Doubt

Post a one-paragraph reflection on the concept of 'doubt' and the story of Job.  You may relate your ideas to any area of knowledge, as well as to daily life experiences.


The story of Job is about questions; specifically the question why. Why do bad things happen? Why do bad things happen to me? Who decides what happens and why do they make this decision? I think that Job's doubt is reflected by his questions of why. At the beginning of the book, as things start to go wrong, Job simply accepts them. He trusts that God, who has given Job everything Job has, has the right to also take those things away. However, as time goes on and worse and worse things start happening to Job, he begins to ask why. Rather than accept his fate as he does at the beginning of the book, Job wants to be sure that his suffering is justified. Rather than blind trust, Job asks for justification of his situation, maybe because he doesn't believe that God has a good reason. Job wants God to communicate with Job; either through the human ways of knowing, either emotion, sense perception, language, or reason and tell him why. It seems, by God's response, that God doesn't want to be questioned. He wants his people to trust Him.