Reflexiones sobre Job. En torno al problema del mal, el sufrimiento del justo y la Teodicea

Abstract

The book of Job constitutes a privileged document to think the problem that arises from the suffering inflicted by God upon the righteous man and the grief that He lays upon the innocent, as related with the more general problem of God’s justification in view of existence of evil, which makes up the subject-matter of theodicy. Why should an upright man be put to suffering? Rather than an endeavour to answer this question, what is to be found in this text is an attempt to show how, in Job’s asking his God, the Western man can unexpectedly recognize the selfsame quiddity of his concpetion of morals, as well as identify the conditions under which moral thought is achieved in the West. What is aimed at, is to put forth the reasons why Job’s attitude towards the Almighty becomes exemplary for the West. A bypurpose is also that of showing to what extent the Book of Job helps to emphasize the essential difference between two kinds of mind, that of the Middle-East Judaism, and that of the Western Greek-Christian tradition. The text attempts lastly to draw attention on a feature that enables Job, like Socrates and Jesus, to escape History’s voracity and become our contemporary for ever.