In Plain Sight

Gird Up Your Loins, Haiti: A Lesson in Theodicy from Job

Speaks my mind on a lot of things as of late.

Favorite part has to be this:

In the book of Job and by the cross of Christ, the vision set forth of virtue and vice, of prosperity and calamity, is not that which is so frequently proffered today by many in response to the Haitian tragedy. Rather, what this story and this Person reveal is that prosperity is neither a reward nor symptom of virtue anymore than calamity is a reward or symptom of vice.6 Following Jesus’ own commentary on the provisions of God, “[The Father] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45). That God is not a respecter of persons is the greatest hope of the human. Her hope rests in knowing that she will receive exactly what she does not and could not deserve – the grace of Almighty God. “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place?” asks God of Job (Job 38:12). In other words, the human has not the ability by her action or knowledge to determine the generosity or wrath of God. In a world created by the right arm of Almighty God the human is but to lay her hand on her mouth in silence (Job 40:4).

Read the whole thing.