There is a popular view in theism that extrinsic suffering from natural evil is punitive; it is God’s punishment for sin. This view has been around for a long time. Job’s comforters affirmed that view when they told Job that he must be the worst person in the world since he was suffering so much. Today, I sometimes hear of Christians who claim tornados and hurricanes, or disease, or famines are God’s punishment for unbelief. The third world is being punished rather severely for not being good church-going evangelicals. I guess they should have read the bible they don’t have access to.
After Job’s comforters are done, Elihu enters the scene. Elihu, “became very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God. He was also angry with the three friends, because they had found no way to refute Job, and yet had condemned him.” (Job 32:2-3). Elihu sat in the background for quite some time, figuring that that those who are older than him should speak. But eventually he decides to speak up, because it is not only the old who are wise, and that it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the almighty that gives understanding.
I gave you my full attention.
But not one of you has proved Job wrong;
none of you has answered his arguments.
Do not say, ‘We have found wisdom;
let God, not a man, refute him.’
But Job has not marshaled his words against me,
and I will not answer him with your arguments.
(Job 32:12-14)
Elihu did not find any of their arguments sound. The purpose of natural evil is not punitive. Rain falls on the just and on the unjust. There doesn’t seem to be a correlation between corruption and natural evil. Anvils are not falling an Hue Hefner’s head. Those televangelists on TV who promise that the more you give to their church, the more God is going to bless you with 10x your wealth are full of crap. Elihu offers a different explanation,
“Or someone may be chastened on a bed of pain
with constant distress in their bones,
so that their body finds food repulsive
and their soul loathes the choicest meal.
Their flesh wastes away to nothing,
and their bones, once hidden, now stick out.
They draw near to the pit,
and their life to the messengers of death.[c]
Yet if there is an angel at their side,
a messenger, one out of a thousand,
sent to tell them how to be upright,
and he is gracious to that person and says to God,
‘Spare them from going down to the pit;
I have found a ransom for them—
let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;
let them be restored as in the days of their youth’—
then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,
they will see God’s face and shout for joy;
he will restore them to full well-being.
And they will go to others and say,
‘I have sinned, I have perverted what is right,
but I did not get what I deserved.
God has delivered me from going down to the pit,
and I shall live to enjoy the light of life.’God does all these things to a person—
twice, even three times—
to turn them back from the pit,
that the light of life may shine on them.
(Job 33:19-30)
Natural evil is redemptive, not punitive according to Elihu. It is to turn them back from the pit. It’s a call to stop and think. It interrupts our thoughtless lives with a warning. Is there any other way? Elihu says no,
People cry out under a load of oppression;
they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,
who gives songs in the night,
who teaches us more than he teaches the beasts of the earth
and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?’
(Job 35:9-11)
How would people react to a world without natural evil? Would they stop to consider God? To contemplate his creation or their role in it? Without this call to stop and think, would man give pause from their regular activities? No one says, where is my maker, who gives songs in the night.
Also consider through introspection and observation how people respond to natural evil. Do people stop to think in response of the loss of a loved one? Do they give pause at the thought that children are starving in Africa? Or at the thought that a cheetah tears apart a gazelle without regard for the pain?
Don’t parents assume this is a just course of action every time they punish their child so that they might think about what they’ve done?
The severity of natural evil can be accounted for in so far as moral evil is serious. Stopping to think is the first step toward the purging of moral evil. I don’t think many (any?) would take this first step if we lived painless lives.
