19 - Theodicy and providence

Summary

We are told that Job is a blameless and upright man (tam ve-yashar), that he fears God and turns away from wrongdoing. When his tribulations begin, he accepts them unshaken in his faith and unwilling to speak ill of God. “If we accept good from God, shall we not accept evil?” (Job 2:10). Ultimately, however, it is all too much even for him. When Job is finally overcome by his suffering, when he has been robbed of everything that was dear to him, when all seems lost, he raises his voice to complain to God about the way he, a righteous individual, has been treated. While Job recognizes God’s wisdom and power, he nonetheless questions God’s justice. God, he insists, “rains blows on me without cause…He destroys blameless and wicked alike” (Job 9:17–22).

The Book of Job offers the first real presentation in Jewish literature of what has come to be known as “the problem of evil.” To generate this problem, a number of conceptual and empirical ingredients are required. First, of course, there is the claim that there is a God and that God is the Creator (or, at least, the causal source) of the world we inhabit. Second, there is the claim that there is evil (either real or apparent) in God’s creation. Whether we want to focus on what might be called physical evil, metaphysical evil, or moral evil, there must nonetheless be some order of imperfection in the world, especially relative to human beings.