rescue you…”, Eliphaz promised. “You will see your family multiply, your children flourish like grass. You will die at the height of your powers and be gathered liken ripe grain.”

How does The Lord Answer?

If the Friends can’t provide Job an answer, what about the Voice from the Whirlwind? God speaks from a tornado in Chapters 38-41. Is this an effort to get Job to shut up!? He is only mortal, after all. What right does he have to question God? Neiman prefers a different slant: “If grave justice (sic) occurs, is there no order/meaning/ reason in the world? Then God’s answer can be read as saying…You want order, I’ll show you order. ” (italics hers)

Neiman understands that the first part of God’s answer (on Creation/animal life, Chapters 38-39) may well satisfy Job. But then she asks about the elaborate description of chaos monsters in Chapters 40-41. God’s creation includes the chaotic? But, Neiman asserts, “Job is not simply asking for evidence of order in the world, he is asking for evidence of moral order.” This, in fact, God denies Job. Perhaps Job (and all of us) must live in a world with unjust suffering and with uncertainty about moral order. The animal flees to escape, or succumbs as food for the predator. Only humans bother about moral order.

Does The World Make Sense?

Although Neiman does not say it, perhaps this is part of what makes us human. We have self-consciousness, the ability to reflect, and to communicate abstract, complex thoughts. In theological terms, what makes us human is our relationship with God: we are created in His image, the creature who names the animals, i.e., has dominion over them. Neiman calls attention to the Lord’s assertion that Job has rightly spoken, as against the Friends–three times. But she also questions the meaning of the Lord’s question to Job, “Am I wrong because you are right?”

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

This question Neiman answers by discussing Immanuel Kant’s essay, “On the Impossibility of All Future Attempts at Theodicy.” According to Kant, towering thinker over all of philosophy, the friends represent “pure reason,” free of experience. The Voice from the Whirlwind provides a clear-eyed view of reality. It is Job, then, who represents the need to bring the two together. She concludes, “On this reading, God himself asserts the need for human moral vigilance, and action: ‘Am I wrong because you are right?'” Neiman concludes her lengthy essay with these words: “Viewing Job’s claim as the claim that reality should become reasonable is one way of seeing how both God, and Job, could speak the truth; the one a truth about the way the world is; the other a truth about the way it should be. It is this that we call moral clarity, when we have the good sense or good fortune to achieve it.”

Shortcomings to Neiman’s Analysis

We owe Susan Neiman a debt of gratitude for her philosophical writings and for this essay on Job, “Does the world make sense?” Her thinking represents the best philosophy, and perhaps Judaism, can provide in an attempt to “solve” our problem of evil. That this problem is universal is reflected in not only the formulation of Epicurus in Greek life, but also in Indian Buddhism, and, of course in Hebrew thought. But Neiman’s analysis has some flaws.

1.  Neiman in this essay quotes only very limited thoughts from Eliphaz. Chapters 4-5 contain a steady stream of advice, personal experience, cursing of the wicked, observation, promises, assertion and commands. Eliphaz also represents only the first speaker of the three. Neiman is perceptive to note the similarity between one of Eliphaz’s thoughts and the Epilogue, but only one of Job’s Friends’ many thoughts.
2. Neiman entertains what she calls “a Jewish tradition that denies God’s omnipotence.” For example in her concluding statement, she says, “Abandoning traditional claims of divine omnipotence will be problematic for many, but that many be what facing reality requires.” In the end, then, Neiman also eliminates one of the three basic assertions of the Problem of Evil. This weakens her tribute to the Book of Job for not doing so. Neither the Friends nor Job question God’s omnipotence. God, it seems, created a world of chaos as well as order for Job and for all of us to deal with.
3. A third critique involves Neiman’s disregard for the religious dimension of the book. Job serves God with scrupulous righteousness only to experience loss of nearly everything. Job’s quarrel with God permeates the book. It is not to be avoided, or interpreted as simply representing something else (e.g., reality). This God is a Person, with a name (the Lord) who hears, responds to, and who challenges Job’s perspective. What helps Job survive is that this God of awesome majesty speaks with him to answer him, and provides him a unique perspective on questions we all ask.                                                                                                                                                            [Source: Does The World Make Sense? A Philosophical Reading of the Book of Job http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/09/03/4080571.htm]

When we suffer unjustly, does the world make sense? In an important analysis of the Book of Job, noted moral philosopher Susan Neiman, raises this question. She approaches the Book of Job from the standpoint of philosophy, rather than religion. “The experience of inexplicable suffering and basest injustice,” she writes, “forces us to ask whether our lives have meaning, or whether human existence may be deeply incomprehensible.” In other words, if philosophy seeks to show that the world is “or can be made rational,” then “it must address the presence of evil.”  Although I approach Job from the perspective of religious faith–how does a believer maintain trust in a personal, loving God in the face of unexplained suffering–Neiman’s analysis deserves a wide reading. As a philosopher, she exhibits astute thinking.

This issue is not academic or merely philosophical. In fact, it is intensely personal for millions of people who suffer from war, natural disaster, disease, and accident. It is also intensely personal for me. Members of my family have endured over 30 years of chronic illness and medical misinformation.

Does The World Make Sense With Evil?

First formulated by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), Neiman reminds us of the classic statement of the problem of evil:

1. God exists, and is omnipotent.                                                                                                       2. God exists, and is benevolent.                                                                                                        3. Evil exists.

On the one hand, many reject the notion of the existence of a Supreme Being because of the presence of evil. On the other hand, some like the philosopher Leibnitz (1646-1716), deny the presence of evil. Neiman, however, praises the Book of Job: “matchless because it is unwilling to make the problem easier by dropping any of these claims, and makes us feel the force of all of them.”

The Problem of Meaning

Neiman’s lengthy summary of the argument of the Book of Job grapples with the issue. She discusses how different is the book’s body (of dialogues and monologues) from the Introduction and Epilogue (Chapters 1-2, 42): Does a “different” Job (submissive, pious vs. uncontrollable rage) and a “different” God (who makes a petty wager with the Devil vs. Master of Creation) lead us to conclude we have different authors? she asks. In the end, however, she treats the book, as we find it, as a unity.

Neiman summarizes much historical commentary on the book of Job. “A brief survey of the immense literature on Job,” she writes, “reveals that Job’s world is much closer to ours than the world of intervening centuries; for every earlier interpretation sought to deny some piece of that picture we find undeniable.” Some Medieval texts leave out passages in which Job expresses rage. Others viewed Job as the problem for Judaism which Jesus solved, for example. Judaism failed to develop an adequate view of the afterlife.

Midrashim – Jewish commentary on problem Scriptures

Speaking of her fellow-Jews, Neiman states, “Jews don’t cut texts, we write more of them.” She explains various Midrashim (texts written to explain problematic passages of Scripture) about Job. In one, God punishes Job because Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, believed the Jews should be liberated from Egypt, Pharaoh believed they should be annihilated, but Job remained silent, i.e., undecided and neutral. Thus, she says, God punished him. In the other Midrash, Job, occupying Satan’s attention, suffers so Israel can escape. Job’s suffering serves a higher purpose.

Does The World Make Sense?

These interpretations assume: “there must be reason in the world, or Creation itself is unbearable.” I would say, “human life” is unbearable. What modern readers focus on, however, is the “apparent and absolute meaninglessness of Job’s rage.” A careful reading of Chapter 3 reveals Job’s desire to obliterate his birth, at least, and, possibly, reverse the order of Creation.

But Job moves beyond his own suffering to address the unjustified suffering of others. Neiman notes that “the wicked prosper, secure in their houses; not even their cows miscarry, and their grandchildren play like lambs.” The poor, on the other hand, “shiver, picking up scraps for their children, and breaking their backs for the rich.” Job’s ability to move from his suffering to that of others, says, Neiman, gives his speech such power.

Modern Critique

A modern critique of Job points out that Job bases his outrage on “misguided assumptions about reward and punishment.” Although this statement is true, reality, Neiman says, is more complicated. It may be that the origin of Job’s rage (and ours) comes from such notions, but that does not invalidate Job’s argument. Many thinking theists (including Job) do not move from a naive notion of God as a rewarding father. Even when Job’s friends speak in such terms, at other times they admit God’s ways are mysterious.

In addition, Neiman says in response to the modern critique, “You do not need to be a theist to expect justice from the world.” Just because we understand the reason for a particular belief  does not invalidate the truth of that belief. Citing philosopher Immanuel Kant, she reminds us that reason “has a need to find, or create, a connection between happiness and virtue.” This need forms the basis for “our despair when innocent people suffer, our indignation when wicked people flourish” and “presuppose reason’s need to find a connection between virtue and happiness.”

Next week: The Answer

[Source: Does The World Make Sense? A Philosophical Reading of the Book of Job http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/09/03/4080571.htm]