Nov12
Job and the N.I.C.E.
You have been made to pass through a number of conflicting feelings about the deputy director and others in order that your future association with us may not be based on feelings at all.
So says Professor Frost, one of the evil mad scientists of That Hideous Strength. What strikes me is how much that sounds like the standard interpretation of Job… Job is supposed to learn to trust God without any evidence presented to his feelings, and if he can achieve that kind of faith he’s reached a superior level. But in this story, that line of logic is intended as evidence that the N.I.C.E. is royally messed up… They’re detaching utterly from their humanness.
I find it interesting that this obviously Christian book places these words in the mouth of one of the “bad guys.”
Maybe it’s okay that it hasn’t ever sat quite right with me as a justification of Job’s suffering.
Or am I missing something?
I think the evidence is in all those examples God presented to Job at the end — evidences of His wisdom, design, and control, which I assume Job had seen much of but perhaps hadn’t interpreted in light of what they told him about God. Kind of like Jesus rebuking the disciples for being afraid in a situation where anyone would have been afraid — they knew something of Who He was and had seen His miracles and should have had some faith that either the boat wouldn’t sink with Him in it or else that He would somehow take care of them all.
Blind faith for the believer isn’t really blind because we know something of Who He is and His character and that He doesn’t act whimsically.
Good point… The mad scientists are evil, and reveal that in everything they do. But God, even when Job is suffering, can still be seen to be good through different kinds and examples of evidence.