KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 2 October
Tell me if you have understanding
The questions of God call us to account. They humble us, to be sure, acting as a check upon the ignorance of our arrogance, but they also open us out to the greater wonder of God and his creation, and to a deeper understanding about ourselves. The great questions of God to Adam and Eve, echoed in the same questions to Cain, are recalled in the questions of God to Job. And, perhaps, nowhere with greater intensity.
We have too small a view of God, of his creation, and thus of ourselves. The questions of God in The Book of Job counter our small-mindedness. They open us out to the grandeur of God which cannot be reduced to the petty little systems of our thinking, to the ghettos of our minds to which we retreat in fear and despair. The Book of Job counters our attempt to capture God within our thinking, to reduce God to us. In a way, I blame Milton in Paradise Lost. The idea of trying to “justifie the wayes of God to men” runs the risk of collapsing God into our thinking rather than raising us into the mystery of God and his creation which is always greater than what we can know. That the world is in principle intelligible does not mean that its meaning and truth can be fully grasped by us. Such is our small-mindedness that can only lead to nihilism and despair, not to mention the capacity for the destructive and misguided use of our reasoning.
Job is the Old Testament type of the best man in the worst misfortune. He loses everything – prosperity and family. He goes from having everything to losing everything. He is the Hebrew paradigm of the man of sorrows and suffering. He demands an explanation from God. The poet, novelist and theologian, G. K. Chesterton observes that the Book of Job is the most interesting of ancient books but equally the most interesting of modern books because in its philosophical wisdom it is eternal. It speaks profoundly to the assumptions of our middle class world. It challenges the old yet common idea that if you do well you will be rewarded materially, with prosperity. This is often the message projected by parents and teachers to their children and students along with the warning that if you do badly you will suffer poverty and material hardship. The Book of Job undertakes to point out the problem with such a way of looking at things; it is too limited, too small a view of the world and of human behaviour. The corollary of these positions shows their dangerous absurdity. If you are rich, therefore you must be good; if you are poor, then you are obviously bad?! The ethical measure of goodness or evil cannot be material prosperity. The Book of Job exposes the folly of this way of looking at things.