The loving Jesus is often angry. Why?

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I teach ancient Greek political philosophy for a living.  Plato and Aristotle are the main characters.  Along the way I point out that the classical Greek virtues, wisdom, courage, self-discipline, and justice, are only half the story of Western civilization.  The other half comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition: justice is necessary, but the Western tradition is also about love.  The Western tradition needs both Athens (reason) and Jerusalem (love) to be complete.  This is Christ’s great contribution. 

According to Harold Bloom in Jesus and Yahweh, “Yahweh’s love is Covenant-keeping, no more and no less.” (p. 164)  This does not seem a fair account of The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).  It is not much of a stretch to read The Song of Solomon as an account of a love affair between God and His people.  What Jesus adds is the idea that God would allow himself to become man, suffer, and die in order to share in humanity’s suffering.

Yet, something about Christ’s love is frightening.  If Jesus is God, then it makes no sense to think of His love as comparable to human love.  I’ve never thought it made any sense to talk about taking Jesus Christ as my personal savior.  There is something terrifyingly stark and other about Jesus.  And there should be.  He is man, and not man.  Many Christians prefer the Gospel of Luke because in it Christ seems most “humane.”  But if one thinks about Christ seriously, that is a category mistake.  Christ is not humane because He is not human. One does not have to be a Docetist (representing the view that Jesus only appeared to be human) to believe that. 

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What if Job was right and God is wrong?

 

manhandstoheadThe Book of Job is one of the most puzzling books of the Hebrew Bible.   If we take Yahweh’s speeches from the whirlwind seriously, then there is no humanly comprehensible reason for the suffering of innocents and the righteous.  The good suffer, the bad flourish, and we must accept this without question.  Does this mean that Job was right and God is wrong?

One way out of this puzzle, generally called the problem of theodicy (if God is all good, all powerful, and all knowing, then why do the innocent suffer?), is to read the Book of Job from the perspective of the New Testament.  This is what G. K. Chesterton does, seeing the suffering of the most innocent and righteous of men as a preface to Christ.   

Though God rewards Job at the Book’s conclusion with seven new sons and three new daughters even more beautiful than before, as well as doubling his flocks and oxen, most scholars agree that the section, 42:10-17 was an addition by later redactors to encourage the faithful.  The Book really ends with Job despising himself for his arrogance in questioning God (42.6).  Or at least that is one translation. 

The patience of Job?

To read the Book of Job from the perspective of the New Testament is to miss what is so challenging about it.  Job’s harsh criticism of God is not answered by God, at least not in any way the pious reader might expect.  Says Job

The good and the guilty He destroys alike.  If some scourge brings sudden death, He mocks the guiltless for their melting hearts; some land falls under a tyrant’s sway—He veils its judges’ faces, if not He, then who?  (9:22-24)

Job goes on like this chapter after chapter.  Whoever wrote about the patience of Job was crazy.  Job wants to take God to court and find him guilty (9:32-10:5). 

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Why I pray

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Because I don’t believe in a God who intervenes in everyday life, I’m not sure why I pray to Him every night.  Yet I continue to pray, and there is still so much I don’t understand.  Why do we ask God’s blessings?  For those close to our hearts, as well as refugees and displaced individuals in distant places whom I may never encounter. Yet I continue to ask Him.

About asking God’s blessings.  If there were an interventionist God, why would He be more likely to intervene if I asked Him?  He doesn’t take recommendations from me.  One answer is that what I am really asking is for God to feel present in another person’s life, as well as my own.  Not that he change their journey, or mine, but that He accompany us along the way.  But, the problem remains.  Why would God be more likely to accompany someone on his or her perilous journey just because I ask Him to?  Or if a thousand people ask Him to?

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