by Allyn Smith

Created on: December 21, 2011

The bible has many verses that explain the answer to this question, especially in the book of Job. In fact, after the first two chapters, the whole book of Job is devoted to this question.

The book of Job starts off by telling how good and righteous the man Job was. God himself even tells Satan how good Job was. After the original dialog of whether a good man will curse God if he loses everything, including his family and health, is answered in the first two chapters; the rest of the book asks why Job had to suffer. His three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar state in their own different ways that Job must have sinned or that if he acknowledged his sin he would no longer suffer. Job disagrees with them and states sin had nothing to do with his suffering and that there are many evil sinners who prosper to their very last day on earth. Job continues throughout the book saying he didn’t know why God caused him to suffer until God intervenes and asks Job directly; ‘who is he that questions God’, the creator of all things, on why he does things. In effect, asking him does a pot have the right or the knowledge to ask the potter on why it is made or treated the way it was? Job had to answer him that he did not have the right or knowledge to question God on anything and that even though he thought he was good on the outside, inside he knew he didn’t deserve the least of God’s mercies. In the last chapter God tells Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to offer a sin offering for their wrong answers to Job. God then indirectly gave Job the answer as to why he suffered; He gave him back double of all that He took from him, including friends, seven sons and three of the most beautiful daughters in the world.

Satan is not mentioned anywhere in the book of Job as the cause of sin, evil or suffering. In fact, at the beginning, Satan says “if you (God) were to take everything from Job”. He did not say ‘if you let me take everything’, or ‘I will take everything, then you’ll see’.

As mortals living in an imperfect mortal body we are resigned to the fact that we live in an imperfect world. We are given the knowledge and experience of opposites (life/death, love/hate, sickness/health, good/bad, sin/redemption, evil/kindness, etc) in order that we may know we live in an imperfect world. We are also given an intense desire to love the good things and hate the bad. We by nature (though some try to deny it) seek a beautiful

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