In the first part of this reflection, we considered the movement in Job from hearing to seeing.
Job had heard about God.
He had inherited a theological understanding of God.
But the suffering he experienced eventually shattered that inherited framework.
The question we must now ask is:
Where exactly was the problem?
Was the problem God Himself?
Was the problem God’s guidance and providence?
Or was the problem the theological framework through which Job had learned to interpret God?
The Book of Job gives us an important way to approach this question.
The Problem of the “Manual”
Let us consider an ordinary example.
Suppose that I, a consumer, purchase a Samsung kimchi refrigerator.
There are three elements in this relationship:
the manufacturer,
the product,
and
the product manual.
The manufacturer represents the one who made the product.
The product represents what has been made.
And the manual represents the explanation through which the consumer understands how the product is supposed to work.
Now imagine that I have spent a great deal of money purchasing this refrigerator.
I carefully follow the instructions in the manual.
I do everything the manual tells me to do.
But the refrigerator does not work.
What should I conclude?
There are at least three possibilities.
First:
The manufacturer is a fraud.
Perhaps the manufacturer deceived me.
Second:
The product itself is defective.
Perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with the product.
Third:
The manual is defective.
Perhaps the explanation I have been following does not adequately describe how the product actually works.
Which conclusion is most reasonable?
That depends upon the degree of trust I have in the manufacturer.
If I have a deep and strong trust in the manufacturer, then when the product does not operate as expected, I may not immediately conclude that the manufacturer is a fraud.
Nor may I immediately conclude that the product itself is fundamentally defective.
Instead, I may first examine the manual.
Perhaps the manual is the problem.
This ordinary illustration provides a useful framework for thinking about Job.
We can establish the following correspondence:
Manufacturer = God Himself, as a personal being
Product = God’s guidance, providence, and intervention
Manual = the theology, knowledge, understanding, and explanation through which we interpret God and His providence
Now consider the situation of a Christian.
Suppose we sincerely attempt to live according to our conscience.
Suppose we try to live righteously and holy.
Suppose we seek to follow God’s word.
Yet, in the real world, we encounter suffering that we cannot explain.
We experience trials.
We experience failure.
We experience hardship.
We cannot understand why these things have happened.
And then we look around and see people who have not lived in the same way enjoying prosperity and success.
What happens inside us?
We may begin to complain against God.
We may resent God.
We may protest against God.
We may begin to distrust God’s guidance and providence.
Eventually, we may even begin to distrust God Himself.
This is precisely the movement we see in Job.
But the analogy suggests another possibility.
Perhaps the problem is not the Manufacturer.
Perhaps the problem is not the product.
Perhaps the problem is the manual.
Retribution and the Theology of Success
The theological “manual” represented by Job’s friends is closely connected with retributive theology.
Its logic is straightforward:
Do good, and good will follow.
Do evil, and evil will follow.
Within the Old Testament background, this is closely associated with Deuteronomic theology:
obedience to God → blessing in this present life
disobedience to God → disaster, curse, and judgment in this present life
This theology has a certain attractiveness.
It is simple.
It is convenient.
It allows us to explain the world quickly.
If someone is successful, we can say:
“God has blessed him.”
If someone is suffering, we can say:
“There must be something wrong with him.”
If someone is prosperous, we can interpret prosperity as evidence of righteousness.
If someone fails, we can interpret failure as evidence of sin.
But Job exposes the danger of this way of thinking.
The theology works only as long as reality cooperates with the formula.
Job’s reality does not.
He is suffering.
Yet he insists that he has tried to live faithfully.
The theological formula therefore breaks down.
And when it breaks down, the problem is no longer merely the suffering of one man.
The entire theological system is placed under examination.
When Theology Turns Against the Suffering
There is another serious problem with this theology.
It does not merely explain success.
It also judges failure.
A small number of people may succeed spectacularly.
Their success can then be exaggerated and interpreted as evidence that the theological system works.
At the same time, their moral failures may be overlooked or even excused.
But the people who fail—the majority of people who experience failure, poverty, illness, loss, or social marginalization—may be religiously condemned.
Their suffering becomes evidence against them.
They are not only suffering.
They are being judged because they suffer.
They are, in effect, killed twice.
First by the suffering itself.
Then by the religious condemnation imposed upon their suffering.
The problem becomes especially serious when the suffering person has actually tried to live according to the dictates of faith and conscience.
Job is precisely such a person.
His suffering therefore exposes the cruelty of a theology that insists upon finding guilt wherever suffering appears.
Trusting God Beyond the Manual
The central question is therefore not whether we should trust God.
The deeper question is whether we are capable of distinguishing God Himself from the theological explanations we have constructed about Him.
If we possess a deep, strong, and mature trust in God, then we may continue to trust God even when our understanding of His guidance and providence is challenged.
But if the theological explanation is wrong, it can produce the opposite effect.
We may begin by distrusting the explanation.
Then we distrust God’s providence.
Then we distrust God Himself.
This is the movement we see in Job.
The problem is not necessarily that God has changed.
The problem may be that the theological “manual” through which God has been explained to us is inadequate.
This is why Job’s crisis is so important.
His suffering forces him to distinguish between God and the theology through which he has understood God.
And this raises an even more difficult question.
What if the manual itself needs to be changed?
What if we need a new theological understanding?
What if the relationship between obedience and blessing, faithfulness and prosperity, suffering and punishment is not as simple as we have assumed?
The Book of Job pushes us toward that question.
And once we ask it, another question becomes unavoidable:
If faithfulness to God does not guarantee earthly blessing, then why should we believe in God at all?
That is the question to which we now turn.