Browsing by Author "Paku, Theophile"

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    The Doctrine of Temporal Retribution
    (Tangaza University College, 1997) Paku, Theophile
    From the dialogue between Job and his friends; we see that two major things have disturbed the friends and characterise the author's thinking: Job is propounding a strange "theology of God', and he has adopted a new way of" making theology" by arguing from experience rather than tradition. The whole process poses a major problem: "should the basis of morality be overturned, how can theology survive"? The belief was that "The good man is rewarded with blessings and the bad man is punished with woes here on earth, because suffering is the outcome of each one's mistakes". To this traditional dogma, Job will react strongly, taking into account his own experience which seems to be the opposite of the traditional Wisdom. For the friends who represent the tradition. Job has a distinguishable theology of God which is considered as heretical. Job's anger comes from a clearly ethical vision of the divinity Suffering makes sense if it responds to justice; if it does not fit into any just pattern it is arbitrary, it is an obscenity, and cruel. For this reason, because to him" God" can only mean a God of justice. Job must revolt against the absurdity created by a "just God', that is; "a suffering just man". Our paper has three major Chapters: In chapter I, we shall make a parallel between the Book of Job and the Ancient Near East texts. We have found that there were common stories and myths all over the Near East which influenced the compositon of the Book of Job a lot. In the second Chapter, we shall discuss the problem of the "Doctrine of Temporal Retribution". In this part, we shall look at the contribution of the friends of Job ( Bildad, Zophar, Eliphaz and the young Elihu ). The friends represent the traditional view and its theology. For them, God is just. Suffering is caused by human beings because of their own mistakes ( Sins) Suffering is seen as punishment, warning, and correction from God. In the end God is incomprehensible by human beings. This part is concluded by Job himself who comes with a new way of understanding the relationship between God and man. For him, he sees himself as Innocent. God is the Source of suffering, the three friends are traitors and God is really beyond reach. In Chapter III, we shall consider some pastoral implications which come out of the dialogue between Job and his friends and which are the outcome of their discussion. Considering the amount of suffering in our time, we shall try to offer suggestions to face life. We did not discuss the whole Book of Job, but we are only concerned with the texts in the dialogue particularly touching our subject and the speeches of Elihu in Chp.32 - 37. The abbreviations and biblical quotations are taken from the" The New Jerusalem Bible". In the dialogue with his friends, Job continues to defend his integrity, as he had promised. As he recalls his past and the demands made by his God, he shows a clear understanding of the religious meaning of service to the poor who are God's friends. An unexpected character will come on the scene: the elusive and boastful Elihu. He is convinced he has something new to say, he contributes certain nuances. His own personal experience led him to understand that innocence is not a matter simply of individual uprightness. It is rather a question above all of one's behaviour to the poor, who are especially loved by the Lord. In the face of the enormity and scope of human suffering people are tempted to deny that God exists. In front of this concrete situation, people do ask questions as these: Why could God not have originally created more provisions against suffering and especially against the suffering of innocent people like Job and the children? Why could God not have originally provided an effectively anesthetic plant to cure sufferings all over the earth? Those questions have been already asked by people like Job and others. Since the putative '' divine order" has failed to withstand the test of experience man must go his own way and discover his own truth. We can see Job, a perfectly Just man being like in a laboratory situation. If then, God is a just judge a certain balance of deed-consequence is to be expected. Man has been given a mind to use, and the fundamental attitude of the sapiential writers was the use of experience as a norm of reality not the tradition based on a certain conception of God who is so powerful, so isolated from men and who cannot be challenged by man's experience. The "c/), out" of Job for justice is not a complaint about unjust suffering, for suffering is neither just nor unjust. He has already recognized that God's deeds are not subject to man's laws and he acknowledges the " divine freedom to root justice where he pleases". His" cry" is because his contemporaries no longer exercise the principle of the sapiential writers, namely, that experience is the norm of reality. Job has hit on a crucial truth of existence I think the starting point is God, and therefore the "problem" is a personal question of the relationship between man and God, what befalls on man and his concept qf God. Job has discovered a God who is Lord of absurdity. Given this fact the first ethical reaction is an attitude of revolt, a rejection of traditional " solutions" and evasions. His revolt is theist in the sense that it accepts God but is directed against the state of affairs. It can appear also atheist to some because it assigns effects to causes and finds God guilty, thereby subjecting God as well as the world to human judgement. The major question we will try to answer in our paper is " to what end does human suffering and particularly the innocent suffering serve"? What th the relationship between one's behaviour and the suffering which he endures? Either events in the human sphere are explainable by reference to a " divine order" or they remain absurd. The religion in which everything is rational ( that of the friends ), and this means a religion in which God is understandable, is a false religion of intellectuals.