Jewish Philosophy in a Secular Age

7. Job and the Problem of Evil

Chapter Seven Job and the Problem of Evil 1. Innocent Suffering In its classical form, the problem of evil is easy to state. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Therefore if innocent suffering occurs, God must know about it, be able to prevent it, and desire to prevent it. Since whatever God desires comes to pass, the existence of innocent suffering is incompatible with the existence of God. It follows that to uphold belief in God, one must either deny that innocent suffering occurs or show that it is not evil in an absolute sense because it is needed to accomplish a greater good. The medievals treat the problem of evil as a problem about the scope of divine providence: Does God's knowledge extend to individuals or is it restricted to natural kinds?} The Book of Job is seen as a philosophical dialogue between competing answers to this question . Job originally puts forward a view associated with Aristotle: providence is completely general. His friends put forward various forms of the theory that God knows individuals as individuals. The "thesis" and "antithesis" are overcome in the person of Elihu, who argues that divine provIdence extends to some individuals but not all. In brief: God's providence extends to prophets because of their superior knowledge of general truths. I am going to part company with the medieval philosophers in some respects. Instead of concentrating on divine knowledge, I am going to direct my attention to human. And rather than looking backward to previous ages, I intend this chapter to prepare the way for a discussion of Fackenheim and the Holocaust. It will be clear, however, that my response to the problem of innocent suffering is a traditional one. After looking at the plight of Job and the plights of concentration camp victims, I shall argue that traditional conceptions of God, virtue, and human dignity are the most reasonable alternative. It could be said, therefore, that my treatment of these issues is in keeping with the arguments advanced in chapters 2 and 3. In that respect, my treatment of them is an outgrowth of the view 169 170 JEWISH PHILOSOPHY IN A SECULAR AGE I ascribed to Maimonides: that broadly speaking, religious knowledge is either critical or practical. On my reading, Job's heroism consists in the fact that he admits ignorance of the forces which rule the cosmos without abandoning his own moral integrity. The book takes up the issue of innocent suffering right from the start. No one who has read it can fail to be moved by the depth of its wisdom or the majesty of its rhetoric. Its poetry rivals that of the Psalms. Yet this impression is matched by an equally vivid sense of disquiet. It is not just that God refuses to offer a justification of Job's calamities. It is that for all its probing, the book never does provide an explicit answer to the problem of evil in its classical form. There are elaborate speeches and equally elaborate replies, but in no case does the book put forward an argument, much less an argument formulated in so abstract a way. Most of the speeches, including those of the comforters, are a mixture of wisdom , poetry, and folly, with the reader never quite sure which is which. If a philosophic lesson is to be derived from the text, it must be constructed. Another troubling feature is the matter of plot. If instead of doing philosophy, the book offered a narrative, our sense of disquiet would be less pronounced. But with the exception of the epilogue and prologue, there is nothing approaching a story line. A problem, the suffering of a righteous man, is talked to death. God appears; but for all their beauty, His words are as enigmatic as any in the book. Job repents, is rewarded, and the book ends. Unlike the story of Adam and Eve, there is no allegory whose meaning would allow us to reach a general conclusion about the causes of innocent suffering. Not surprisingly, the text has generated extensive debate. Some people think the prologue is a later addition because it exonerates God. In contrast to the rest of the book, the prologue allows us to see why God has permitted Job to suffer: He wants to show that Satan's skeptical view of human piety (1.9-10) is mistaken. Supporting this hypothesis is the fact that the wager between God and Satan is never mentioned again. Others...