“Why must the righteous suffer?” Has hitherto been one of the most profound and enigmatic philosophical, theological, moral, and ethical inquiries of all time. From both—moral and ethical—viewpoints, the question, in itself, is entirely void: simultaneously incomprehensible and repugnant. Morally speaking, the very use of the modal ‘must’ to modify the suffering of the righteous presents an unabashed immorality; for the whole notion of morality rests upon the premise that righteousness embodies the highest form of the human condition; eo ipso, ought to be rewarded. And for the father of Moral Philosophy, Socrates, that reward can never be anything less than a place among the gods, transcendence unto divinity. In similar vein, ethically speaking, no rational justification could manifest within human cognition for inflicting the righteous with any sort of suffering. Therefore, the answer to the question, “Why must the ‘righteous’ suffer?”, is fundamentally a philosophical and theological dialectic.
The book of Job in the Holy Bible, for theologians and philosophers alike, has served as an indispensable reference vis-á-vis that question in particular. It tells the story of an upright, God-fearing, and blameless man, whom God had blessed with all sorts of grace and erected a protective fence (metaphorically speaking)—keeping the man, his household, and all his possessions perfectly safe, and sustained his prosperity. God boasted of His servant Job before the angelic host and Satan:
“And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God, and escheweth evil?
Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.” (Job 1: 7-12 (KJV))
Satan embarked to earth; went on and killed all Job’s children, servants (sparing only one from each calamity to carry the news to his master (i.e. Job)) and livestock, and destroyed all his possessions. The same deliberation recurred afterwards; only then Satan provoked God to lift his protecting hand off of Job himself; reasoning that ‘skin for skin,’ Job would abandon his righteousness and blaspheme against God. Indeed, God granted Satan his bid—placing Job under the latter’s power, but forbade the evil one from taking the man’s life.
Job mourned. Once exalted in the land, thenceforth was abased. Once respected, thenceforth became the laughingstock of the people. Once blessed and protected, thenceforth smitten and exposed. Notwithstanding, neither in his heart, nor in his utterance had Job till that point sinned against the LORD God.
“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him… So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.” (Job 2: 11, 13 (KJV))
Job was the first one to speak. He cursed his day and the day he was born. Then each of his friends, in his turn, began to reason with Job about the cause for the evils which had befallen him. They presumed that Job must had done some grave misdeed which provoked the wrath of God. But Job was innocent. After all, by God’s own admission, Job was a blameless and an upright man [emphasis added].
Erroneously accused and judged, Job was infuriated. He thus declaimed, so to speak, that: if he were to take the LORD God to court before a judge, the ruling would come in his favor. But Job’s resentment kindled the wrath of one young Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite; who felt compelled to interpose and rebuke Job for his ill-thinking of God—since none of the three wise men succeeded at revealing unto Job God’s purpose from this tribulation—; his spirit urged him to speak on the LORD God’s behalf, to prevent Job from condemning his [Job’s spirit] before God: “For he [Job] addeth rebellion unto his sin, he clappeth his hands among us, and multiplies his words against God,” (Job 34:37 (KJV)).
Elihu trusted that, despite his young age, God had placed some wisdom on his lips to teach the elders. He emphatically proceeded to explicate at length how underneath Job’s woes there must be some divine wisdom, beyond human comprehension. Insofar that such wisdom and purpose are divine, one could only grasp them through faith and unwavering trust in the LORD God. Ultimately, his arguments built up to the zenith conclusion: that God expects man to trust Him and surrender himself entirely unto Him albeit all misery and hardships [This is the interpretation I have learned in a philosophy classroom]; namely to trust—even when man is one step away from the grave—that God is infinitely good; incapable of injustice; and, the fountainhead of love and all forms of life; so much so that his mysterious ways of instruction turn woes into blessings; and, He never fails to come to the rescue of the righteous; nor does He abandon those who place their hope in Him.
“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind…” (Job 38:1 (KJV)). God showed Job how everything in creation existentially depends on Him; and, while He can never need nor want, He graciously provides for all creatures and everything in creation; for He loves the work of His hands; albeit the fact that nothing in the existence entire could fully fathom Him or His purpose.
With fifty-eight question marks and few metaphysical and mundane statements of fact, the LORD God gracefully and kindheartedly enlightened Job regarding the latter’s understanding limitations and ignorance. And so it was that the upright and blameless in the eyes of the LORD had, in reality, no understanding of God’s benevolence and greatness. Thereupon, Job admitted, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer; yea, twice; but I will proceed no further,” (Job 40: 4, 5 (KJV)).
Another four and twenty question marks from the LORD God urged Job to confess more,
“I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42: 2- 6 (KJV))
Thereafter, God restored Job to his status-quo-ante of exaltation; only this time manifolds more had God blessed His servant Job, than He did prior to the latter’s tribulations.
Job, nevertheless, was a sui generic case amongst the righteous. The generic rule yet abides in his experience.
Christianly understood, redemption is obtained through faith. For the grain of faith to grow, flourish, and bear much fruit within man, one needs only confess God’s eternal and infinite love to mankind (alongside all the works of His Divine Hand)—which man can never fully fathom. To confess that which one understands not fully is a conditio sine qua non for faith. To confess that which is beyond our ability to imagine is the Christian creed. To confess, ultimately, that even from the darkest depths of the valley of death, God would not forsake His creation, and would even thence make ways to green pastures and prosperity, is the admission of God’s omnipotence.
In short, that life, grace, and prosperity are the only possibilities which can manifest into actualities for the righteous, is the one and uncontested truth with God; whilst everything else is a simulacrum; temporal; unreal; mere illusion; and, foremost, could only be permitted by the Almighty to fine-tune and upbuild man.
Sometimes rocks must be shattered into many pieces; mountains must be brought down to rubbles; even a celestial body has to fall and collide into earth; for a flawless [emphasis added] jewel to be exhumed. To elucidate the matter further, for a tree to grow, the seed must needs shoot some roots into the soil, before it protrudes above the surface and sprout. That is the natural order and sequence of events pertaining to growth and prosperity.
Philosophically understood, Job had every reason to be upright, God-fearing, and blameless, and none to be otherwise. His merits were never put to the test. It was wholly God’s design that Job was elevated unto righteousness as well as blamelessness. Rationally speaking, neither incentive nor cause were present to stir him up in order to contend with the Most High. Hence, it was only after Job was put to trial and confessed his limitations before the LORD God; conceding that God is eternally and infinitely just; the spring of life; and the fountainhead of love; beyond human comprehension; in spite of him [Job] been struck down; that Job became worthy of righteousness and God-endowed grace.
Most recruits exhibit courage in training; yet, few are those who demonstrate valor in the battlefield. In training, survival is seldom at stake. That is to say, training is normally comprised of mere simulations with no irreversible consequences—i.e. permanent damage—; however, they do instigate a sense of danger within the psyche of a person. The sense of danger is an indispensable catalyst. Still, it does not exceed that boundary—being just that, a sense.
Simplistically understood, the righteous suffers: as in being afflicted; downtrodden; of poor lot; and, worst of all, hopelessly impotent. In reality, those are the parameters of the simulation. Alas! Sometimes the simulacrum feels so real that the righteous themself begins to believe the world’s greatest lie: “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate,” (Coelho 18).
Job, at the very last moment of the trial (i.e. simulation) succumbed to that lie. He thought God was unfair to him, an upright and blameless man. All he had ever wanted was neither himself, nor anyone under his roof to transgress or sin against the LORD God. How come then that all those calamities had befallen him in an instant? Right at that moment, the LORD God intervened and put an end to the trial, sparing Job from living his worst fear; of committing a transgression he (Job) wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for: blaspheming unpardonably against Him, the LORD his God.
Unbeknownst to Job, however, God guided him toward attaining his heart’s most inner desire.
The entire current of events was orchestrated by God, Himself. It was the Most High the One who asked Satan if ‘he considered Job’. True, Satan provoked the LORD God to allow him to try to break Job; still, eventually, Job wound up not only upright; but, much more, a servant worthy of righteousness.
From a Christian existentialism viewpoint, to put Kierkegaard’s philosophy to application, Job was in despair; yet, himself was not aware (unconscious) that his self was in despair. He was in psychological torment, but knew not its true underlying cause. The form of his despair was this: in the midst of his misery and woes, his self was in despair not to be its self. He was in a state of defiance. And, as Kierkegaard (1849) correctly asserted, “No despair is entirely free of defiance…” (Kierkegaard 49).
Job was in despair because what he really wanted at that point was nothing more than death. He wanted to die to end his grief. To his great misfortune, there was only one means to obtain that desire; which was far more abhorrent and repulsive to him than his grief and life; it was that he must sin unapologetically against the LORD God. So Job thought he was in despair because he couldn’t die.
Notwithstanding, he couldn’t had been farther from the truth. He was in despair not to be himself. For to be himself he would—as he actually did—just like Santiago (the young shepherd from Paulo Coelho’s (2015), “The Alchemist”) when he thought he had lost everything (but he still had his dream, Urim and Thummim, and the king’s blessing) subsequent to being conned on his first day in Tangier—THE VERY FIRST DAY OF HIS QUEST TO FIND HIS TREASURE AND FULFILL HIS DESTINY—entertain the idea that he kept God laws and commandments for nothing! Far worse: he had been punished for having done just that, “… God was unfair, and because this was the way God repaid those who believed in their dreams,” (Coelho 41). And so it was that Job experienced the sickness unto death to the fullest: “Thus to be sick unto death is to be unable to die, yet not as if there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness is that there is not even the ultimate hope, death,” (Kierkegaard 18).
Still, then, Job was unconscious of himself. He was unconscious of himself as a spirit. “But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself.” (Kierkegaard 13) He solely thought of himself as body, and not as spirit; and, by so doing, he reasoned that he was in a position to enter into trial, more so, to reprove the LORD God.
Out of the whirlwind the Almighty spake; and Job became conscious of a state he has always been in it; yet never aware of it; namely that he “himself, his self, exists before this God,” (Kierkegaard 27). Job was righteous and loved God—which implies per se that he believed and knew that God exists. He was conscious of God’s existence as well as his own. Nevertheless, he never experienced the co-existence coinciding in the very same exact expanse of space: that he was in the presence of God. Job suffered more in thinking than in reality—for he presumed his grief and sorrows to be of such an overwhelming authority; that they can never be overcome; which, in actuality, was not true. Once he became conscious as a self of his existence before the LORD God, all his agony, rage, and sorrow evaporated at once. He became conscious of what he could not and can never fully understand. Not only conscious thereof, but, to a certain extent, beheld the immeasurable, and became a-posteriori acquainted with the infinite. That he, himself, his self, as a spirit is an integral part, in a perpetual and immutable oneness, with the eternal: that, “All things are one,” (Coelho 23).
Of such condition Søren Kierkegaard relates:
“There is much talk about human distress and wretchedness—I try to understand it and have also had some intimate acquaintance with it—there is so much talk about wasting a life, but only that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys and sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as spirit, as self, or, what amounts to the same thing, never became aware and in the deepest sense never gained the impression that there is a God and that “he,” he himself, his self, exists before this God—an infinite benefaction that is never gained except through despair [my formatting].” (Kierkegaard 26, 27)
Thus, it was only at that moment—within that particular expanse of space, time, and dimension—through the whirlwind—in spite of the fact that he, Job, spent his entire life theretofore in probity; and desiring nothing more than God’s approval—only then, by means of despair not to be his self: his sickness unto death—which in turn led to a more transcendent form of despair: that transpired via crying out something which he knew not (i.e. judging the LORD God’s justice) [emphasis added]—only then had Job, in veritae, became fully cognizant of that infinite benefaction.
It should be readily apparent to the meanest intelligence what Job’s destiny was. All things that God wrought meant for a specific purpose. And, vis-á-vis the human species, this purpose is dubbed as one’s ‘destiny.’ For those who have doubts what ‘destiny’ is, it is this: ““It’s what you have always wanted to accomplished,”” (Coelho 22). And, for Job, that was God’s approval; in a word, blamelessness. Therefore, it was Job’s destiny to exemplify blamelessness for generations to come: “And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually [my formatting].” (Job 1:5 (KJV))
‘All things are one,’ said the old king of Salem to the boy in, “The Alchemist.” The world is made in such a synthetical harmony that all elements are coalesced and collaborate together to sustain that harmony, which is the ‘Soul of the World’, in which this finite world relates itself to itself, as well as to the infinite and eternal Spirit of God. Albeit that the Soul of World encompasses all mundane elements; it remains a soul, a spirit; hence, all that is spirit therein, namely mankind, functions as its vital organ, i.e. its beating heart: “The Soul of the World is nourished by people’s happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation;” Consequently, “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” (Coelho 23)
So Job knew what his destiny was, to be, alongside his progeny, blameless in the sight of the LORD God. But as aforementioned, he never had had any reason not to be thus. That is to say, it was entirely the result of God’s work that made Job blameless. Nevertheless, isn’t it sensus communis that when God boasts of one of His servants that He ought to further attend his being and the qualities of that person? That He should wish—according to His own volition—and out of His own infinite benevolence and grace—extend some of His virtue and endow it unto that servant. The Spirit of the World has but one purpose, to serve and execute the volition of the Supreme Spirit (i.e. the LORD God) whence it originated. Hence, it partakes in the upbuilding process. It does so mainly through imposing a payment of sorts; given that payment de facto infers that an earning is made, and it is commensurate to the latter.
Payment is crucial in the order of creation, and has always been a pillar for measurement. It began with the LORD God Himself. God, Himself, recognizing that all He has wrought—i.e. created—was good; which is inherently implied, given that He is the fountainhead of Goodness; insofar He is, Himself, the primary Actor, or Prima Causa, in creation; as such incorporating Himself therein, so to speak; He did the work and awarded Himself the earned rest on the seventh day. That is to say, in observing the LORD’s Sabbath, one must needs first to remember and heed the work done for the earned rest. Christianly observed, the Sabbath shifted from Saturday to Sunday, since the latter was the day of resurrection in which God redeemed mankind and reclaimed the latter unto Himself. In a word, payment is inevitable. Yea! “… I have made you and I will carry you,” (Isaiah 46:4 (KJV)) says the LORD God.
That is why the Alchemist told the boy pursuing his dream (i.e. destiny), ““What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way [my formatting]. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up [my formatting]. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’”” (Coelho 139)
Before being struck, Job was like the boy, a dreamer. He had probity, but dreamed of blamelessness. He dreamed of blamelessness, yet never felt he and his household have had firmly secured it within, in an eternal sense of the word: ‘for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Accordingly, God ordered the entire ‘universe to conspire’ to aid Job in seeking his dream and heart’s desire.
Job lived a blameless and righteous life without a shadow of doubt; but the question remained: Did he have a thorough understanding of these qualities; and that for them to wholly abide within a person, that person must first commit to them through adversity—the instant wherein he’s presented with every reason not to? More so, was Job really conscious that to be blameless is to surrender oneself entirely to the Will of God without doubting His justice or infinite benevolence? So much so that one must never give up on their good dreams despite the darkness that might wrap up their days? As a matter of fact, that for this particular reason Abraham was crowned as the ‘father of faith’? That which Kierkegaard (1843) labelled in, “Fear and Trembling,” the virtue of the absurd?
“No one is so great as Abraham! Who is capable of understanding him?” (Kierkegaard 14) Marveled Kierkegaard. Indeed, who could possibly understand our father Abraham? That he believed, and he did so in silence. Neither to his wife Sarah; nor to his servant Eleazar; and, certainly not to Isaac; had Abraham uttered a word of his suffering—the paradox. That he never thought God was unjust: for after promising him that his people would be blessed via his progeny; which was only conceived while his wife and himself were of good old ripe age; that God, Himself, should ask this of him: “Take Isaac, shine only son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the mountain which I will show thee,” (Kierkegaard 7). Still, Abraham never succumbed to that suffering. What did he do instead?
“He arrived neither too soon nor too late. He mounted the ass, he rode slowly along the way. All that time he believed – he believed that God would not require Isaac of him, whereas he was willing nevertheless to sacrifice him if it was required. He believed by virtue of the absurd; for there could be no question of human calculation, and it was indeed the absurd that God who required it of him should the next instant recall the requirement. He climbed the mountain, even at the instant when the knife glittered he believed … that God would not require Isaac. He was indeed astonished at the outcome, but by a double-movement he had reach his first position, and therefore he received Isaac more gladly than the first time.” (Kierkegaard 34, 35)
Abraham believed in that infinite benefaction of the Most High. That the LORD God would not take away the joy he bestowed upon him after a lifetime wait. That God, the fountainhead of love and wisdom, is incapable of such cruelty. Nonetheless, Abraham was required to verify his devotion and infinite trust in action. It wasn’t taking the journey as such that proved Abraham’s trust in the LORD. Rather, it was his confidence and apodeictic certainty that God would not require Isaac throughout that journey: ‘even at the instant when the knife glittered HE BELIEVED [caps added for emphasis].’. Which made no human sense whatsoever. Notwithstanding, Abraham believed that which no human reason could comprehend more than his own emotions and the paradox within. Ultimately, he exhibited impeccable mastery of the lessons learned along the way, namely: to trust that God is Good, and He keeps His covenant of peace, benevolence, grace, and love with those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
In fine, Abraham trusted in God’s justice more than what could be humanly—nay! Even possibly—understood.
As for Job, he dreamed of blamelessness in his heydays. He held on to that dream throughout adversity and fought for it: reasoning with his friends that he did nothing to bring God’s wrath upon himself. Nonetheless, he got so close to giving up that dream in accusing the LORD God of injustice. Then God intervened, not to vindicate Himself; but, because as was the case with the boy when Melchizedek, the king of Salem, emerged, Job was trying to realize his destiny—of being eternally blameless: notwithstanding any circumstance—“And [he was] at the point where [he was] about to give it all up,” (Coelho 24).
Worth reiterating once more, payment is inevitable. Dues must be paid. With Abraham, Isaac was eventually spared, but Abraham paid dearly on an emotional and psychological level. His most excruciating torment was in keeping his silence. Even when the knife glittered; thinking to himself: that God promised him a blessed progeny; which took decades to manifest; then, once received, should be required of him. Even when the knife glittered: Isaac pleading for his life; yet Abraham mustered the strength to take up the blame and deny that God had anything to do with it. Even when the knife glittered: he wished his about-to-be-butchered son not to lose hope in God, who ordered his death. Even then, Abraham believed that God would provide, and deliver Isaac from his imminent death—without uttering a single word!
And Abraham never spoke of that day, never again! To his death, he kept his silence!
In the image of God, man was created. And into the latter’s nostrils the Most High breathed His Spirit. That is to say, philosophically and theologically understood, a spark of the divine flares within man. Overwhelmed with corporeality, that spark becomes dormant—so to speak. Still God’s purpose for man remains in motion. The LORD God created the world; and mankind, endowed with a spark of the divine; as spirits clothed with flesh; ought to partake in God’s work and administer the world.
Rest is a compensation, not an endowment. If the Author of all things, corporeal and incorporeal, seen and unseen, is perpetually at work; and, we, as His children, as heirs to His enterprise (i.e. the world), ought to follow His guidance and path, ‘be holy as He is Holy;’ to conduct ourselves as He does Himself: thus, we must perform the work prior to indulging ourselves with rest. Otherwise, how would the term ‘rest’ apply without any exertion? The logic of causality dictates that an exertion, of some kind, must needs occur for rest to be requisite. If someone or something is permanently at so-called ‘rest,’ static or inertia would be the proper terms to describe that condition.
The lowest point, or the instant at which the genuinely righteous suffers the gravest distress, is the point or instant in which they learn the universal language and have their first direct dialogue with the LORD God. It takes an absolute diminishment of human possibility to awaken the spiritually possible. It takes complete revocation of everything understood, to realize what cannot be understood. It takes an untainted truth to break free from the shackles of the ‘world’s greatest lie.’ It takes a perfect unity with the eternal and infinite to acquire omnipotency over the finite. Sometimes gold must needs be melted in order to be molded back into a more aesthetic form. A storm needs to gather and rage for the rainbow to appear.
“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good,” (Genesis 1:31 (KJV)). The LORD God, when He saw all what he had wrought was good, He did so in relation to Himself—i.e. in perpetuity. In other words, in relating His creation to Himself—given His self being eternal and infinite—He deemed the aggregate sum of the creation entire, through eternity, to be infinitely good.
Having all that said, the righteous does not suffer more than gold endures the heat in the crucible: Only to gain flexibility to be molded back into a more beautiful form. Suffering for the righteous is their apprenticeship unto transformation into the highest form of being, as a spirit. It is the alarm sound that awakens the spirit and calls it to action. Just like a bodybuilder: who endures training; inflicts some damage to his muscle tissue; and suffers dieting; only to emerge bigger, better, and stronger: To get his physique to realize its optimal potential.
In fine, once the apprenticeship (suffering) is concluded, the righteous emerges, not only victorious, but in the form in which they were intended to be in perpetuity: a spirit entertaining absolute mastery of its volition—pristine and limitless; of perfect knowledge; and in perfect unity with the infinite and eternal.
Related Publications: “How I Understood the Messiah;” “Consciousness: Heaven and Hades;” “The Gravest of all Conceptual Fallacies: Confusing Creation for Existence [for only God Exists];” and,“Answer to the Question: Why Must the ‘Intelligent’ Suffer?”
Reference
Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. HarperCollins, 2015.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. Originally Published in 1843. iBooks.
Kierkegaard, Søren. The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. Princeton UP, 1980.
The Holy Bible, King James Version.
