part ii

PART II

7. (100 points) for this part, you may use the Latin Library site, but no dictionaries. Answer the following in a five paragraph academic essay: Using the Book of Job from the Vulgate Translation, explain: if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, then why do bad things happen to good people? Your answer must cite the Latin text no less than 10 times or you will not receive ANY credit for your answer. You do not have to translate the Latin.

Maybe the reason that God allows bad things to happen to good people is to instill a deeper love of him, an unconditional love. Job mistook the bad things that happened to him as being a punishment from God. Too often in life people do the same thing that Job did. They question God and ask, “Why me?” They immediately think that when bad things happen to them that they are being punished, but when one has nothing to be punished for, and is called by God to be “mea servo” then why is he punished?

It seems a bit contradictory that humans admit to God being “omnipotens”, yet they still question his actions. If they really believed that he knew all then why would they even attempt to understand his mysterious ways? God became angry with Job when he questioned Him, saying, “uis est iste qui celat consilium absque scientia ideo insipienter locutus sum et quae ultra modum excederent scientiam meam”.

God’s actions in the story of Job may be a metaphor for life and the after life. God gives Job all of his possessions back twofold after he endured all the suffering. “ Dominus autem benedixit novissimis Iob magis quam principio eius et facta sunt ei quattuordecim milia ovium et sex milia camelorum et mille iuga boum et mille asinae
13 et fuerunt ei septem filii et filiae tres”. The end of the story may be a metaphor for what will happen in Heaven if one is a good follower of God.

God is saying that things that happen in this life are not given on terms of good behavior, they are given through reasons that only God can know and understand.

If God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good then why would a mere human even attempt to try to understand why bad things happen to good people?