Edwin Good says this about Elihu, “The effect of Elihu’s intervention is an odd one. He proposes a new meaning for human suffering, as a teaching device from God, and he shows a high appreciation for God’s natural power. But he surrounds the nuggets of semiprecious metal with so many clods of ordinary dirt as to weary the miner beyond reason. They style is wordy, convoluted, often hardly intelligible. Translating excellent poetry is hard but exhilarating; translating Elihu is just hard.” (Harper’s Bible Commentary, 1988, Pg. 429)
Elihu is indeed tedious. But like Good and the other scholars point out, he does add an important point to the discussion about suffering. That is the idea that God causes suffering for the purpose of teaching us. Though Elihu’s words are convoluted, we find a pretty decent summary of them in what we read today. In Job 33:29-30 we read, “God indeed does all these things, twice, three times, with mortals, to bring their souls back from the Pit, so that they may see the light of life.”
The idea that God causes suffering to teach us has been extremely influential in both Judaism and Christianity. It is also a tempting answer. 20th Century Christian scholar and novelist, C.S. Lewis wrote this in his book The Problem of Pain:
Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as He leaves us any other resort where it can plausibly be looked for. While what we call “our own life” remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make “our own life” less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness? …We are perplexed to see misfortune falling upon decent, inoffensive, worthy people – on capable, hard-working mothers of families or diligent, thrifty, little trades-people, on those who have worked so hard, and so honestly, for their modest stock of happiness and now seem to be entering on the enjoyment of it with the fullest right…. Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. (Lewis, Problem of Pain, New York: Macmillan, 1940, 84-85)
That is the essence of Elihu’s argument, that God will cause suffering as a last resort to turn our souls properly to God and God alone. If we consider that the ultimate end is either salvation or damnation, we may consider it to be a fair price to pay. Lewis himself saw plenty of hardship. His mother died when he was a child. He experienced trench warfare in World War 1, and he suffered multiple serious injuries from an artillery shell that fell short of its target. Lewis knew suffering in his early life.
There is an appeal to the idea that God causes suffering to teach us. Just like the idea that we looked at last week – that suffering is punishment for sin – this idea helps us put the sometimes craziness of suffering into something that makes sense.
Perhaps even more than suffering, I think we fear the idea of meaninglessness of suffering. We want life to have meaning, and we want what happens in life to be meaningful!
But there are two flaws. These are flaws in Lewis’ argument and flaws in Elihu’s argument. And remember, as we read Job, we are given a number of wrong answers about the reason for suffering. (We will get the answer, or perhaps I should say we get a response, when God speaks in the text in what we will read next week.) The two biggest flaws are these.
They leave out the idea of evil. The idea of evil has become passe in our culture today. People want to say things are caused by ignorance or fear rather than evil. But any person who has lived in a war zone knows that there are forces at work within some human minds that are grotesque beyond all explanation. Suffering makes no sense sometimes and is beyond all human control. Evil is beyond all sense and while undefinable, is a force beyond the bounds of human control as well.
The other flaw in saying that God causes suffering in order to teach us is that it makes God into a monster. If God created us, and God gave us the incredible ability to feel great pleasure and to feel intense pain, they why would God so quickly resort to pain to teach us? Surely God has other means. Why would God create a creature in love and then punish it in order to make it turn back to Him? The logic is warped.
I earlier quoted from C.S. Lewis in his book The Problem of Pain where he said basically that God caused suffering to teach us. That book was published in 1940. In 1961 Lewis published A Grief Observed. There his words sound like Job himself. Lewis writes:
Meanwhile, where is God?... When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face… After that, silence… Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.” (San Fransisco, Harper, 1989, Pg. 17-19)
There’s no denying Lewis is being honest about his pain and bewilderment here. He writes this after the death of his wife at the age of 45. And yet, in the midst of it, he is still turning to God. That is the mark of faith. That is the same faith we find in Job himself. He rails against God. He calls God unjust and unfair. He complains that he is powerless and feels lost, yet he still turns back to God.
I like these words from Carol Newsome in The New Interpreter’s Bible:
Part of the problem with attempts to grapple with the meaning of suffering is that suffering does not have a single cause or a single shape, and so it cannot have a single meaning. It may arise out of human cruelty, out of self-inflicted folly, out of the inescapable reality of finitude, or any number of things. The notion that God wills particular suffering in order to teach something, however, can lead only to the conclusion that God is a monster of cruelty. (Volume 4, Pg. 572)
In what we read next week we will find that God is totally supreme and beyond the ability to comprehend. So, can God teach through suffering? Yes, God can do that. God can do anything. But does God necessarily do that, or is suffering somehow part of God’s plan for your life to punish your or to teach you? Don’t go there. You’re not going to find any answers that satisfy. That is indeed where the next section of Job takes us.
However, Elihu’s point has some value, despite its imperfections. If you can break away from the idea that teaching you something is the purpose of suffering, it keeps open the door that says you can learn a lot through suffering.
Last week I said that if I lay my hand on a hot stove it will get burned and I will not do it again. That is certainly a lesson learned! But there is much much more.
Through suffering you can become truly empathetic to those who are suffering. Through suffering you can understand the feelings of those who feel powerless. Through suffering you can recognize the true power of evil. Through suffering you can understand the frustration and fear of, as Lewis describes, God’s silence. Through suffering you can understand the feelings of meaninglessness and pointlessness that life can be for many people.
In other words, when you are suffering you do well if you can put its pain to good use in your life. God will be your companion in suffering. You may even discover the immense strength and depth of God’s power there.
Suffering is not fun, but it may also equip you well journey with others who are suffering as well.
That is the essence of Elihu’s argument, that God will cause suffering as a last resort to turn our souls properly to God and God alone. If we consider that the ultimate end is either salvation or damnation, we may consider it to be a fair price to pay. Lewis himself saw plenty of hardship. His mother died when he was a child. He experienced trench warfare in World War 1, and he suffered multiple serious injuries from an artillery shell that fell short of its target. Lewis knew suffering in his early life.
There is an appeal to the idea that God causes suffering to teach us. Just like the idea that we looked at last week – that suffering is punishment for sin – this idea helps us put the sometimes craziness of suffering into something that makes sense.
Perhaps even more than suffering, I think we fear the idea of meaninglessness of suffering. We want life to have meaning, and we want what happens in life to be meaningful!
But there are two flaws. These are flaws in Lewis’ argument and flaws in Elihu’s argument. And remember, as we read Job, we are given a number of wrong answers about the reason for suffering. (We will get the answer, or perhaps I should say we get a response, when God speaks in the text in what we will read next week.) The two biggest flaws are these.
They leave out the idea of evil. The idea of evil has become passe in our culture today. People want to say things are caused by ignorance or fear rather than evil. But any person who has lived in a war zone knows that there are forces at work within some human minds that are grotesque beyond all explanation. Suffering makes no sense sometimes and is beyond all human control. Evil is beyond all sense and while undefinable, is a force beyond the bounds of human control as well.
The other flaw in saying that God causes suffering in order to teach us is that it makes God into a monster. If God created us, and God gave us the incredible ability to feel great pleasure and to feel intense pain, they why would God so quickly resort to pain to teach us? Surely God has other means. Why would God create a creature in love and then punish it in order to make it turn back to Him? The logic is warped.
I earlier quoted from C.S. Lewis in his book The Problem of Pain where he said basically that God caused suffering to teach us. That book was published in 1940. In 1961 Lewis published A Grief Observed. There his words sound like Job himself. Lewis writes:
Meanwhile, where is God?... When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face… After that, silence… Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.” (San Fransisco, Harper, 1989, Pg. 17-19)
There’s no denying Lewis is being honest about his pain and bewilderment here. He writes this after the death of his wife at the age of 45. And yet, in the midst of it, he is still turning to God. That is the mark of faith. That is the same faith we find in Job himself. He rails against God. He calls God unjust and unfair. He complains that he is powerless and feels lost, yet he still turns back to God.
I like these words from Carol Newsome in The New Interpreter’s Bible:
Part of the problem with attempts to grapple with the meaning of suffering is that suffering does not have a single cause or a single shape, and so it cannot have a single meaning. It may arise out of human cruelty, out of self-inflicted folly, out of the inescapable reality of finitude, or any number of things. The notion that God wills particular suffering in order to teach something, however, can lead only to the conclusion that God is a monster of cruelty. (Volume 4, Pg. 572)
In what we read next week we will find that God is totally supreme and beyond the ability to comprehend. So, can God teach through suffering? Yes, God can do that. God can do anything. But does God necessarily do that, or is suffering somehow part of God’s plan for your life to punish your or to teach you? Don’t go there. You’re not going to find any answers that satisfy. That is indeed where the next section of Job takes us.
However, Elihu’s point has some value, despite its imperfections. If you can break away from the idea that teaching you something is the purpose of suffering, it keeps open the door that says you can learn a lot through suffering.
Last week I said that if I lay my hand on a hot stove it will get burned and I will not do it again. That is certainly a lesson learned! But there is much much more.
Through suffering you can become truly empathetic to those who are suffering. Through suffering you can understand the feelings of those who feel powerless. Through suffering you can recognize the true power of evil. Through suffering you can understand the frustration and fear of, as Lewis describes, God’s silence. Through suffering you can understand the feelings of meaninglessness and pointlessness that life can be for many people.
In other words, when you are suffering you do well if you can put its pain to good use in your life. God will be your companion in suffering. You may even discover the immense strength and depth of God’s power there.
Suffering is not fun, but it may also equip you well journey with others who are suffering as well.
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