David B. Burrell, Deconstructing Theodicy: Why Job Has Nothing to Say to the Puzzle of Suffering (Brazos, 2008), 144 Pps., $20.00.
David Burrell is a Professor of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. In this title, he takes up the problem of theodicy, one that has troubled philosophers and theologians for millennia; for a majority of the Contemporary Era, many have found the Book of Job in the Judeo-Christian scriptures to be a valuable resource from which they can derive solace. Burrell somewhat challenges this idea, however, and contends that in truth there is not much of an explanation of suffering within Job, nor was there meant to be such. On the contrary, he stipulates that the Book of Job belies the idea that if we are good in our actions, that God will bless us, and that if/when we sin God will punish us. The point of the Book of Job, he contends throughout the work, is to stress the essentiality of one’s relationship with God in order to deal with – and ultimately endure – the suffering that is inevitable in life. Indeed, despite our search for it, there is no adequate reason for why people suffer.
The book is comprised of eight short chapters, the first of which introduces the reader to Burrell’s methodology to be undertaken within the text. The second, third, and fourth chapters analyze the structure of the book, centering it around the three rounds of discourse between Job and his ‘friends’. Chapter five is an interfaith perspective by Islamic scholar A. H. Johns on the reading of the person of Job in the Koran. Burrell then interacts with classical – medieval – commentaries on Job, which constitutes the sixth chapter, followed by the seventh chapter which deconstructs the idea of ‘justifying ways of God’ to people. Burrell concludes the text by showing that the story of Jobindicates that there is truly no ‘distance’ between the created and the Creator: although the Creator is distinct from creation/creatures, there is a definite relation between them.
Although geared toward an academic audience, many pastoral applications can be gleaned from the text; thus the volume should be read by Christians who seek to minister to the saints, whether they be ordained clergy or not. The most remarkable aspect of the Book of Job, according to Burrell, is that God both listens to and answers Job. We should take comfort that God indeed interacts with his creatures more-so than in the content of what God actually says: the God of Christian theism is no detached entity.
Bradford McCall
Regent University