"Should we receive good from God, and not evil?"

This phrase (from Job 2:10) haunts me a bit. It is troublesome in part because it is possible to extract from it the idea that we sometimes “receive evil from God”--which throws me into cognitive dissonance--and in part because a friend recently asked me if I thought God allows evil in the world so we can suffer the consequences of our sins. The core issue here is an old one and a big one, the problem of evil; how do we reconcile our concepts of God with the presence of evil in the world? I don’t have the answer to the big question, but the perspective given me by Job’s story has helped me keep my bearings when thrown into its' proximity.

First, word studies seem to urge the meaning of “good” and “evil” in this passage towards our contemporary use of “good” and “bad,” and away from “good” meaning divine perfection and “evil” meaning it’s opposite. Language scholars agree Job is not saying that we receive things from God that are anti-God, contrary to divine nature. So perhaps there is some comfort in translating the phrase as, “shall we accept what we like from God and not also what we don’t like?” But seeking that comfortable translation sidesteps the big question and also steps away from the events recounted in Job.

That translation trivializes Job’s experience. His trials go beyond minor misfortune. He has lost his wealth, many servants, his children, and his health. He still has his wife—poor comfort there; her response to these tragedies is to tell him to “curse God and die” (2:9). This is a lot of grief for a man who is pure and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil (2:8). We are inclined to think God's man will not face these tragedies. In fact, that's Satan's accusation: Job is God's man because God protects him from tragedy. It is easy to understand why Job might refer to these apparently capricious calamities as evil. Still, the passage says, “In all this Job did not sin, nor did he charge God with moral impropriety” (1:22). When lesser spirits would curse God and die, Job keeps his integrity, and--I think--his faith. Satan was wrong about Job.

Still, whose actions were these, God's or Satan's? I don’t have evidence or book-chapter-and-verse authority to answer that question. I do reason from my view of God that nothing happens unless he at least allows it, even though that view doesn’t ease my discomfort. I’m uncomfortable with the thought God may be allowing evil to exist, but—oddly enough—don’t feel that discomfort at a deep faith challenging level. When I’ve encountered those who point at such apparent inconsistencies and say, “I can’t believe in a god like that,” I’m always in agony more at their lack of belief than at the reason they offer to justify it. As quoted earlier, one sign of Job’s faithfulness was--even though overcome by inexplicable tragedy--he, “did not charge God with moral impropriety.” I understand Job’s choice there. I feel his choice, even though I have never been able to communicate it very well, especially to those who find such situations faith challenging. I wish I could.

Several teachers have emphasized God only allowed Satan to harm Job. They stress that God did not harm Job directly. This difference seems to ease discomfort for some. The text seems to support this interpretation, but the difference doesn’t seem significant to me. Certainly it wasn’t to Job. Regardless of causality, Job found himself bereft, wounded, in ashes and subject to the comfortless yammering of his wife and friends. To emphasize the difference seems to me to reveal insecurity, as if faith would fail if God had harmed Job directly. In fact, the small moral difference between refusing to stop harm and actually causing harm seems more like the small hook on which the weak hang self-justifying rationalizations than a pillar of theological insight into God’s nature. I think distinguishing causality here is ultimately no comfort.

In a lifetime of thought, reasoning, belief, and prayer, I have been unable to explain the existence of many phenomena I’m tempted to call evil. From the minor personal distraction of mosquitoes to the worldwide irritant of rampant materialism, from the tragedy of international warfare to the personal misfortune of polio, many things give me pause, particularly when I allow my perspective to shrink down to the ephemera of this world. Do we suffer these harms to build character, as consequences for sin, to serve some good only God can see? I think the answer to each of these questions is both yes and no. For the most part, I am untroubled by the ambiguity of these answers because no single answer is the tripwire of my faith. At the risk of being charged with intellectual flabbiness, I try to trust in the ultimate goodness of God even while twisting in agony over personal tragedies. I think it is possible to praise God through tears.

In contrast to Job, I remember the example of Adam and Eve—who may very well have been brought into a world without evil, or pain, or any of the other ills that give rise to the “big question.” In this idyllic existence, Eve listens to Satan who questions God’s motivation by saying Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat from the tree to deprive them of something desirable. In a heartbeat, Eve doubts the beneficence and superiority of God and chooses disobedience. The consequences of that choice—which Adam followed, apparently without hesitation—were significant. They were significant for Adam and Eve, for their family, for the generations that followed them, possibly even for all humankind. From the cushy ease of the garden, Eve appears quick to doubt and disobey. From the depths of tragedy that an ephemeral perspective would easily label evil, Job, though he feels and expresses grief and anger, does not disobey. He does not lose sight of the eternal.