When Bad Things Happen to Good People? The perspective of Rabbi Harold Kushner
Explorations in the Book of Job, and the Problem of Theodicy – Part 2
Part 1: https://rogerarendse.substack.com/p/how-can-we-talk-of-the-god-of-justice
Context
In the next 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
Harold Kushner’s best known work on the subject of theodicy is his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People which was published in 1981, and which has since appeared in subsequent editions because of global interest and popular demand.
Kushner introduces his book in moving language as he explains his reasons for writing it (my emphasis added).
This is not an abstract book about God and theology. It does not try to use big words or clever ways of rephrasing questions in an effort to convince us that our problems are not really problems, but that we only think they are. This is a very personal book, written by someone who believes in God and in the goodness of the world, someone who has spent most of his life trying to help other people believe, and was compelled by a personal tragedy to rethink everything he had been taught about God and God’s ways.
Our son Aaron had just passed his third birthday when our daughter Ariel was born. Aaron was a bright and happy child, who before the age of two could identify a dozen different varieties of dinosaur and could patiently explain to an adult that dinosaurs were extinct. My wife and I had been concerned about his health from the time he stopped gaining weight at the age of eight months, and from the time his hair started falling out after he turned one year old. Prominent doctors had seen him, had attached complicated names to his condition, and had assured us that he would grow to be very short but would be normal in all other ways. Just before our daughter’s birth, we moved from New York to a suburb of Boston, where I became the rabbi of the local congregation. We discovered that the local pediatrician was doing research in problems of children’s growth, and we introduced him to Aaron. Two months later—the day our daughter was born—he visited my wife in the hospital, and told us that our son’s condition was called progeria, “rapid aging.” He went on to say that Aaron would never grow much beyond three feet in height, would have no hair on his head or body, would look like a little old man while he was still a child, and would die in his early teens.
How does one handle news like that? I was a young, inexperienced rabbi, not as familiar with the process of grief as I would later come to be, and what I mostly felt that day was a deep, aching sense of unfairness. It didn’t make sense. I had been a good person. I had tried to do what was right in the sight of God. More than that, I was living a more religiously committed life than most people I knew, people who had large, healthy families. I believed that I was following God’s ways and doing His work. How could this be happening to my family? If God existed, if He was minimally fair, let alone loving and forgiving, how could He do this to me?
Aaron, the son of Harold Kushner and his wife and the brother of daughter Ariel died two days after his fourteenth birthday.
Kushner concludes this introduction with these words:
This is his [Aaron’s] book, because any attempt to make sense of the world’s pain and evil will be judged a success or a failure based on whether it offers an acceptable explanation of why he and we had to undergo what we did. And it is his book in another sense as well—because his life made it possible, and because his death made it necessary.
I have begun our focus on Rabbi Kushner’s perspectives on the theodicy questions by quoting liberally and intentionally from the introduction to his book - to give you a sense of the person and his pain.
The rest of what follows in the essay is more philosophical and theological, so this background is vital to appreciate and bear in mind as we proceed. Despite all the hard questions he wrestles with in the book and subsequently, Kushner retained his trust in God until his recent death in 2023, aged 88. (You can access his book online and read the full introduction and content for yourself if you have not done so yet).
The philosophical-judicial approach of Harold S. Kushner
Kushner believes the book of Job is the work of an unknown author who responds creatively and critically to a traditional kind of morality fable which is alive his community. The morality fable in its original form is stating:
When hard times befall you, don’t be tempted to give up your faith in God. He has his reasons for what he is doing and if you hold on to your faith long enough, He will compensate you for your sufferings. (Kushner 1981:41)
However, when the author of Job reads this morality fable, he asks new and more radical questions: “What kind of God allows the suffering and even killing of the innocent, simply to win a bet with Satan? What kind of religion is it that finds pleasure in blind obedience of the believer and which regards all protest against injustice as sinful?
Kushner’s three traditional-philosophical-judicial statements
Kushner (1981:45) believes that the theodicy question in Job must be understood in relation to three traditional, philosophical and judicial statements or propositions. He maintains that most believers would want to hold these in mind when they read the book of Job:
A. God is all-powerful and causes everything that happens in the world. Nothing happens without His willing it.
B. God is just and fair (good), and stands for people getting what they deserve, so that the good prosper and the wicked are punished.
C. Job is a good person.
Kushner (1981:45) recognises that all of these statements can be believed without any problems, only if Job is healthy and wealthy. As soon as Job suffers ill-health and poverty, then the problem of theodicy inevitably arises. Now only two statements or propositions can be believed in, while a third proposition has to be rejected.
If God is both just and powerful, then Job must be a sinner who deserves what is happening to him. If Job is good but God causes his suffering anyway, then God is not just. If Job deserved better and God did not send his suffering, then God is not all-powerful. We can see the argument of the Book of Job as an argument over which of the three statements we are prepared to sacrifice, so that we can keep on believing in the other two.
The main issue and argument in the book of Job is which one of the three propositions as outlined above are we as believers prepared to give up so that we can go on believing in the other two?
In his efforts to address this main issue, Kushner (191:45-53) proceeds to examine the theodicy question in relation to respective views and responses of the friends of Job, Job himself, and the author of Job.
Job’s friends reject proposition C
Firstly, according to Kushner, the friends of Job decide to reject proposition C – that Job is a good person. They want to continue to believe in the traditional and conventional view of God as all-powerful, set out in proposition A, and God who is good, as stated in proposition B. In their response to Job, they adopt the traditional view and logic of the doctrine of retribution which we have already alluded to in Part 1 (models of interpretion).
Kushner explains. If Job is innocent and good, then it must be that God must be the one who is guilty for making an innocent man suffer. But this option is not possible for them, and it is contrary to the traditional belief. The friends insist, rather, that if God is all-powerful and good, then it must be that Job has done something (sinned) to deserve the suffering he is experiencing. This second option is much more acceptable to them.
Kushner, though, sees problems in the friends’ position. Their argument is “an insult to the bereaved and unfortunate” (1981:46). In justifying God, they want to also justify themselves. In doing this, they end up condemning the sufferer or victim in the social community without really understanding the why of his/her suffering. The sufferer ends up with a double-condemnation and misfortune (pain from punishment and pain in separation and punishment from the community). The sufferer’s second situation is now worse than the first.
Blaming the victim is a way of reassuring ourselves that the world is not as bad a place as it may seem, and that there are good reasons for people’s suffering. It helps fortunate people believe that their good fortune is deserved, rather than being a matter of luck. It makes everyone feel better—except the victim, who now suffers the double abuse of social condemnation on top of his original misfortune. This is the approach of Job’s friends, and while it may solve their problem, it does not solve Job’s, or ours. (ibid.)
Job rejects proposition B
Secondly, Kushner sees Job rejecting proposition B, the belief in God’s justice and goodness. He believes strongly that he is a good person, maybe not perfect, but he is not worse than others. He is no villain. He protests against the notion that he should deserve the suffering he experiences while others do not have to. Job, therefore, accepts the two statements: that he is a good person (C), and that God is so powerful that God is not limited even by the standards of fairness and justice (B). It is as if Job is stating in modern terms:
If God were limited by fairness and justice, then he could be treated like a ‘vending machine’ (slot-machine) in which we put in our ‘money’ (a bit of good, just action), and God is compelled by us to dish out his reward and protection.
However, for Job, God cannot have any limitations in who God is and what God does:
Job 9:1-12
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Job Replies:
9 Then Job answered:
2 “Indeed, I know that this is so,
but how can a mortal be just before God?
3 If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand.
4 He is wise in heart and mighty in strength;
who has resisted him and succeeded?
5 He removes mountains, and they do not know it
when he overturns them in his anger;
6 he shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
7 he commands the sun, and it does not rise;
he seals up the stars;
8 he alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the Sea;[a]
9 he made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10 he does great things beyond understanding
and marvelous things without number.
11 Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
12 He snatches away; who can stop him?
Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’
God is free, therefore, of the limitation of fairness and justice.
Kushner takes issue with Job’s argument and response to the theodicy issue. (cf. 1981:48-49). For Kushner, this makes God into a kind of “Oriental potentate, with unchallenged power over life and property of his subjects.”
And in fact, the old fable of Job does picture God in just that way, as a deity who afflicts Job without any moral qualms in order to test his loyalty, and who feels that He has “made it up” to Job afterward by rewarding him lavishly. The God of the fable, held up as a figure to be worshiped for so many generations, is very much like an (insecure) ancient king, rewarding people not for their goodness but for their loyalty.
So Job constantly wishes that there were an umpire to mediate between himself and God, someone God would have to explain Himself to. But when it comes to God, he ruefully admits, there are no rules. “Behold He snatches away and who can hinder Him? Who can say to Him, What are You doing?” (Job 9:12)
The author of the book of Job rejects proposition A
Thirdly, Kushner maintains that the author of the book of Job rejects proposition A, namely, that God is all-powerful. This appears to be view which Kushner himself adopts in his book. He acknowledges that this is a position he was at first reluctant to come to, but argues that this is only one that makes the best rational and theological sense to him. (You decide for yourself whether this is a proposition that you too are persuaded by).
The author of Job places his argument in the climactic speech in which God responds to Job (chapters 39-41). While this speech is not easy for us as modern readers to understand, Kushner (1981:50) suggests that the author is here accepting the propositions that God is good and just (B) and that Job is good and innocent (C), but he does not accept the view that God is all-powerful (A). In other words, bad things such as injustice, suffering of the innocent, poverty and oppression do happen, but it is not God who wills it.
Forced to choose between a good God who is not totally powerful, or a powerful God who is not totally good, the author of the Book of Job chooses to believe in God’s goodness. The most important lines in the entire book may be the ones spoken by God in the second half of the speech from the whirlwind, chapter 40, verses 9–14:
Have you an arm like God?
Can you thunder with a voice like His?
You tread down the wicked where they stand,
Bury them in the dust together . . .
Then will I acknowledge that your own right hand
Can give you victory.
The author of Job seems to be saying, according to Kushner, that even God cannot control all the forces of cruelty and chaos in the world, though he always desires well-being and order in the world. Stated another way, “innocent people do suffer misfortunes in this life,” but “the misfortunes do not come from God at all.” (Kushner 1981:51).
If God is a God of justice [and goodness], and not of power, then He can still be on our side when bad things happen to us. (ibid.:52)
What Kushner in effect does, in his interpretation of the theodicy problem, is to change the question, “why does God allow the innocent to suffer?’ into a prayer/plea to God: “See what is happening to me, and strengthen me, and comfort me.”
Conclusion – Part 2
Once again, I encourage you to read the book of Kushner (1981) to appreciate his interpretation of Job in relation to the problem of theodicy.
You may wish to consider the strengths and limitations of Kushner’s interpretation of the message of Job. For example, one strength would be to see that God is on our side as innocent or unjust sufferers when we experience oppression, poverty, ill-health, and malnutrition. God is not the one who wills or causes these things to happen as some form of cruel punishment for what we have done or not done. A limitation would be that if God is not all-powerful and ultimately cannot control or prevent chaos and suffering in the world, is there any sense in believing in or striving for an ordered world free from all forces of chaos?
Kushner concludes his book (chapter 8) with a question that likely many raise, perhaps some reading this essay: “What Good,Then, Is Religion?” Allow me to quote, quite liberally once again, the closing words to this chapter and which provides the conclusion to Kushner’s book (my emphasis added):
In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.
Are you capable of forgiving and accepting in love a world which has disappointed you by not being perfect, a world in which there is so much unfairness and cruelty, disease and crime, earthquake and accident? Can you forgive its imperfections and love it because it is capable of containing great beauty and goodness, and because it is the only world we have?
Are you capable of forgiving and loving the people around you, even if they have hurt you and let you down by not being perfect? Can you forgive them and love them, because there aren’t any perfect people around, and because the penalty for not being able to love imperfect people is condemning oneself to loneliness?
Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck and sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you? Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite His limitations, as Job does, and as you once learned to forgive and love your parents even though they were not as wise, as strong, or as perfect as you needed them to be?
And if you can do these things, will you be able to recognize that the ability to forgive and the ability to love are the weapons God has given us to enable us to live fully, bravely, and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world?
I think of Aaron and all that his life taught me, and
I realize how much I have lost and how much I
have gained. Yesterday seems less painful,
and I am not afraid of tomorrow.
Reflection and Journalling Exercise
Review the three statements/propositions which Kushner sets out.
Assuming Kushner’s position that only two propositions can be held and one must be rejected: which of the respective choices presented (those of the friends of Job, Job himself, and the author of Job) make most sense to you? Which one resonates? And why do you say so?
Reread the introductory and closing comments offered by Kushner and which are provided in this essay. How do you find yourself responding to these words? Why is this so?
What questions are you still left with after re-reading the Book of Job and when you confront the problem of theodicy. Perhaps you’d like to share some of these in the comments.
References (Part 2)
Holy Bible, The New Revised Standard Version (use any version of your choice)
Kushner, H.S. 1981 When Bad Things Happen To Good People. U.S.A.:Schocken Books
Kushner, H.S. 1986. Keynote Address on “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.”
2022. “When Bad Things Happen To Good People Summary (Animated) — Don't Try to Explain Misfortune, Use It!”
2023 – Interview with Ariel Kushner after her father’s passing. NPR 30 April 2023
Thank you for reading Part 2 in my four-part series on the book of Job and the problem of theodicy. (Remember to read Part 1 if you have not yet done so).
Kindly consider sharing these essays with others who may benefit.
I look forward to welcoming you back for Part 3 when we shall look at Walter Brueggemann’s interpretation on Job, and the question of theodicy.
Blessings!