What is wrong with The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person, by Harold S. Kushner? Nothing that is Kushner’s doing. He had spent most of his career exploring why, in a world purportedly ruled by a good God, bad things happen to good people.
The Book of Job is about this topic, so Kushner should, of course, take it on. But Job has proven itself to be a difficult book to read, and not merely because of its thorny theological issues. It’s Hebrew, although at times masterful, is at others nearly incomprehensible. The book appears to be out of order in parts, or jumbled. At a certain point, it is impossible to tell which characters are speaking. Job appears to have been composed from a few sources, and the seams often show. So this is not a great book to assuage our theological anxieties, or perform feats of theodicy. Job is a mess.
If I may: the simple answer as to why bad things happen to good people, like Job, like you, like me, is that it simply does. We only get into the trap of theodicy if we cling to a notion of God that is too human or overly static. We should allow our thoughts and hearts to have different view of God; then perhaps God is a just God, or an impersonal force, or an great cosmic absence, or a best friend or lover. God has many masks - yet they are all God.
Theodicy is only a conflict if we are hog tied to our notions of the structural traits of God. We need a dynamic God.
The Book of Job is about this topic, so Kushner should, of course, take it on. But Job has proven itself to be a difficult book to read, and not merely because of its thorny theological issues. It’s Hebrew, although at times masterful, is at others nearly incomprehensible. The book appears to be out of order in parts, or jumbled. At a certain point, it is impossible to tell which characters are speaking. Job appears to have been composed from a few sources, and the seams often show. So this is not a great book to assuage our theological anxieties, or perform feats of theodicy. Job is a mess.
If I may: the simple answer as to why bad things happen to good people, like Job, like you, like me, is that it simply does. We only get into the trap of theodicy if we cling to a notion of God that is too human or overly static. We should allow our thoughts and hearts to have different view of God; then perhaps God is a just God, or an impersonal force, or an great cosmic absence, or a best friend or lover. God has many masks - yet they are all God.
Theodicy is only a conflict if we are hog tied to our notions of the structural traits of God. We need a dynamic God.
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