Browsing by Author "OBIERO, NICHOLAS 0. C.P."

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    JOB AND THE INNOCENT I CONFRONTING GOD IN HUMAN SUFFERING
    (Tangaza University College, 2005) OBIERO, NICHOLAS 0. C.P.
    Human existence as we know, is limited, fragile and is full of dissatisfaction. It is as insubstantial as the bloom of a flower that blossoms in the morning and withers at evening, or again it is like a shadow, or a moth-eaten garment. Human desire is to live forever but the fact of life is that we have to experience pain, suffering and lastly death. Thus, the reality of human history is that we have to survive so much pain and disappointment. When we are faced with the reality of death, and when we see innocent people undergoing pain, suffering and death, we are forced to ask, "Why do the innocent suffer?' We can glibly say that God is good, God is merciful, that he is kind and faithful. But a great many people on earth can say, "I don't have any evidence for that. Maybe you do, but I don't." If we were to be honest with ourselves maybe many of us would admit that we do not have a lot of conviction about God's goodness either. If we do have a lot of conviction about God's goodness then, why bad things happen to good and innocent people will still remain a universal dilemma that forever we will be forced to confront. Our struggle here on earth is always to reconcile a good God with a seemingly evil world. In most cases, we are forced to ask, "What is the meaning of human suffering? What role does God play in life as humans experience suffering? These are some of the questions, which human beings have asked throughout history and we as well continue to ask the same questions. In ancient Israel, the tightly constructed world-view was incapable of offering a satisfying explanation to the problems of human pain, suffering and death. For human pain, suffering and death were more often than not attributed to human sinfulness. The dilemma which was left in struggling with these problems of human pain, suffering and death threatened the entire structure of order of explanation of things and this had to be resolved if the system was to survive. But strictly speaking, these were not only problems in and for Israel. Israel was but one among several ancient peoples who wrestled with these problems. The Book of Job as we will see, is a classic example of a challenge thrown in the face of the claim of an ordered world. Today, there are many innocent people who undergo sufferings, misfortunes and difficulties in their everyday lives. To these, especially to the AIDS orphans and victims, it seems as if the world has turned upside down; are their sufferings symbols and consequences of sin, or a punishment, a scourge from God? What good comes of all these? Does God listen to these cries in their baffling varieties or even see the many who suffer and die everyday? What is evident in the case of Job is the actual human experience that confronts many of us who have to face ill fortunes in our lives. It is the silent and innocent cry of these people, the hatred, anger, fear, terror, turmoil, rage, confusion, death, darkness but also the confidence, longing, trust, rediscovery of God and faith that I intend to research and discuss in my long essay. In so doing, I will carry out my research, discussions and findings through reading and reflections on the Book of Job, through reading relevant books, documents and articles on the Book of Job and on human suffering, through dialogue with those terminally ill, HIV/AIDS patients and HIV/AIDS orphans who are undergoing physical sufferings in their lives and through my own reflections on and experience of human suffering in moments of sickness and loss of loved ones. Thus I will basically apply both historical and descriptive methods in my work. In the first chapter of this essay, I will try to point out the problem the author of the Book of Job is addressing and also to try to describe the context from which the author speaks. I will also try to see who the upright were thought to be in that society, what was the path of the wicked and lastly why was the Book of Job written. The second chapter will try to describe who the man Job is, why and how is Job innocent, what is Job's plight and from where does Job get the strength to continue living? The third chapter will be an attempt to situate Job in our contemporary society, the innocent suffering in our society, what are the attitudes towards the innocent, what are their sufferings and cry, and do we have something to say to the innocent suffering in our society? In the fourth and the last chapter of my essay, I will try to discuss whether there is God's justice and love in human suffering, and whether human pain and suffering can bring one closer to God