God's Responsibility for the Suffering of Innocent People - Research Paper Example

Natural evils whereby evil events, which man cannot control or does not initiate like floods, earthquakes and illnesses and moral evils which are caused by the free choices that man makes are the two types of evils that are found in the world (Fischer, Fischer & Hart, 117). Thinkers have advanced various ideas about evil with Thomas Aquinas stating that God created the universe with laws of nature that sometimes lead to evil, giving the example of the law of gravity that can make an object to hit someone’s head as it obeys the law.

He concluded that God does not desire bad things to happen but allows them so as to respect the natural laws that he created. Job’s friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zopher tried to offer an explanation about the cause of the suffering, indicating that Job must have done something wrong to warrant the suffering, and we could probably from a worldly perspective conclude that much of that which happens to man is caused by human behavior Fischer, Fischer & Hart, 119). The friends continue to remind Job that God cannot chastise an innocent person.

Jesus Christ Himself admonished those who he healed to ‘go and sin no more’. . hat He could do what He wanted, meaning that being God, he had reasons beyond man’s comprehension for doing and allowing things to occur the way they do. Job 40:2 asks,’ shall he that contends with the Almighty instruct Him? He that reproves God let him answer it. While the answer by God may portray arrogance, God means that there are things that He does in His wisdom, which man cannot understand, with man being able just to see the short term but God seeing the long term.

In Job 38 and onwards, God answers Job, declaring His incomparable power over the whole universe, asking almost sarcastically where Job was when He laid the foundations of the world, signifying Jobs insignificance in judging or understanding anything that He does (Fischer, Fischer & Hart, 117). God describes further the majestic and wonderful creatures that He has made including leviathan who He is able to pull with a fish hook, and that it is He who controls them and satisfies their hunger. God in other words informs Job that He is the one responsible for all creation and also what thinkers and philosophers call the law of nature.

Job 42 sees a changed Job who repents in dust and ashes as he admits that while he had in the past only heard of God, now he had seen Him, meaning he had understood about the wisdom of God and that he realized that all along, God had been in control of the situation. The story of Job concludes that to understand God, He must be let to be God, or in other words cannot be questioned in His actions since they cannot be comprehended. Job seems to have understood that the world remains what it is, with good and evil, chaos and order all coexisting, with the option being submitting to the mysterious power and will of God because in the midst of evil, He will control the