How Does History Work? The Perspective of Old Testament Theologian Professor Walter Brueggemann
Explorations in the Book of Job, and the Problem of Theodicy – Part 3
Part 1: https://rogerarendse.substack.com/p/how-can-we-talk-of-the-god-of-justice
Part 2: https://rogerarendse.substack.com/p/when-bad-things-happen-to-good-people
Context
In the three essays (Parts 2 to 4), we shall explore the problem of theodicy through a focus on the book of Job and drawing on the perspectives of three different scholars; each one who has engaged with Job (and other biblical texts on the subject).
The first is a Jewish rabbi, Harold S. Kushner (Part 2); the second is a North American Christian and Old Testament theologian, Walter Bruegemman (Part 3), and the third is the Peruvian liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez (Part 4).
Our primary question is: “What are the main interpretations which each scholar offers to address the problem of theodicy?” Two related questions are: “What are some advantages and disadvantages of each approach? And, “which approach resonates most with you and helps you to understand and address the problem?” I will sometimes offer some preliminary comments of my own in response to the last two questions, though I invite you to be the main judge on the basis of the different content provided.
All the while, as you read and reflect on these essays, I ask you to keep an open mind before coming to any definitive conclusions.
Introduction
Walter Brueggemann reminds us of the two related issues which confront us when we address the questions of theodicy: God (theos) and Justice (dikē). But he rejects the way the theodicy question is traditionally dealt with by Old Testament (OT) scholars.
He does not believe that the theodicy question in Job or other OT texts can be adequately or satisfactorily dealt with and answered within the narrow frameworks of philosophy, religion, morality, or nature.
In this essay, we summarise the main features of Brueggemann’s sociological/materialist approach to the theodicy question in the Book of Job. We shall focus primarily on Brueggemann’s essay in the Journal for the Study of Old Testament (JSOT), published in October, 1985, and entitled “Theodicy in a Social Dimension.”
At the start of this essay, Brueggemann states that “the issue of theodicy in current theological discussion is articulated in three distinct but not unrelated conversations.” (ibid.:3). He sees the first as the more pastoral and popular conversation on theodicy as reflected best in rabbi Harold Kushner’s (1981) book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People which we have summarised in Part 2. While acknowledging that the theodicy question is “effectively posed” in Kushner’s book, Brueggemann believes “its argument seems romantic and scarcely adequate.” (ibid.). In the second place, OT studies of theodicy conventionally trace the issues back to the crisis of 587 BCE (before the common era) and the “relatively miserable situation of exilic and post-exilic communities” (ibid.). In these situations, “older historic traditions of confession are founding wanting” and requires renewed interpretations. Conventionally, the question of theodicy receives this form of renewed interpretation in “an early form of Habakkuk, in Jeremiah and Job.” A third conversation in theodicy relates to real social events and processes, such as the holocaust which refocuses “the question of God’s justice in inescapable ways and has muted old answers.” In some ways, the holocaust is an echo of the dilemma of Job, though the holocaust is “of such unutterable magnitude and irrationality that it violates any parallel with old tradition” (ibid.). Brueggemann wants to locate his perspective within this third theodic conversational space.
Brueggemann’s sociological/materialist approach to the theodicy question
How does history work?
Brueggemann insists on a sociological/materialist approach to the question of theodicy. By this he means that God’s justice (literally theodicy) is “a social question about social power and social access, about greed upon systems and practices of social production, distribution, possession, and consumption” (Brueggemann 1985:4).
A materialist reading of the theodicy in Job, for Brueggemann, is not the Marxist notion that may end up rejecting God or the spiritual dimension. Rather, materialist is taken in its literal sense as that which takes account of “the material basis and historical context of real social life” (ibid.:22, note 10). This means that “the justice of God cannot be separated from the actual experience of justice in the social process, because Yahweh’s presence in Israel is known through and against the social process” (ibid.:4).
The central question of theodicy for Brueggemann (1985:10, 21), following a scholar called D.N. Freedman, is not “why do the innocent suffer?” but rather “how does history work?’
In reply to this new formulation of the question, Brueggemann connects the question of God and justice directly to the question of social power and social processes. In other words, for Brueggemann, God and the working of God’s justice in history is not something theoretical, abstract, or even supernatural. God’s justice is best understood by human beings as it operates through particular social processes and through their access to and control of goods and power in society. If this is accepted, argues Brueggemann, then the problem of theodicy (God’s justice) is best understood in the context of social evil.
Social evil
Brueggemann (ibid.:5) defines what he means by social evil.
Social evil concerns those arrangements of social power and social process that enable goods and access to be systematically legitimated by religious ideology though nonetheless unjust.
For Brueggemann, this dimension of social evil was as real for ancient Israel (the context of Job) as it is for us today (the modern interpreters of Job). This fact immediately raises a hermeneutical question for Brueggemann: “How are we to read the text of Job and understand it today?” His answer is that how we understand Job and the problem of theodicy depends directly on our own perspective, and our perspective in turn relates directly to our social location (where we are positioned in society? [For example, are we among the wealthy and prosperous or among the poor and suffering? Are we ‘haves’ or ‘have nots’?’]
What does this all mean when applied to a text such as Job 21:7?
Job 21: 1-7
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Job Replies: The Wicked Often Go Unpunished
21 Then Job answered:
2 “Listen carefully to my words,
and let this be your consolation.
3 Bear with me, and I will speak;
then after I have spoken, mock on.
4 As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals?
Why should I not be impatient?
5 Look at me and be appalled,
and lay your hand upon your mouth.
6 When I think of it I am dismayed,
and shuddering seizes my flesh.
7 Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
And by implication, “why do the righteous/good die young and lose power?”
This text raises the familiar issue which frames the theodicy question, namely, the Deed-Consequence link, i.e. the connection between what we do and what reward or punishment we receive for our deeds (see Part 1).
Job is asking, “Why those who do wicked deeds continue to live a long life of happiness and prosperity?” whereas (by implication) “the deeds of the righteous is a life of misery and poverty?” Brueggemann suggests that answers to these questions which Job raises cannot be found in traditional approaches which critique God. He invites us to understand the theodicy question in Job 21:7 within the broader context of the text, namely, Job 21: 8-13, 19-20, 23-24):
Job 21:8-24
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 Their children are established in their presence
and their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.
10 Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and never miscarries.
11 They send out their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance around.
12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.
14 They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!
We do not desire to know your ways.
15 What is the Almighty,[a] that we should serve him?
And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’
16 Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement?[b]
The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.17 “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
How often does calamity come upon them?
How often does God[c] distribute pains in his anger?
18 How often are they like straw before the wind
and like chaff that the storm carries away?
19 You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’
Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it.
20 Let their own eyes see their destruction,
and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.[d]
21 For what do they care for their household after them,
when the number of their months is cut off?
22 Will any teach God knowledge,
seeing that he judges those who are on high?
23 One dies in full prosperity,
being wholly at ease and secure,
24 his loins full of milk
and the marrow of his bones moist.
Brueggemann (ibid.:13) concludes that:
the well-being of children, houses, bulls, and cows of the wicked is not caused directly by God as though by edict, but that the well-being takes place through the nexus of the social processes Brueggemann (ibid.:13).
The poor (have nots) in Israel (who read Job) would resent the wicked because they enjoy a monopoly of (or power over) the social processes.
The question of land
Brueggemann indicates how often the question of theodicy in Job is closely connected with the question of land. Indeed, the whole book of Job is framed by two statements, both of them concerning the land (Job 1:10; 42:15):
Job 1:10
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
10 Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
And,
Job 42:15
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
15 In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers.
In other words, the book of Job develops around the theme of land loss and land restoration. In response to Job’s suffering and loss of land, Job’s friends use the conventional argument (cf. Brueggemann 1985:14-15): “Job deserves to lose the land because he did not conduct his land possession according to the norms of his society.” As Brueggemann (ibid.:15-16) states, Job’s friends insist on a social system or view of the world where:
“life is organised so that socially responsible people possess land. Clearly God governs so. Clearly as well, the social apparatus is organised to assure this. The destiny of the righteous and the wicked is not simply a heavenly verdict, but a social process.
In simpler language, the possession of land is God’s will and blessing. The loss of land is not God’s will, rather God’s curse and punishment.
Job questions the conventional view of the social system
At one point in his life, Job himself accepted and believed what Brueggemann (ibid.:16) calls the “theodic ideology” of his friends, when the conventional view of the social system worked, and the “social undesirables” got what they deserved. For example:
Job 30:5-8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 They are driven out from society;
people shout after them as after a thief.
6 In the gullies of wadis they must live,
in holes in the ground and in the rocks.
7 Among the bushes they bray;
under the nettles they huddle together.
8 A senseless, disreputable brood,
they have been whipped out of the land.
But now, Job’s current experiences, particularly his own loss of land, raises questions about the “theodic ideology” of his friends. It no longer works. The deed-consequence system has failed to function as it should. And for Job, the crisis is far greater because it appears that God Himself is the one who legitimates and sanctions this new social system and practice where the wicked are the ones who benefit and prosper.
Job 9:24
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
24 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
he covers the eyes of its judges—
if it is not he, who then is it?Job 12:24
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
24 He strips understanding from the leaders[a] of the earth
and makes them wander in a pathless waste.Job 24:1-4
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
24 “Why are times not kept by the Almighty,[a]
and why do those who know him never see his days?
2 The wicked[b] remove landmarks;
they seize flocks and pasture them.
3 They drive away the donkey of the orphan;
they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
4 They thrust the needy off the road;
the poor of the earth all hide themselves.
In these verses, Job protests strongly because God sanctions unfair, unreliable social practices and agents. In other words, “Job no longer trusts the social system of rewards and punishments” (ibid.:17).
Job accepts the fundamental premise of the friends, but observes that the system has collapsed. (ibid.)
How does the book of Job resolve the theodicy crisis of Job?
The question is “how does the book of Job resolve the theodicy crisis of Job?” For Brueggemann, the resolution of the crisis is not philosophical, spiritual, moral, or supernatural, but again only through concrete social and material processes and channels. In Job, the righting of the wrongs and injustice (such as land loss) is corrected through the righting of social structures and social processes (ibid.:20). For example, the crisis of Job as expressed in 21:7 (the prosperity and long life of the wicked) moves to the resolution of the crisis in Job 42:10-13 (the restoration by the community giving).
For Israel, (the community for whom the theodic literature such as Job is written), the attack on God’s justice is only resolved through the concrete social process. Therefore, God and God’s justice is directly linked to the social process which is the only reality that Israel understands or is interested in (ibid.:20).
Conclusion – Part 3
To the restated question of theodicy that Brueggemann raises: “How does history work?” the conclusion is that God (theos) and God’s justice (dikē ) must be understood in relation to the concrete social and material context. As Brueggemann (1985:21) states:
Yahweh is discerned in Israel, sometimes as the impetus of the social process, sometimes as the norm, and sometimes as the agent of the transformation of the process.
Reflection and Journalling Exercise
What are the main features of Walter Brueggemann’s perspective on the theodicy question in the book of Job?
How does Brueggemann’s perspective resonate with you?
How helpful may Brueggemann’s approach be for understanding the issues of God, faith, and of good and evil in our contemporary societies?
What questions do you have after reading this essay?
References – Part 3
Holy Bible, The New Revised Standard Version (or any version of your choice)
Brueggemann, W. 1985. “Theodicy in a Social Dimension.” In The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, October, Volume 10, Issue 33, pp. 3-25.
Brueggemann. W. 2011 A Conversation on the Nature of Evil, 15 March 2011.
Once again, thank you for making time to read this essay.
Kindly consider sharing this content with interested persons in your networks.
I look forward to welcoming you back for Part 4 when we shall examine the perspective of Peruvian liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutiérrez.
Blessings!