Continuing on .... PART 2 Carl Jung - "Answer to Job" in "The Portable Jung" Edited by Joseph Campbell (Penguin 1971) pp 548 - 550 My comments marked with # ********************************** We, the commenting chorus on this great tragedy, which has never at any time lost its vitality, do not feel quite like that. For our modern sensibilities it is by no means apparent that with Job's profound obeisance to the majesty of the divine presence, and his prudent silence, a real answer has been given to the question raised by the Satanic prank of a wager with God. Job has not so much answered as reacted in an adjusted way. In so doing he displayed remarkable self-discipline, but an unequivocal answer has still to be given. ******************************** # Job has cowered and pacified an evil lord in order to protect himself. job's self restraint is seen in his last answer to God. It reminds me of the Monty Python skit "Oh you are so big and wonderful God. Please do not smite us!" ************************************ To take the most obvious thing, what about the moral wrong Job has suffered? *********************************** # The moral wrong is sin. In this case God has sinned against Job. *********************************** Is man so worthless in God's eyes that not even a tort moral can be inflicted on him? That contradicts the fact that man is desired by Yahweh and that it obviously matters to him whether men speak "right" of him or not. He needs Job's loyalty, and it means so much to him that he shrinks at nothing in carrying out his test. This attitude attaches an almost divine importance to man, for what else is there in the whole wide world that could mean anything to one who has everything? Yahweh's divided attitude,-which on the one hand tramples on human life and happiness without regard, and on the other hand must have man for a partner, puts the latter in an impossible position. At one moment Yahweh behaves as irrationally in a cataclysm; the next moment he, wants to be loved, honoured, worshipped, and praised as just. He reacts irritably to every word that has the faintest suggestion of criticism, while he himself does not care a straw for his own moral code if his actions happen to run counter to its statutes. ******************************************* # God's actions against Job are a moral wrong and thus sin. Why does God act so irrationally and in a schizoid manner? ******************************************* One can submit to such a God only with fear and trembling, and can try indirectly to propitiate the despot with unctuous praises and ostentatious obedience. ***************************************** # This is what Job is forced to do as a result of an overwhelming evil lord. ********************************************* But a relationship of trust seems completely out of the question to our modern way of thinking. Nor can moral satisfaction be expected from an unconscious nature god of this kind. Nevertheless, Job got his satisfaction, without Yahweh's intending it and possibly without himself knowing it, as the poet would have it appear. Yahweh's allocutions have the unthinking yet none the less transparent purpose of showing Job the brutal power of the demiurge: "This is I, the creator of all the ungovernable, ruthless forces of Nature, which are not subject to any ethical laws. I, too, am an moral force of Nature, a purely phenomenal personality that cannot see its own back," ******************************** # God has argued "Might is right!". Can Job trust such a God or enter into a relationship with such a God? *********************************** This is, or at any rate could be, a moral satisfaction of he first order for Job, because through this declaration man, in spite of his impotence, is set up as a judge over God himself. We do not know whether Job realizes this, but we do know from the numerous commentaries on Job that all succeeding ages have overlooked the fact that a kind of Moira or Dike rules over Yahweh, causing him to give himself away so blatantly, Anyone can see how he unwittingly raises Job by humiliating him in the dust. By doing he pronounces judgment on himself and gives man the moral satisfaction whose absence we found so painful in the Book of Job. ******************** # Job, not God, is the moral victor in the book of Job. ******************************************************* The poet of this drama showed a masterly discretion in ringing down the curtain at the very moment when his hero gave unqualified recognition to the ******* (Greek term) of the Demiurge by prostrating himself at the feet of His Divine Majesty. No other impression was permitted to remain. An unusual scandal was blowing up in the realm of meta physics, with supposedly devastating consequences, and nobody was ready with a saving formula which would rescue the monotheistic conception of God from disaster. Even in those days the critical intellect of a Greek could easily have seized on this new addition to Yahweh's biography and used it in his disfavour (as indeed happened, though very much later) so as to mete out to him the fate that had already overtaken the Greek gods. But a relativization of God was utterly unthinkable at that time, and remained so for the next two thousand years ************************* # The concept of God has changed over the last few thousand years. This is evident from Genesis to Revelation in the bible where Yahweh begins as a tribal war god localised to Israel. ************************************* The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent. The drama has been consummated for all eternity: Yahweh' s dual nature has been revealed, and somebody or something has seen and registered this fact. Such. a revelation, whether it reached man's consciousness or not, could not fail to have far reaching consequences. ************************************** # The dual nature of God is the good and the bad. Perhaps it is explained by yin and yang in God as in Buddhism. Perhaps not. The problem remains.
Next article in series
top of page