Unresolved Tension and the Book of Job

I hate unresolved tension.  Most humans do.

Imagine a musician sitting at a piano, playing an octave upward one note at a time, but he stops just before hitting the final note that resolves the octave. Everything in you expects that last note. You want that last note. We wait for the resolution. If it never comes, the unfinished movement leaves you unsettled. It might nearly drive some people crazy!

The question of suffering can feel like that. We want answers, final answers that resolve the questions: Why do we suffer? Why does God allow it?

That’s where the book of Job in the Old Testament comes in. It is all about the question of suffering and the problem of evil. What is frustrating is that this book of the Bible doesn’t clear up the mystery. Job gives us progress without complete resolution.

We often assume that if God has a good reason for suffering, we should be able to see it. But there is a dangerous misstep in reasoning that says, “If I cannot perceive a reason, then there is no reason.”

Alvin Plantinga, one of the most influential Christian philosophers of our day, has thought deeply about what philosophers call the problem of evil and suffering. He points out that answering the logical problem does not require us to know God’s actual reason for every instance of suffering. It is enough to show that God may have a morally sufficient reason for permitting it, even if we cannot see that reason.

Our minds are limited. God’s mind is infinite. There will always be truths beyond our reach.

But God does play a note at the end of Job that rings with resolution and comfort. We will explore that in our current series on the Book of Job, Sunday mornings at Liberty Church.