2 Credit Hours

by

Rob Barrett

August 14, 2000

Gustavo Gutiérrez joins together his world of the suffering people in Latin America and the suffering of the biblical Job in On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Gutiérrez is the first to admit that the book of Job does not offer "a rational or definitive explanation of suffering" (p. 93), so his goal is to find "an appropriate language about God that does justice to the situation of suffering" (p. 93). From his context of liberation theology, Gutiérrez refuses to be resigned about the suffering he sees in Latin America, "the starvation of millions, the humiliation of races regarded as inferior, discrimination against women, … the sufferings of people who are struggling for their right to live, … terrorism of every kind, and the corpse-filled graves of Ayacucho" (p. 102). Instead of resignation, he is looking for a way to encounter God, the just and powerful God who often seems painfully ambivalent about this suffering.

On Job is a book of mixed genre. Gutiérrez calls it an "essay in theological reflection" (p. xviii). On one hand, it is a limited commentary on the book of Job, systematically elucidating the major portions of the text. On the other hand, it is a quiet word to Christians to realize the plight of the poor, to shake off their complacency, and to begin grappling with God. Gutiérrez seeks to objectively "enter fully into the special message" of the book of Job (p. xix), yet he does so with the problems and questions raised by Latin America in the center of his mind. This mixed approach will leave both the bible student and the liberation activist wanting more, but it will also draw each into the world of the other, building helpful bridges that join theology with real life.

On Job is divided into three parts. The first part introduces Job, his dilemma, and God’s judgement that Job spoke well of Him. The last two parts divide Gutiérrez’ theme of "how to talk about God" into two: the language of prophecy and the language of contemplation. We consider each part in turn.

Gutiérrez describes Job’s situation of innocent suffering as a test of disinterested religion, devotion to God without claiming a reward for it. The test is initiated by God withholding temporal retribution from Job (p. 5). Instead of rewarding his integrity and punishing his friends’ wrongful speech about God, He allows Job to suffer for no reason and allows his friends to argue against him. This situation provides the context for Job and his friends to speak about God in the poetic sections of the book as they seek "to discover the meaning of God’s behavior in relation to what happens to the central figure of the book and in human life generally" (p. 7). Gutiérrez then jumps to the epilogue to see the outcome of the upcoming poetic passages: Job has been "able to find the appropriate words" of God-talk (p. 11). Gutiérrez seeks to help his readers find their own appropriate words by following Job’s example.

Gutiérrez divides Job’s God-talk into two kinds: prophetic and contemplative. The prophetic voice is the one that speaks of God’s justice and His demands upon His people to live ethically. It is the voice of retribution. It is also uniquely God’s voice because it often crosses human categories of justice. It reveals God’s preferential love for the poor "not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God’s will" (p. 94). Job’s friends speak of temporal retribution, which concludes that Job’s suffering automatically judges him as having offended God. Job also comes from a theology of temporal retribution, yet his own situation has shattered his belief in it. Gutiérrez focuses on the fact that Job defends his uprightness (and Eliphaz attacks it, p. 35) based on his care for the poor (p. 39). Since God requires that we care for the poor and suffering, this proves that such are not suffering because of God’s punishment (p. 40). Gutiérrez concludes that the prophets and Job both teach that appropriate God-talk in the face of suffering is God’s preferential love for the sufferer. To speak in such a way is "a step on the way to correct talk of God: A God who, as Job knows in the depths of his heart, wants justice" (p. 48).

In the final part of the book, Gutiérrez moves from prophecy to contemplation. Job’s contemplative voice refuses to talk apart from God but seeks "an encounter with the God in whom he believes and hopes" (p. 49). This contemplative voice is not the quiet one of the meditative monastic but one of "complaint, bewilderment and confrontation" (p. 55). Gutiérrez structures his discussion of Job’s contemplative voice around his requests for an arbiter (Job 9:33), a witness (Job 16:19) and a liberator (Job 19:25) (p. 56). Each would enable Job’s encounter with God. The arbiter will enable a frail man to speak to the all-powerful God. The witness will testify to his innocent suffering. The liberator will rescue him. The result of Job’s contemplative God-talk is the real presence of God in the whirlwind.

Gutiérrez draws his themes of God-talk together in his analysis of the divine speeches and Job’s reply. Gutiérrez sees God’s first speech as emphasizing the gratuitousness of His creative love and the second as emphasizing His "just government of the world" (p. 69). The all-powerful Yahweh has gratuitously imposed limits upon Himself because of His desire to have a Creation with freedom, yet His freedom will not be limited by any human understanding of justice (pp. 77-79). Gutiérrez sees the suffering of the innocent as the resulting clash between these two freedoms (p. 80). Gutiérrez final conclusion is that "the gratuitousness of God’s love is the framework within which the requirement of practicing justice is to be located" (p. 89). Correct God-talk must embody both the grace He gives (and its implied freedom) and His demands for justice.

Gutiérrez then returns to the theme of Latin America in light of his conclusion on appropriate speech about God. He calls for us to follow Job’s way of responding to innocent suffering by endorsing "his vigorous protest, his discovery of concrete commitment to the poor and all who suffer unjustly, his facing up to God, and his acknowledgment of the gratuitousness that characterizes God’s plan for human history" (p. 102).

In the end, I am profoundly grateful to Gutiérrez for introducing me to liberation theology and the plight of Latin America. He succeeded at bringing me to connect the biblical text of the book of Job to the terribly difficult problems he faces every day. However, I was left wanting much more from his book than he offers. First, he avoids the problem of detailing the correlation between Job and the "innocent" sufferers of Latin America. Job was "blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil" (Job 1:1, NASB) with "no one like him on the earth" (Job 1:8). Should we assume that every sufferer is like this and that their suffering is a result of a wager with God? Or is some portion of suffering due to God’s temporal retribution, a place Gutiérrez admits God "visits" (p. 88)? Gutiérrez does not address this question, which seems central to connecting the theology of Job to concrete situations.

Second, Gutiérrez has a number of themes that he repeatedly returns to, yet leaves hollow for readers coming from different points-of-view. In what sense is God’s love for the poor "preferential" (p. xii)? What is the "special theological approach" that has arisen from the suffering in Latin America (p. 11)? Has Job truly shifted his position from being self-focused to caring for the poor despite his plight (p. 48)? For many of these questions, Gutiérrez seeks justification by repetition rather than through explanation and illustration. He refers to his answers many times but does not bring the reader to see these answers as clearly as he does.

In conclusion, Gutiérrez has provided a careful treatment of the book of Job in the context of seeking a language to talk about God in the presence of the suffering people of Latin America. The author’s argument requires some effort on the part of the reader to fill in some of the gaps, but he inspires the reader to see that such effort will be rewarded.