Chesterton's "Introduction to The Book Of Job"

So, I realize one common criticism/indictment of the Bible is the disparity in the portrayal of God between the Old and New Testaments (that is, Old=harsh, violent, judgmental and what have you; New= loving, caring, personal, etc.) Now, there's been plenty of debate on this, and it's something I've always wondered about myself, and Chesterton provides what I view as the best explanation/exploration of this in this essay (plus it's a fascinating and enlightening look at one of the best Old Testament books, and one of my favs), so I thought I'd share it with you all. You can find it here. Thoughts, comments, and all that are welcome. Obviously, do try and read it all before commenting.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:45:51 AM by JosefBugman

That's a little harsh, Josef.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:48:34 AM by JosefBugman

There's no need to attack the OP's signature. Plus, it'll look silly when he/she changes it.

Its an actual quote from the manuscript, I'll include it here to save time.

I know, I know, and it's not a big problem. It's just that it seems to me that you're attacking the OP in part of your post by saying you're responding to the sig. It's not an issue, don't worry about it.

Edit: Thanks.

edited 18th Jan '11 5:39:29 PM by Ultrayellow

Oh I do apoligise, I didn't mean it like that. I simply wanted to refute Mister Chesterton's position, and you know how it goes when you need to start typing away at the keys

Ironically, Josef, you appear to be agreeing with Chesterton, it's just that what you complain of is how GK describes the old testement God: "Nevertheless the main characteristic remains; the sense not merely that God is stronger than man, not merely that God is more secret than man, but that He means more, that He knows better what He is doing, that compared with Him we have something of the vagueness, the unreason, and the vagrancy of the beasts that perish."

He then goes on to argue that the book of Job begins to question all that: The Book of Job stands definitely alone because the Book of Job definitely asks, "But what is the purpose of God? Is it worth the sacrifice even of our miserable humanity? Of course it is easy enough to wipe out our own paltry wills for the sake of a will that is grander and kinder? But is it grander and kinder? Let God use His tools; let God break His tools. But what is He doing and what are they being broken for?"

He ends up by arguing that God doesn't provide simple answers to these questions, but provokes the questioners even further: "It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting, to doubt a little more, to doubt every day newer and wilder things in the universe, until at last, by some strange enlightenment, he may begin to doubt himself."

That is what is meant by "The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." Not that we should stop questioning things, but that we should never reach the end of our questioning.

You can agree or disagree with this line of argument, but "cars, trains, and electricity" does'nt really address Chesterton's point. Ultimately, the universe cannot be explained, but we need to keep seeking explanations anyway...

Its more just the angry tiredness of a man who was up way too late, and had to read something that was far too long and written with the smugness of lucifer.

And I don't think that's it, from the reading I got it seemed more as if he were saying "some thing are unanswerable, especially God, so be satisfied with it and concentrate on finding Him". Which to me seems stupid.

And the point is more simply that the universe doesn't need an explanation as of yet, for the most part the only arguement that can hold up atm is the Big Bang and that doesn't neccesarily require a guiding hand to work.

The same problem presents itself when we are faced with the fact that God refuses to answer. To me that does not present open the infinite opportunites of creation but the fact that God does not want to tell people anything. Having read the ending to Job it doesn't really come across as God saying "question me and keep questioning" it more came across as "kneel, because I am stronger and know more".

It's not an explanation, or an urge to go on finding stuff out, its a Hand Wave to ensure that you shouldn't question the man with a plan.

At least I think so, I am not very good about keeping my emotions in check with this sort of thing.

The modern habit of saying, "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong," is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and its suits me"; the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

I disagree with this. In order for it to be true, one must assume that the truth is something knowable. As it is, to profess that one's opinion and philosophy is the one and only correct one strikes me as supremely arrogant.

The Old Testament God is too petty for me, and the New Testament God is too much of a cock-tease.

As Al Pacino said in Devils Advocate "Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste! Taste, don't swallow!"

Why the fuck do you give creatures free will, then make rules in direct opposition to the natural inclinations of that free will, and then get angry with them when they don't do what you want them to? The first thing that brings to mind for me are the actions of a petulant child, and I do not think God is a petulant child. Thus I don't believe in the Christian God.

Creation isn't a good enough reason to demand obedience, respect and obedience is earned, and God hasn't earned it in my book if he exists. I never signed that contract.

Thanks for sharing that - but I still think that if any philosophy can reconcile OT with NT god, it's gnosticism. Chesterton's introduction is well written, I give you that, but it only makes sense 'in universe' (jewish/christian tradition). Attacking the book of Job as a philosophical riddle, as he puts it, is a good idea. The problem is, he doesn't use philosophical reasoning. He puts out a working hypothesis - lonely god, playing advocatus diaboli -, but after that he uses that interpretation as evidence, instead of showing real evidence of that interpretation. Basically, he's saying the book of Job makes sense because the book of Job makes sense. He does it quite convincingly, but he doesn't deliver evidence, he delivers an interpretation. But an interpretation that can be refuted by a lot of other parts of the OT and NT. He critizises other for applying a 'christian' point of view instead of a contextual jewish one, while he himself tries to apply a 'enlightenment/rational' point of view instead a of contextual one. But he fails, mainly because of that:

The modern habit of saying, "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong," is entirely irrational.

'This is my (observable evidence-based) opinion, but I may be wrong' is, in fact, the single most important aspect of rational thinking. (Until another one comes along that better explains the observable evidence.)

Anyway. Thanks for an interesting read.

kurushio

I disagree with this. In order for it to be true, one must assume that the truth is something knowable. As it is, to profess that one's opinion and philosophy is the one and only correct one strikes me as supremely arrogant.

You're mashing together two separate statements. One can reasonably be expected to know with certainty what one's opinion is, so saying that something is your opinion, but you may be wrong, is nonsensical. If it is your opinion, you can be damn sure you know that it is. If it might be wrong, then it's not an opinion.

The second, saying "this is my philosophy, and it suits me," is problematic because it suggests that you've chosen a view of the entirety of reality because it suits your preferences, not because you're convinced that it's the best supported description of reality. It may not be possible to reach absolute certainty about anything, but that doesn't give us free license to construct our beliefs simply to satisfy our preferences, rather than constructing them to try to be right.

Yeah, it's a really good example of bad theology. (Mind you, in my mind most theology is bad theology but whatever) It starts at the desired goal, then throws everything at the wall and sees what sticks.

The best way of looking at these stories are, surprise surprise, via tropes. What tropes are invoked in the story here? What would we think about characters that displayed/followed said tropes?

^^ And I disagree with both your assessments. Of course one can hold an opinion but consider the possibility that one may be wrong. It's called not being 100% certain, which we never reasonably can be.

As for philosophies, they are just lenses through which we view the world. Many are based on axioms which have purely subjective value (e.g. aesthetics, ethics systems, etc.), or else consist of an opinion regarding something of which the exact factual nature is uncertain, (e.g. metaphysics, theology, etc.) meaning that two philosophies may be different, but equally sensible.

I think it's perfectly valid to be open to the possibility of being fallible. Nothing is an absolute, if anything it's egotistical to deny the possibility of being wrong. Everyone is allowed to believe what they want to believe, and there's no reason that if everyone else is wrong, you aren;'t.

^^ And I disagree with both your assessments. Of course one can hold an opinion but consider the possibility that one may be wrong. It's called not being 100% certain, which we never reasonably can be.

You can never be 100% certain of anything, but you can be functionally certain of many things. One of the things you can be functionally certain of is that you actually know what your opinion is. If it's an opinion, it can't really be wrong. If it's an empirical belief, then it can be wrong, but it's not an opinion.

With regards to the philosophy side, I may be mistaken about the intent, but I took it to mean "model of the world" in more or less the same light as "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy."

What Chesterton meant is that if you hold an opinion, but you think you may be wrong, then your opinion is weak, which to him, at least, is the same as no opinion at all:

" The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and its suits me"; the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon."

Of course, he is failing to take into account the different quality of a belief in a materialistic object like a sun or a moon, which is susceptible to disconfirmation, and a moral philosophy or a religion, which isn't. But what he means to say is that if you think Christ is Lord then you must logically believe that he is that for everybody (and conversely, that everyone who doesn't believe it is wrong). Not even all Christians accept this- YMMV. But that's what Chesterton was trying to say.

What? There is always the possibility that you might be wrong, no matter how informed you opinion is.

Well, I happen to believe that a man can possess a private religion, in fact, I think we must. Religious Conservatives often have a hard time accepting the idea that God might call people to more than one belief system. Chesterton seemingly cant accept this. But respect for another person's sense of personal integrity requires that one acknowledge that what might be "right" for you may not be "right" for them (in the sense of "correct").

The modern habit of saying, "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong, " is entirely irrational.

I like to phrase this saying as "This is my opinion. I might be wrong, but probably I'm not"

I prefer "I think this is true, but you having a different opinion doesn't mean you're crazy, it just means we disagree."

You may acknowledge that you could be wrong, but the basic issue is still that only one state of affairs can in theory be true for everybody (there's a single reality out there somewhere). When it comes to metaphysical or spiritual matters, not everyone agrees.

What? There is always the possibility that you might be wrong, no matter how informed you opinion is.

Opinions are not empirical beliefs. If it's an empirical belief, it's not an opinion.

"I think the world is on the order of 10,000 years old.": Not an opinion.

"I think that America should enter unilateral negotiations with North Korea.": Opinion.

"I think that there are probably aliens somewhere else in the universe.": Not an opinion.

An opinion may be poorly considered, but a normative statement cannot be objectively wrong; even if entering into unilateral negotiations with North Korea were a predictable way to blow up the universe, that doesn't mean that it is objectively a bad idea.

One can be objectively wrong that a course of action would have a positive outcome according to one's utility function, but if you reframe the statement, i.e. "I think that entering into unilateral negotiations with North Korea would have a positive outcome according to my utility function," then it's no longer an opinion.