Good, Evil, and the Best in the Will of God
Leibniz, Classical Theism, and the Problem of Evil - Chapter 3 (part 1)
Greetings, subscribers. I have just returned from a work trip to Greece and you can expect regular posting to resume. As followers of Theological Letters know, I’m feverishly working to finish my forthcoming book on Leibniz and the problem of evil, and I have promised to post fresh installments of my progress every Sunday.
To date, I have posted the Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2. Today, I post the first installment of Chapter 3, Good, Evil, and the Best in the Will of God.
If you have yet to read all that comes before, I recommend you do so for context. Links to all prior sections are below. Be watching for the next installment of Chapter 3 next Sunday. Enjoy!
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Chapter 3
Good, Evil, and the Best in the Will of God
And … the Lord spoke to Job through the whirlwind and clouds, “Who is this that hides counsel from me, and confines words in his heart, and thinks to conceal them from me? Gird your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you answer me. Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me now, if you have knowledge, who set the measures of it, if you know?… When the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice. And I shut up the sea with gates when it rushed out,… and I made a cloud its clothing and swathed it in mist. Or did I order the morning light in your time…? Or did you take clay from the earth and form a living creature and set it with the power of speech upon the earth? And have you removed light from the ungodly and crushed the arm of the proud? Or have you gone to the source of the sea, and walked in the tracks of the deep? And do the gates of death open to you for fear, and do the porters of Hades quake when they see you?… [H]e that reproves God, let him return it for an answer.” And Job answered and said to the Lord, “Why do I yet plead, being rebuked even while reproving the Lord? Hearing such things, whereas I am nothing, what shall I reply to these? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have spoken once, but I will not do so a second time.”
— The Book of Job1
Roughly four millennia ago, there dwelt in the land of Uz a certain man by the name of Job. His vast wealth was exceeded only by his virtue, for he was a man “true, blameless, righteous, and godly, abstaining from everything evil.”2 Yet, such virtue was the very thing that made him the object of trials so great that his name would become synonymous with suffering.3
One day, the holy angels drew near to the Lord God, and in their ranks was the Devil — the accuser of men.4 Before his forked tongue could utter any accusation, the Lord called attention to his servant, Job — one so unique in virtue that not even the accuser of men could find fault in him. The Devil knew he could not contest Job’s blamelessness. So, instead, he challenged its authenticity: Yes, Job fears God and shuns evil, but does he not have good reason? “Have you not made a hedge about him,” answered the Accuser, “and about his household, and roundabout his possessions? And have you not blessed the works of his hands and multiplied his cattle upon the land?”5
Upon the heels of this prelude followed the fateful contention that would forever define Job’s life: “But put forth your hand and strike all that he has, and surely, he will curse you to your face.”6 With great confidence in his servant, the Lord God agreed to let the Devil test Job’s virtue. God lifted his hedge of protection and allowed the Devil to strike down Job’s lands, herds, and children.
Calamity rained down upon Uz and word quickly reached the blameless Job. One report after another assailed his ear, announcing destruction, desolation, and death. In the wake of unspeakable loss, Job proved his virtue, putting to shame (were he capable of it) the Accuser of Men:
So Job arose, and rent his garments, and shaved the hair of his head, and fell on the earth, and worshiped, and said, “I myself came forth naked from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: as it seemed good to the Lord, so has it come to pass; blessed be the name of the Lord.”7
With all of his possessions and even his own progeny razed to the ground, Job did not sin by imputing folly to God.
Even still, the accuser of men was not satisfied. For Job still retained one thing — his own skin. So, again the Devil made his case, “all that a man has will he give as a ransom for his life. But put forth your hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and surely, he will curse you to your face.”8 Once again, God allowed Job to be tested.
With full authority to do with Job as he pleased — save take his life — the Devil struck Job’s body. As immortalized by French painter Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat, Job, infested with boils from head to toe, climbed atop a dung heap outside of Uz and cut into his flesh with potshards. His wife, lacking the virtue of her husband, sought out Job to recount her woes, bidding that he curse God and die. But Job refused. He, instead, rebuked her for impious folly, asking simply, “If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil things?”9 Again, Job did not sin.
As the blistering sun beat down upon Uz, several men approached on the horizon. Word of Job’s trials had spread, and three men of prominence journeyed to their afflicted friend — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.10 As Job’s comforters neared, they were stunned into silence, barely able to recognize their disfigured friend. Moved with compassion, they cried out and wept, rending their garments and sprinkling earth upon their heads to share in Job’s lament. In a display of wisdom that would not be repeated, the trio sat in silence beside their hollowed-out friend for seven days and seven nights.
After the seventh night, the silence was finally broken, not by Job’s comforters, but by Job, who could no longer hold back the torrent of lament. From his lips burst forth a bitter cry, cursing the day of his birth.
In reply, his comforters transformed into accusers. Eliphaz was the first to speak: God blesses the righteous and curses the wicked. Trials of the kind that have befallen Job can only be explained by some transgression. The accusation was clear. But Job protested, declaring his innocence, bidding his companions to bring forth an accusation, if one exists. They offered none. Unpersuaded, Bildad echoed the same, bidding Job to confess whatever sin had called down the wrath of God. But again, Job proclaimed his innocence. He could name no wrongdoing. Zophar added his voice to the chorus, exhorting Job to put away his pride and feigned innocence and to confess his sin and repent.
Job could take no more. He dismissed his friends’ “wisdom” as human folly, destined to die with them. With this, the exacerbated Job finally broke, demanding an audience with God — “let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing.”11 The irony of these words is evident. Behind the veil, the Lord God was not Job’s accuser but his advocate against the Accuser of Men — the Devil. And as Job’s final words rang out, God answered.
A whirlwind grew, and from within it, the Lord God spoke to Job, laying his servant low with his sublime presence: “Who is this that hides counsel from me, and confines words in his heart, and thinks to conceal them from me? Gird your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you answer me.” In his sorrow, Job had reproved God and, in doing so, claimed knowledge. So God examined the depth of his servant’s understanding. Seventy-seven questions about God’s deeds in forming the world followed.
As Job shrank in the presence of the Almighty God, Job came to see himself and his understanding for what it is — nothing: “But hear me, O Lord, for I also will speak. And I will ask you, and you teach me. Hearing, indeed, in my ear, I heard of you, but now, my eye sees you. Therefore, I treated myself as worthless, having melted away, and I esteem myself as earth and ashes.”12
With this, God’s questions ceased. The silence to follow God broke with a rebuke. But not of Job. Rather, the Lord God rebuked Job’s comforters for their falsehoods. God instructed them to plead with righteous Job to offer sacrifice on their behalf so that the Lord God might forgive their sins — for Job’s sake.
When Job finished offering sacrifice for his friends, the Lord God forgave them. And he prospered Job greater than he had before.
The rebuke of Job is easily read as a show of force. Although Job’s claim of innocence was true, and his desire to plead his case before God seems just, the plea was met with a show of power, meant to intimidate. Hence, Job’s mouth was stopped, not by understanding, but by fear. Yet, to read the climax of the story in this way misses much of the rebuke.
Job was not rebuked for sorrow or lamentation, nor for his claim of innocence. As God spoke, he addressed Job as one who “hides counsel from me, and confines words in his heart, and thinks to conceal them from me?” As God questioned him, he addressed Job as one who professed to have knowledge and understanding. And as the divine monologue resolves, God proclaims that Job had reproved God — a fact that Job, too, admits. Whether in response to his comforters or under the weight of unbearable sorrow, Job reproved God in his heart, doubting the Wisdom and Justness of his ways — a reproof that tacitly claims knowledge superior to God’s own.
To expose such hubris, Job was asked seventy-seven questions concerning the works of God, questions that laid bare Job’s complete lack of understanding — seven being the number of completion. Nowhere in these words does God seek to explain himself to Job. And yet, God does explain himself, though not with words. Job discovers satisfaction, not by explanation, but by the sight of God. Seeing the glory of the Lord with his own eyes, Job beholds the yawning gulf between himself and his Maker, and in the light of it, he repents of his lack of deference to one so great as he, one who fashioned not only Job but the world and all that is within it.
Leibniz’s optimism could easily be read as a display of hubris not unlike Job’s comforters. The trio approach their tormented friend with confidence that they know the ways of God. This “knowledge” offers a sure schematic for interpreting the events of the world, and thus, without any specific knowledge of Job’s affairs, they can be certain of what has befallen their friend and why. And so it is with Leibniz’s optimism. Were Leibniz to visit the man of Uz upon that dung heap, we might imagine his assurance to the One Who Weeps — it is all for the best.
Yet, I think this Voltaire-like representation of the philosopher of Leipzig fails to see him clearly. Leibniz’s optimism, I believe, bears greater resemblance to the faith of Job than to that of his comforters. Like Job, Leibniz looks to the nature of God himself, a nature so infinitely perfect that it overshadows whatever experiences might lead us to question God’s ways. Far from offering a simplistic schematic for interpreting good and evil, as professed by Job’s friends, Leibniz grants that our experiences often cause us to doubt the goodness of God. Yet, by looking to that divine nature, which is above all others, and discovering there Wisdom and Will that only embrace the highest, Leibniz counts all of our limited understanding as earth and ash. What he offers to the rational mind, then, is not an explanation of God’s reason, biut an assurance of God’s Goodness, Wisdom, and Justice, whatever evidence may mount to the contrary.