Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the Earth" is about building the Earth. No one can dispute that. So then, what does that question have to do with the preceding 37 chapters and why isn't it a non sequitor? Because it is very clear from the context that Job feels it is relevant and he has no way to answer.
Now the previous 37 chapters did not seem to be a geological treatise on the creation, but rather a complaint and various justifications for how God was treating a man, Job.
|
God's response in chapter 38 and following is not viewed as a non sequitur just because Job did not talk about the creation of the earth. To suggest that it is indicates someone with no understanding.
But just because Job is complaining about how he has been treated — whether his complaint should be directed at God, Satan, or the "luck of the draw" — it was about how it is justified. He paints himself as unworthy of receiving what he got. And his friends question whether he did deserve it.
God says their sense of why is irrelevant. They have no right to question the one that put everything in place, including their very lives.
While it might make a decent sermon to suggest that all things build character (and that this time of suffering helped to strengthen Job's) the evidence as of the time that God appears to answer them all does not suggest that he was improving in character in any way. We are not presented with a "new and improved" Job. Just one who was granted more than he had before — something very different that a change on the inside.
To the very end of the book, God speaks about the things of creation and not of building man, or developing him. There is nothing that points to "building a man." And the most common understanding of this book is that "life happens" and you can't always figure it out or blame someone else.
Another novel view from another non-theologian is hard to accept on an "it is so" basis. You say that 'God is saying that He is "building a man" ' yet you supply nothing that suggests that is the case other than your declaration. It is so because you say it is and that this the thing we are going to look into? You could at least have provided something that
hints at the premise besides your own words.
If that is your premise, then the response is "nonsense." If you can build a relevant premise to think about, I will give it more consideration.
I will be reading here to find a renewed basis for the discussion. Mere griping about my complaint will be ignored.