Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Justice triumphant
or
defeated?

Post 17.  February 19, 2018

Divine Justice for Deists

   What is the lesson of Job and the Jews?

The Old Testament is full of examples of divine justice that belie the New Testament notion of a grandfatherly Jehovah, who showers his children with blessings, and even sacrificed his beloved son to save us from ourselves1. By contrast, in Genesis, Yaweh commanded Abraham to sacrifice his own son, for no reason at all, except to demonstrate his unblinking unthinking devotion to his lord & master, whose fragile ego needed lots of human ass-kissing2.

So which kind of justice should Deists expect from their watered-down deity? Is the deus a pink-cheeked Santa Claus in the sky, or a swarthy Zeus hurling thunderbolts? Which is a more accurate depiction of deity, the Jewish or the Christian versions? Remember, even the Lord-of-Love in the NT has his dark side : preparing an eternal lake of fire for Satan's hordes, and for the vast majority of humans that don't meet his draconian tenancy requirements for a home in heaven3. Perhaps we can learn a thing or two about fair play in God’s game of life from two Jewish case studies : Job and the Holocaust.

The book of Job was essentially a moralistic novel, teaching Jews to accept whatever God doled out to them with humility and equanimity. That noble demeanor was similar to Greek Stoicism, but the lesson was offset by all the other Torah teachings about their genetic superiority to other races and religions. The only sin of poor slob Job was being in the wrong place & time when God was in a fiesty mood, and felt like demonstrating his arbitrary power to do anything he wanted, to anyone, in any place, and in any time. Job's protestations of innocence fell on deaf divine ears. As it turned out, he was not being punished or rewarded for anything he did, but was simply experiencing the usual news headlines of world events (acts of God). But The Lord angrily denied that he should justify his unwarranted actions, for making Job his divine punching bag.

The communal sin of the Jews was that of entitlement, of holding the conceit that they were the chosen people, who deserved special favors from God. Their birthright gave them the comfortable feeling of a special relationship with their national icon, yet they were often plagued with group guilt for failing to live-up to divine standards, as defined in Ten Commandments, 613 laws, and hundreds of legal interpretations. Moreover, as a nation they were “punished” repeatedly by invading armies, who raped, pillaged, killed, and raptured indiscriminately. Despite those humbling lessons, they remained stiff-necked about their moral superiority to the gentiles.

To this day, it has not sunk in that that the Jews were more like a select group of slaves, for God to kick around like dogs. In their prayers, they concede “thy will be done”, but under their breath they mutter, “but please make an exception in this case”. Even after the holocaust, when 7 million Jews were “chosen” for extermination, their wisest thinkers found ways to rationalize a positive meaning for being crushed under Nazi boot-heels. The following excerpt from a fundamentalist Jewish website is more realistic,and advises a philosophical attitude toward the un-reasonable mysterious "ways" of "G-d", who is so scary that they can't even say or write his name.

Post 17 continued . . . click Next

1. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
1 John 3:1.

2. This post is not making fun of G*D, but it is trying to show how ancient notions of gods were based, not on democratic leaders, but on their experience with war-lords driven by their “warrior genes” to ruthlessly rule over their subjects. To them. Justice was what’s best for the lord and his domain, not for individuals.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-psychopath-inside/201111/the-mind-dictator

3. It’s a simple choice : sell your soul to Satan or to Yahweh, and hope Yahweh wins the war in heaven, even though He seems to be losing on Earth.

God’s speech to Job:

Yes, by and by. But first a     larger matter.
I've had you on my mind a     thousand years
To thank you someday for     the way you helped me
Establish once for all the     principle
There's no connection     humans can reason out
Between their just deserts     and what they get.
 . . . . .

Too long I've owed you this     apology
For the apparently     unmeaning sorrow
You were afflicted with in     those old days.
But it was of the essence of     the trial
You shouldn't understand it     at the time.
It had to seem unmeaning     to have meaning.And it came out all right. I have
   no doubt

You realise by now the part     you played
To stultify the     Deuteronomist
And change the tenor of     religious thought.
My thanks are to you for     releasing me
From moral bondage to the     human race.

The only free will there at      first was humans
Who could do good or evil     as they chose.
I had no choice but I must     follow them
With forfeits and rewards     they understood -
Unless I liked to suffer loss     of worship.
I had to prosper good and     punish evil.

You changed all that. You     set me free to reign.
You are the Emancipator of     your God, . . . .

Robert Frost________
A Masque of Reason