Life was really great for Job. He had loyal friends, land, livestock, servants, good health, a wife whom he loved, plenty of children and every benefit that money could buy. His life was an endless celebration. He considered himself one of the most blessed persons he knew. Then one day his world got turned upside-down.
A powerful wind suddenly came up and destroyed his crops. Lightning struck his home, causing it to burst into flames and killing his wife and children. His barns caught fire as well, destroying much of the grain that had already been gathered and killing a significant part of his livestock. In the weeks following the destruction the bankers threatened to take his land if he was unable to service his debts. He noticed as well that he was coughing a lot and felt very weak. His health seemed to be going as well. He grew depressed and sat by the side of the road deep in thought. Why did things suddenly go so wrong? His friends came by to console him and offer their theories in answer to his questions.
When we get hit with something like Typhoon Yutu, one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is “What does God have to do with it?” A second question often follows. “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” These aren’t new questions. They are wrestled with throughout scripture, with the Book of Job dedicated to these questions. The New Testament picks up the topic and continues to wrestle with these questions, though from a different perspective. Theologians have offered their two cents over the centuries, with an entire branch of theology, theodicy, dedicated these questions.
One of the most common explanations is that God is punishing us for some transgression. We are reminded of the Great Flood of the Book of Genesis that put the world underwater for over a month and from which only Noah and his family were saved. According to the story, humanity had messed up and God was fed up with us. He decided to start over. Scripture is filled with verses that speak of the natural disasters that seem to plague humanity as a chastening from God; an experience that is painful as we go through it but in the long run makes us better people. This understanding is based on an image of God that is a judge, a teacher, maybe even an angry parent.
This explanation of the suffering that comes into our lives assumes a very active and intervening understanding of the nature of God. God is very much the parent who desires to form us into good people and who has an ultimate plan for us and for the universe. In this understanding of what happens to us God is very much involved in the events of our daily lives. When we do well, God rewards us and when we mess up God punishes us, though not to destroy us but to teach us. The angels and saints may play a role in this process, as God’s helpers, but ultimately it is God who is the one who shapes the circumstances in which we find ourselves. God is not distant from us but is integrally and intimately involved.
Job’s friends understood suffering from this perspective and tried to convince him that the destruction that stripped everything of value from him was divine justice. He must have done something that was contrary to God’s law and was being punished for it. Job would have none of this explanation. He knew God’s law and kept it. He did nothing for which a just God could punish him in such an egregious manner. Something else must be at play; Job was convinced of it.
Christ presents us with an image of God as a loving father. Jesus specifically tells us that a loving father doesn’t give his children a scorpion or a rock if his children ask for an egg to eat. If we mere humans can be compassionate toward our children, should not God be compassionate toward us? The only image of God as judge we encounter in the Gospels is in Matthew 25, where we witness the Last Judgment. Even here, we are not punished for disobeying any rules or regulations. If punishment is in our cards, it is because we have failed in showing compassion towards others. We are simply treated the exact same way we have treated others.
The most dramatic image of God that we encounter in Christian Scriptures is that of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The father in that story represents God. The father profoundly loves both of his sons. No matter what they do, they are both his children and nothing can shake his love for them. He doesn’t force or forbid any course of action, allowing them to make up their own minds about what they will do with their lives and supporting them in their decision. The sons then live with the consequences of their decisions. This understanding leaves room for God to intervene in a person’s life to show mercy but God’s intervention is more limited and a great deal is left up to us.
Later, when Jesus speaks of the suffering that he is about to undergo with his arrest, torture and death on a cross, he doesn’t describe it as punishment. It is simply the path down which we must walk to achieve the end for which he became human. Rather than random and needless suffering, his crucifixion was a choice he made to achieve a greater good. He informs his disciples that this is the fruit of choosing to follow him. They should pick up their individual crosses and get in line on the road to Calvary behind him.
Now I admit that many of the Church Fathers saw Christ’s suffering as punishment but not deserved by Jesus for his offenses–he had none–but as a sacrificial victim whose suffering restores the divine balance that was upset through Adam’s sin and ever since through our participation in sin.