Some
Lessons from Job
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the December 31, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“Now
faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see…By
faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to
save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the
righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” Hebrews 11:1, 7, NIV
When I was a young Theology and Biblical Languages
student at Walla Walla College in the 1970s, I worked one summer as a Circle Irrigation
Technician for a sugar beet farming corporation. The pay was better than I
could make in the Walla Walla area as a student, but it required a long commute
to the Tri-cities. Therefore three of us, all theology majors, commuted
together to save money on gas. As we were driving, we would explore various
philosophies and comparative religions to kill the time during an otherwise
boring trip through the desert of Eastern Washington State. One of the
questions that came up was whether the world was as it was because we wanted it
to be that way or if it existed independent of our thoughts and perceptions. In
other words was a rock a rock because I wanted or needed it to be a rock, or
would it still be a rock even if I didn’t exist to perceive it as a rock? No
doubt, you can see from this that it takes a “special” kind of person to pursue
philosophy and theology, not better, just special.
Others may not see the need for such distinctions. They might argue that reality
is what it is, and our powers of perception have little relevance to its
existence. But as we can see from the picture accompanying this commentary, our
ability to perceive that reality is very limited. Visible light consists of the
short range from approximately 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers. There is a
vast range from Radio Waves to Gamma Rays that we cannot see, even though we
have developed ways to measure their presence. For instance, our eyes cannot
see in the infrared or Ultra-violet range without technical enhancements. But
for a bee, the entire world is filled with ultra-violet emanations. Needless to
say, the world the bee sees is dramatically different from ours, and could the
bee speak, it might challenge our definition of reality that we have cobbled together
based on an incomplete worldview. We may consider ourselves the more advanced
species, but our Creator has left us somewhat developmentally disabled when it
comes to perceiving our world.
The history of science has shown us that we have grown
in our ability to perceive and measure these things over time, but we still fathom
so little of what is. Even worse, the more we delve into these things at the
subatomic level, the more uncertain our ability to observe and measure becomes.
We encounter things that can exist in two separate states simultaneously. How
can that be? Even though it can be demonstrated through complex physics
equations, most of us are left to accept these things on faith, acknowledging
that some realities are beyond facile explanations, and maybe even beyond any
explanation we could conceive, due simply to our limited ability to perceive.
The bee is only a simple example of that limitation.
Strangely, in spite of our ability to understand such
limitations in our physical world, we find it difficult to accept that such
things might apply to a spiritual understanding as well. In fact, many might
deny that there even is such a thing as spiritual perception.[i] But this may make as much
sense as denying that the ultra-violet light spectrum exists. “Yeah, right!”
says the bee.
The history of science is filled with discoveries. Nobel prizes are awarded
annually to mark the importance of some of those discoveries. But in order for
those discoveries to happen, someone must first believe that there is something
to discover that may have been there all along, but undetected. Some of these
things like dynamite, which funded the establishment of the Nobel Prize, were
combinations of chemicals that were new and produced unprecedented reactions.
Others came about through penetrative journeys into the molecular, atomic, and
sub-atomic worlds that not only surround us but of which we consist.
Discoveries that occur as a result of these voyages seem to be happening at an
ever accelerating rate, and these discoveries are not limited to those
perceived only with microscopes, physics equations and hyper-sensitive
measuring devices. They occur on a grander scale as well. As we turn our
measuring devices, equations, and telescopes out toward the great universe that
surrounds us, we discover far more depth than we thought possible. We are even
now attempting to measure and understand “dark matter”[ii] even though we cannot see
it. Invisible, it may make up approximately 27% of our universe. But even with
those objects we can see, their sheer numbers overwhelm our understanding. If
we could fill our field of view with fifty thousand observable galaxies, that
would still only represent 3% of them.[iii] Some of what we have measured
is so vast that we are stretching the limits of our capabilities to do so. For
instance to measure gravitational waves, we had to construct facilities
thousands of miles apart in Washington and Louisiana.[iv] Gravitons are even harder
to detect. It has been speculated that measuring the presence of gravitons with
a detector the size of Jupiter and placed adjacent to a neutron star would
still only detect one graviton every decade.[v] In spite of our tremendous
technological advances, we continue to be stymied by our inability to adequately
observe phenomena that are unfolding all around us. They may even have profound
effects on our world and our lives, but to us they may as well be phantasmal spirits
for all we know about them.
This brings us, of course, to Job. How much was he aware of the forces responsible
for what he suffered? For that matter, how much are we aware of the forces that
shape our lives? So many of us are caught up in a routine of work, eat, sleep
and perhaps a little entertainment thrown in now and again that we are
willingly unaware not only of the scientific discoveries I have mentioned, but
also may be oblivious to those forces we would consider “spiritual” as well.
Job was aware of a spiritual aspect to his universe as evidenced by his prayers
and sacrifices.[vi]
However, he may not have been aware of what went on “backstage” that profoundly
affected what took place on stage. In other words, in spite of any faith Job
may have possessed, he may not have been able to penetrate to the level of spiritual
understanding that would have revealed any sort of cause and effect for his
suffering. Job’s friends revealed their own lack of understanding as well. Interestingly,
they were profoundly male in their approach to Job. So many of us men have the
flaw that we feel that every problem requires solving. This creates no end of
frustration for our wives who may be seeking compassion and empathy when they
share a problem with us. They may feel we do not even hear them, because our
minds are already spinning trying to come up with a solution to the problem
they have shared.
Job’s friends sought for a solution to the problem of
Job’s suffering. Since God was infallible, they reasoned, the problem must
reside with Job, so they chastised him for unconfessed sins and urged him to
repent. Just like our wives at times do with us when we take this approach, Job
lost patience with his friends. The book does not reveal if Job or his friends
were ever told about what had gone on behind the scenes to precipitate his
suffering, but since it is covered in the first two chapters, perhaps we can
assume it eventually became known. In any event, an important theme in the book
is that we cannot understand everything that may transpire, even though we may
wish to and even struggle mightily to understand. But based on what has been
revealed, we might establish a basis for faith, even in the absence of
understanding. We can trust our Creator that everything is unfolding as it
should. As we look up in the night sky, faithfully believing that the stars and
other celestial bodies will remain in their expected places, we may also have
faith that the spiritual principles presented to us through the Bible and
personal revelation can safely, in their harmonious application, serve as safe
guides into and through the unknown dimensions of spirituality that challenge
the limits of our perception. But in order for that to work, just like with
science, we must believe that there is something to discover, or we may not see
it even if it stands right in front of us.
