by Mike Giannone

Created on: November 29, 2009

Science on behalf of Job: Answering God

A long, long time ago, in the wonderful land of Uz, there lived a rich named Job. He had everything. Lots of cash, a big family, a thriving business, good health.

Devout and devoted, everything was going well for him. Then one fine day, the Devil popped up and volunteered to help God by challenging Job's loyalty.

"It's easy to be devoted when you have everything going your way," the Devil reasoned.

God said, "OK."

So, through a series of Devil-orchestrated events, the rich, old man lost everything - health, wealth, children, employees, goats, cows, and so on. He was left destitute, boil-covered, and generally in a bad sort.

Throughout his ordeal, Job endured the comfort, counsel, and ridicule of his friends. Even his loving wife, a woman of understated charm, advised Job to "curse God and die". Advice anyone could take to the bank.

Not to be outdone, God stepped in and challenged Job and all his pals with a series of you-don't-know-squat observations. In the long, didactic poem that is the Book of Job, God asked, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" (Job 38:2, New International Version) He then gave a long list of questions meant to stymie the ill-informed Job, his pals, and anyone who stepped up to the plate.

They were speechless. They had no answers to God's questions. If only they had lived in the 21st century. Today we've got our act together. Modern man, woman, and child know so much more. We have the answers and the chutzpah to throw them back in God's face.

God to Job: Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? . . .Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone . . . ? (Job 38:4-6)

Science (e.g., the 21st Century answer to the age-old challenge): Big Bang cosmology. Some 14 or 15 billion years ago, something happened. There was a big explosion and we got everything. From that moment of singularity we got rocks, trees, gardens, Chevy's, people, birds, stars. You name it, we got it. Things like physics and gravity took care of the rest.

G to J: Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'? (38:8-11)

S: Puh-leese. Any fourth-grade book

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