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Job, Jung and Theodicy” Cathedral of St • William Blake (1793) Job’s Tormentors “Job, Jung and Theodicy” Cathedral of St. Philip 19 June 2011 The Book of Job is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It tells the story of Job, a “blameless, upright, and righteous man,” the son of Uz, who was the son of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. In this rich and provocative story Job’s trials and tribulations are related in narrative and prose form. Essential to the story is his theological discussion with his friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and—finally, God’s response. The book is primarily a didactic poem set in prose form, and it has been referred to as the most profound literary work of the Old Testament. This book, and its numerous exegetical companions, are attempts to address the problem of evil, and the core question in this text is “Why do the righteous suffer?” Such questions are the topic of “theodicy.” Let’s read aloud together the first 3 Chapters of Job. What are your first impressions? What theological questions do you find yourself asking? What images of God does the Book of Job conjure for you? What is Theodicy? Fr theodicee’, coined by Leibnitz (1710) Gr , theos, god + dike, justice: the theological discipline that seeks to explain how the existence of evil in the world can be reconciled with the justice and goodness of God. This question is at the heart of the Book of Job. There have been many references to the Book of Job down through the years and in many cultural contexts. William Blake famously illustrated Job, and other references include Rabbi Harold Kushner’s “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” C.S. Lewis’ “The Problem of Pain,” and writers such as Bronte (Jane Eyre), G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who was Thursday), Herman Melville (Moby Dick), and musicians such as Joni Mitchell (“The Sire of Sorrow”), U‐2 (Ultraviolet), “Godspell” (All for the Best), to name a few. Perhaps the most well known and theologically substantive response was Carl Jung’s book, Answer to Job. The Narrative Structure of Job • Job is an exceptionally pious man, who was very prosperous and had 7 sons and 3 daughters. Satan shows up, and suggests that Job is pious only because God has “put a wall around {him} and blessed” Job, his favorite servant, with prosperity. Moreover, Satan suggests that if God touches Job’s “possessions,” Job would curse him. God gives Satan permission to test Job’s righteousness. • All of Job’s possessions are destroyed, and a “ruach” (wind/spirit) causes the house of the firstborn to collapse, killing all of Job’s offspring who were gathered for a feast. Job does not curse God, but shaves his head, tears his clothes, and says famously, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” • Job endures all of this without reproaching God. Satan solicits permission to afflict his person as well, and God gives it. Satan smites Job with dreadful boils. Job, seated in ashes, scrapes his skin with broken pottery. His wife prompts him to “curse God and die.” He answers, “You speak as one of the foolish…shall we receive the good and not the bad?” • Three friends of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, (later joined by Elihu) try to console him. They spend seven days sitting on the ground with Job, who finally “curses the day he was born.” Job’s friends do not waver from the belief that he must have done something sinful to incite God’s punishment. They berate him for refusing to confess, even as they are at a loss as to which sins he has committed Their working theology is that God always rewards good, and punishes evil. There is no hint of divine discretion and mystery. Meanwhile, in this series of “speech cycles,” Job maintains that there is no reason for God to punish him. Speeches of Job, his friends, and God * Job seeks an explanation for what has happened to him, though he insists there is no reason for God to punish him. Elihu takes a mediator’s role, attempting to maintain the sovereignty and righteousness and gracious mercy of God (Chapters 32-37). Elihu stresses that real repentance involves renouncing moral authority, which is God’s alone. He maintains that Job, while righteous, is not perfect. Job does not disagree with this, and God does not rebuke Elihu as he does the other three friends. God appears in the second verse of Chapter 38, saying “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge. Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.” God Speaks to Job out of the Whirlwind… “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God asks Job. “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?” “Is it by your wisdom the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?” In this evocative and deeply lyrical language, God describes what the experience of being the Creator is like. God emphasizes God’s sovereignty in creating and maintaining the world, and in so doing proclaims the absolute freedom of God over God’s creation. God condemns Job’s friends for their lack of understanding, commends Job for his righteousness, and restores Job to health. Job gains new wealth and children, and lives another 140 years. Behemoth, Leviathon, and the Context of Job In the second divine speech that appears after Job has conceded defeat, Yahweh provides an extensive description of two fascinating creations, Behemoth (Job 40: 15-24) and Leviathon (Job 41: 1-34). “Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I have made you; it eats grass like an ox…it makes its tail stiff like a cedar…its limbs are like bars of iron…it is the first of the great acts of God--- only its maker can approach it with a sword.” Both Leviathon and Behemoth are depicted as insurmountable foes to mortals. In this evocative line God says, “Lay hands on it; think of the battle and you will not do it again!” Begging the question, how do we as theologians—and we are all theologians—respond to such impressive, challenging images? Carl Jung (1875—1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and the son of a Swiss Reformed pastor. He was an an early disciple of Freud. Carl Jung considered his book “Answer to Job,” (1952) to be his “Moby Dick.” He was obsessed with Job as representing the “dark” or “shadow” side” of God, and it became a lifelong preoccupation. His father was a conservative pastor, and his mother had a strong spiritual/mystical side. His need to understand the dual nature of God was unabated. When he wrote this book, at age 71, Jung was wrestling with the horrors of the holocaust and subsequent world events following WWII. For Jung, God was alive and Christianity real. He passionately wrestles with God, nowhere more intensely than in relation to the Book of Job, which Jung saw as a question about the suffering of the innocent and—like many of the psalms—a lamentation about helplessness in the face of suffering. Especially unnerving to Jung was that in the case of Job, “the devil made God do it.” Jung felt that God had been “bamboozled” by Satan’s wager. Jung, Freud, and God; A Fascinating sub‐text in the Dialogue with Job. Was Carl Jung being “blasphemous,” or was he asking questions we have all asked, one way or another, one time or another? And, why would an analytical psychologist even care? Remember that Jung broke with traditional psychoanalysis—in part—on the matter of the place of religion in human emotional and psychological life. rFo Freud, God really was the father. That is to say, God was a projection onto the tabula rasa of our unconscious needs to be cared for by a benevolent, all‐knowing father. For Jung, God was alive, real, and part of the deep human need to make‐ meaning of this life, and to be in relationship. Jung called God into conversation—and into questions about life—because for Jung, God really existed, and it mattered a great deal to Jung to wrestle with these questions. One of the wonderful aspects of our Episcopal tradition is that we are encouraged to do likewise! Job, Jung, the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes According to Jung, archetypes are universal psychic dispositions that form the “basement” of the soul, from which the basic symbols of unconscious experience emerge. Examples include birth, death, separation from parents, “initiation” rituals, and so on, and archetypal figures include mother, father, God, hero, shadow, Anima/Animus (feminine /masculine images), the Shadow, and so on. Archetypes arise out of the “collective unconscious,” common to all of us, which seeks to organize experience. The most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes, especially religious ideas, and they seek to give meaning to experience. The Timaeus, for example, one of Plato’s dialogues, speculates on the nature of the world and the creation of the “world soul.” Films such as “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” are filled with Jungian archetypes and themes. For Jung, such questions were inherent in what it means to be human. “Meaning‐making,” in relationship with God,, self and one another, is the deepest form of human activity.
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