A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [46]
Does the Bible alone provide enough clarity to resolve all questions, as a good constitution should? No. We have no reason to believe it was ever meant to do that, as much as we’ve tried to force it to do so. From all sides it becomes clear that the Bible, if it is truly inspired by God, wasn’t meant to end conversation and give the final word on controversies. If this were its purpose, it has failed miserably. (This fact must be faced.) But if, instead, it was inspired and intended to stimulate conversation, to keep people thinking and talking and arguing and seeking, across continents and centuries, it has succeeded and is succeeding in a truly remarkable way.4
That success shines in the last section of the book of Job. What does God do when God finally breaks silence and begins to speak? Does God explain the situation to Job and his friends? Definitively answer the question of human suffering and evil? Give them a precise description of the encounter with the Satan that we readers are given in the introduction and declare that the problem of evil’s existence is now solved? As we’ve already seen, no, no, and no. God never does that. Instead, God responds with a hurricane of questions. “What about this?” God asks. “What about that? How is snow formed? Do you understand that? How about this—how did the crocodile get his thick skin? Do you know?” If it were today, God might be asking, “How does DNA carry traits? How are instincts passed on in animals? How does consciousness arise in the human body and brain, and what is consciousness? What is dark matter? Why did the big bang happen? Why does the speed of light appear to be absolute? Is cold fusion possible? How do you program a TV remote control?”
What is God revealing in all these questions? Certainly not answers! No, if we experience the Word, or Self-Revealing of God, in these questions, it doesn’t come as an explanation, a statement, a solution. It comes as a sense of wonder, humility, rebuke, and smallness in the face of the unknown. What if that is the truest and best kind of revelation there ever can be for creatures such as us?
So, in Job we have several voices: the Satan’s, Job’s, his wife’s, Eliphaz’s, Bildad’s, Zophar’s, Elihu’s, and God’s (or a character named God, a subject to which we will return shortly). And in the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole, we have so many voices, and voices of different kinds—priests, who differ from prophets, who differ from sages, who differ from poets, who differ from chroniclers or storytellers, and so on. Similarly, in the Christian Scriptures we have several gospels: Matthew’s, Mark’s, Luke’s, and John’s. And we have many other voices as well—those of Paul, John, Peter, James, and Jude. Could Job be a fractal of the whole Bible, then: many voices arguing, debating, stating and counterstating, asking and answering?
As we listen and enter into the conversation ourselves, could it be that God’s Word, God’s speaking, God’s self-revealing happens to us, sneaks up, surprises and ambushes us, transforms us, and disarms us—rather than arms us with “truths” to use like weapons to savage other human beings? Could it be that God’s Word intends not to give us easy answers and shortcuts to confidence and authority, but rather to reduce us, again and again, to a posture of wonder, humility, rebuke, and smallness in the face of the unknown?
The “us” in the previous sentence raises another question. Do we have a voice in the biblical drama? In other words, does the Bible tell us to shut up and listen, because everything is settled? Or does it invite us to be part of the conversation? Job itself may provide the answer. When Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu quote Deuteronomy to Job, that doesn’t end the conversation. Job doesn’t sit back and say, “Thanks, I needed that. Deuteronomy says it; I believe it; that settles it.” No, he says, “Are you kidding? I can’t buy that!” And then it is skeptical Job who gets God’s commendation at the end, not Job’s pious friends.
So perhaps, when God says Job