Job is a wealthy man living in a land called Uz with his large family and extensive flocks. He is “blameless” and “upright,” always careful to avoid doing evil (1:1). One day, Satan (“the Adversary”) appears before God in heaven. God boasts to Satan about Job’s goodness, but Satan argues that Job is only good because God has blessed him abundantly. Satan challenges God that, if given permission to punish the man, Job will turn and curse God. God allows Satan to torment Job to test this bold claim, but he forbids Satan to take Job’s life in the process.

In the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children have all died due to marauding invaders or natural catastrophes. Job tears his clothes and shaves his head in mourning, but he still blesses God in his prayers. Satan appears in heaven again, and God grants him another chance to test Job. This time, Job is afflicted with horrible skin sores. His wife encourages him to curse God and to give up and die, but Job refuses, struggling to accept his circumstances.

Three of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to visit him, sitting with Job in silence for seven days out of respect for his mourning. On the seventh day, Job speaks, beginning a conversation in which each of the four men shares his thoughts on Job’s afflictions in long, poetic statements.

Job curses the day he was born, comparing life and death to light and darkness. He wishes that his birth had been shrouded in darkness and longs to have never been born, feeling that light, or life, only intensifies his misery. Eliphaz responds that Job, who has comforted other people, now shows that he never really understood their pain. Eliphaz believes that Job’s agony must be due to some sin Job has committed, and he urges Job to seek God’s favor. Bildad and Zophar agree that Job must have committed evil to offend God’s justice and argue that he should strive to exhibit more blameless behavior. Bildad surmises that Job’s children brought their deaths upon themselves. Even worse, Zophar implies that whatever wrong Job has done probably deserves greater punishment than what he has received.

Job responds to each of these remarks, growing so irritated that he calls his friends “worthless physicians” who “whitewash [their advice] with lies” (13:4). After making pains to assert his blameless character, Job ponders man’s relationship to God. He wonders why God judges people by their actions if God can just as easily alter or forgive their behavior. It is also unclear to Job how a human can appease or court God’s justice. God is unseen, and his ways are inscrutable and beyond human understanding. Moreover, humans cannot possibly persuade God with their words. God cannot be deceived, and Job admits that he does not even understand himself well enough to effectively plead his case to God. Job wishes for someone who can mediate between himself and God, or for God to send him to Sheol, the deep place of the dead.

Job’s friends are offended that he scorns their wisdom. They think his questions are crafty and lack an appropriate fear of God, and they use many analogies and metaphors to stress their ongoing point that nothing good comes of wickedness. Job sustains his confidence in spite of these criticisms, responding that even if he has done evil, it is his own personal problem. Furthermore, he believes that there is a “witness” or a “Redeemer” in heaven who will vouch for his innocence (16:19, 19:25). After a while, the upbraiding proves too much for Job, and he grows sarcastic, impatient, and afraid. He laments the injustice that God lets wicked people prosper while he and countless other innocent people suffer. Job wants to confront God and complain, but he cannot physically find God to do it. He feels that wisdom is hidden from human minds, but he resolves to persist in pursuing wisdom by fearing God and avoiding evil.

Without provocation, another friend, Elihu, suddenly enters the conversation. The young Elihu believes that Job has spent too much energy vindicating himself rather than God. Elihu explains to Job that God communicates with humans by two ways—visions and physical pain. He says that physical suffering provides the sufferer with an opportunity to realize God’s love and forgiveness when he is well again, understanding that God has “ransomed” him from an impending death (33:24). Elihu also assumes that Job must be wicked to be suffering as he is, and he thinks that Job’s excessive talking is an act of rebellion against God.

God finally interrupts, calling from a whirlwind and demanding Job to be brave and respond to his questions. God’s questions are rhetorical, intending to show how little Job knows about creation and how much power God alone has. God describes many detailed aspects of his creation, praising especially his creation of two large beasts, the Behemoth and Leviathan. Overwhelmed by the encounter, Job acknowledges God’s unlimited power and admits the limitations of his human knowledge. This response pleases God, but he is upset with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar for spouting poor and theologically unsound advice. Job intercedes on their behalf, and God forgives them. God returns Job’s health, providing him with twice as much property as before, new children, and an extremely long life.

(link)

Please ruminate upon the following:

1) What do you think about the depiction of God here? Is he exhibiting all of the attributes that we have discussed in class?

2) What conclusion (if any) does Job reach regarding the problem of evil?

3) Is there a message here about how we should approach or think about evil?

4) What is the meaning of the section concerning Job's friends? What are we meant to learn from this section?

5) What is the role of Satan in this story? Does he behave as you would expect him to?

problems with intelligent design

Name: Evolution
Explain: The world was not designed for us, we simply evolved to fit it
Illustrate: Evolution is the theory that we have evolved to fit into our environments by genetic mutations, and that the beneficial mutations were passed on and that where the mutated creatures survived more they reproduced and survived more so eventually the whole species had the favourable mutation.
Link: If this is the case then it shows that intelligent design is not true and that we simply adapted to the world. So it seems that it was designed for us as we are adapted to it and it was in fact not designed for us.

Name: Chance
Explain: There is a chance that the world is only suited to sustain our life because of chance
Illustrate: For example there is a huge amount of possible universes which could support life so ours could be one of these and we do not know it, so we are only able to survive because by chance our planet fits our needs. Lots of species also evolved before humans and then died out which shows that our species has only survived because by chance we are able to adapt to our environments when previous species for example dinosaurs could not.
Link: This is a problem for intelligent design because it is probable that the world only suits us by chance, so weakens the intelligent design argument.

or

N – A problem with intelligent design is the argument against it which is evolution.
E – Evolution is a scientific theory and the most credible belief of how we come to be so fitting for the world. This is a naturalistic explanation of how we over time have adopted and kept the most favourable mutations that are more likely to help us survive and reproduce.
I – For instance food was on trees and the species of animals could not reach it to eat, so to survive over generations they adapted by genetic mutation. They grew long necks, in order to live in their environment.
L – A problem with intelligent design is there is more of a credible and naturalistic argument to how we survive in this world.

N – Another problem with intelligent design is it lacks evidence.
E – There is no real scientific testing done and it does not follow scientific methodology, there isn’t testing and any definite predictions based on this theory. Also there is no real consistency to who the designer is, a design that has been made must have a designer.
I – Most people believe that the God of classical theism is the designer, but there could really there is no real way of discovering what or who and if there is a designer of this world.
L – Intelligent Design lacks support because there is no real evidence supporting this theory

problems with analogy

N – A problem with analogy argument is that we as human beings have no experience of world making.
E – We cannot reasonably claim that our world has been made because we have nothing of a similar making to compare it; we have not experience worlds being made. We can however do this with most objects because we can compare them to other manufactured objects. But e cannot use these objects to justify the creation and design of the earth.
I – From understanding and observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything about the creation of man/woman?
L – Analogy isn’t coherent because, just because there is objects that have been designed (like a watch), they cannot justify the design of the world because we have no other experience of a designed universe.

N – It can also be argued that the arguments for analogy are weak.
E – The argument for analogy is that the world is designed just like a machine. Hume however argues that this is not a correct comparison because the world is far greater and more complex than a machine.
I – it is more sensible to compare the world to an animal or a plant, in the sense that a plant just grows and has not been designed. This example is still flawed though as to make comparisons they have to be alike in all relevant ways.
L – There are flaws with analogy because we cannot compare the complex world which we do not totally understand with something that isn’t a relevant comparison

or

Explains: Arguments from analogies are only reliable when the things being compared are similar.
Illustrate: Paley’s watch analogy is weak. Because a watch does not have many similarities to the universe. Hume argued that a better analogy would in fact be a vegetable because the earth is organic, like a vegetable and not mechanical like a watch. It would also be a better analogy because vegetables just grow and are not designed and we have no reason to suppose the universe is designed so this would be a better analogy. Hume said that the vegetable analogy was equally flawed but that we cannot infer on the basis of an analogy with a machine that the universe was designed.
Link: This is a problem because there are no good analogies to fit the universe so all arguments using analogies in this area will be weak.