Is God Indifferent? A Case from Job

The Indifference of God: The case from Job
By W. Sumner Davis, BA, MS, M.Div, Dr. Theol.

“And the Lord said to Satan: Hast thou considered my servant, Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a man simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil, and still keeping his innocence? But thou hast moved me against him, that I should afflict him without cause” (Job 2: 3)

The Book of Job opens with these words, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job. 1: 1). Job was a very successful and wealthy man, to the point that it was said of him, “this man was the greatest of all the men of the east" (Job 1: 3). Job appeared to have had all that any mortal could possibly dream of. He had wealth, property, a loving large family and, by far most important to Job, a close relationship with God (Job 1: 3-5). Yet in a very brief time Job's happy and contented life was forever changed.

Job lost it all. His family, his livestock, his servants, his health- all gone. How is this possible? Was Job a poor business man? Did he abuse his children thus driving them away? Did he abuse his servants driving them off? We read that he was nothing like this at all but was instead an outstanding and righteous man. Had he sinned against God in some way? After searching his mind, Job could find nothing. Was God punishing him for some unknown reason? If so, you and I may have been angry, but we are told that Job not once faulted God for his worsening condition. Perhaps the big question here is why not?

How could Job, an upright and sinless man, not be angry that God had treated him so unjustly? Repeatedly as his life dissolves into shambles Job refuses to curse God's name. He curses his life, he curses the day he was born. But never God. Not once. And so we find Job sitting on his dung hill, scraping away the pus and worms that infect his skin with a shard of pottery; all that is left from his once wonderful life (Job 2: 8). He is so horribly disfigured that even his closest friends don’t recognize him (Job 2:12). He is also afflicted inwardly; giving him a foul breath and a loathsome smell that drives others away (Job 19:17, 20). Not even in his sleep could poor Job, the most upright man of Gods world escape his torment- instead he is besieged with horrific dreams of torment (Job 7: 14). When he tries to eat he feels as if he were choking (Job 7: 14), and his very bones are racked with burning pain (Job 30: 30).

Job eventually becomes paralyzed, and is unable to rise from the place he sat (Job 19: 18). This goes on for years; and minute by minute poor Job longed for death. Would any of us feel differently? Any relief from this torment. A thing as remarkable as life, to become so unendurable as to be worth less than the dust. He was filthy and disgusting; he was hideous to look upon, he was foul smelling and in terrible pain. And where is God in all this? Watching from above, smugly assured that Job would never abandon Him as He had abandoned Job. And God was right- Job refused to blame God. But I ask that if Job had known why such horrors had beset him he may have thought otherwise. He would have questioned what God was.

For it was indeed God, the all powerful, all knowing, all good and all loving creator and father of the universe that was foolishly tempted into a bet. A bet with the Devil. And in this bet, Job was nothing more than a creature to be toyed with to prove a point that both God and the Devil had already known. Once Job begins to be hounded by his so called friends as to some unknown sin he must be guilty of, God Himself speaks to Job- not surprising in the form of a whirlwind. Not to comfort or console Job, his upright servant, but to condemn Jobs friends, and then takes the opportunity to further demean Job for his lack of understanding. How can Job possibly understand what it means to be the creator of such a world? I am sure this helps alleviate Jobs suffering. God it seems, misses the entire point- just because you give life, does not give you a right, sovereign or otherwise, to systematically destroy it. Imagine making a bet with your neighbor that you can drive your own child to the point of suicide?

It really does not matter, because of course the story of Job is an allegory- a fable. It is a lesson on how we are the creature and not the creator; as such we have no right to complain about the situation we find ourselves. We are told that eventually, once the bet has been satisfied, the Devil flies off to torment someone else, and God revives everything Job had lost- yet this shows me that Gods inability to understand his creatures. God may feel the deal is even when he gives Job “new sons.” A modern version of Job maybe found in the book “A Grief Observed by the prolific writer and apologist Clive Staples Lewis. When he lost his wife to cancer Lewis felt, and adamantly stated that humanity are the creatures not the creator. He compared humans to the rats in the cosmic laboratory.

Lewis believed that the experiment is for our own good, but that still makes God the vivisectionist, doesn't it?” God as vivisectionist? In Job this seems to be an apt description. Yet rats in a laboratory indicate a test or a set of tests being run with a purpose- an end in mind. Not so with Job. The end is known; the test need not be run. Yet God proceeds. And the needless suffering of Job and the rest of the world continues. So, we find ourselves facing the same dilemma that apologists have wrestled with and avoided for millennia- is God cruel, or merely indifferent. If He is indifferent, then we can expect no more than poor Job. If He is cruel, than he is hardly worthy of the worship He enjoys.

But as my Christian History Professor was fond of saying- you pays your money and you takes your chances.