A Pastoral Psychologist's Take on Book of Job - A Response to Suffering

In terms of a psychologist or psychiatrist writing about the Book of Job, a world-renown Swiss psychiatrist, Carl G. Jung, wrote “Answer to Job” in 1952. This book has been controversial because he stepped into a difficult theological argument – though he was not trained in theology. However, he was a son of a pastor. So, his interest in religious issues was not like Freud’s.  Perhaps, his religious upbringing as a pastor’s son might have prompted him to write about the Book of Job in such a way.

Jung’s focus does not seem to be on Job’s psychological issues but rather appears to be on God’s character, though he could have done so as a psychiatrist with great interest in religion.

I, as a pastoral psychologist, on the other hand, stay away from making certain characterizations of God – besides He is great and to be praised and thanked – because God is too great for ordinary humans, like me, to comprehend.  In fact, God remains a mystery, as I indicated so in my 5/29/13 blog entry, “On Trinity Sunday - reflecting upon the Three Points in Pope Francis' Homily”.

What I want to discuss here is Job’s psychological issues and how it can be related to his suffering. 

What’s important in the Book of Job, to me, is dealing with ego, rather than innocent suffering. We suffer, whether we are guilty or innocent, whether we sin or not.  We do not always understand why we suffer.

Maybe it is because I have studies psychology, as well as theology, that I tend to see Job’s ego problem as a very important theme in the Book of Job, while many theologians argue about suffering of the innocent in regard to Job. 

As a psychotherapist, I often respond to people complaining, “Why do I have to suffer like this?”, “I don’t think I deserve this!”  I hardly see a person coming to me and telling me, “I want you to help me find what I can do in response to my predicament”.  This kind of statement usually comes out of my clients/patients after some therapy sessions. 

It is a fact of life that innocent people do suffer, as suffering is not necessarily limited to those who have sinned.  

Making a simple attribution of suffering to sin is quite myopic.  It can become a problem of stating that people who suffer are being punished for their sins. 

This kind of attribution problem was recently observed in the Korean paper,  The Joongang Ilbo Daily, wrote to indicate that bombing on Tokyo and atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was God's punishment for Japan's past military actions, in its May 20, 2013, edition. Upon the 2011 March 11 East Japan Great Disaster, some fundamental and evangelical Christians made comments to indicate that the great disaster was God's punishment for Japan's sinfulness, as the Korean paper reasons the sufferings brought by bombings in Japan to be a God's punishment.

It was made clear by Jesus that making such an attribution - making God responsible for our suffering - is wrong. The following excerpts from John’s Gospel tells that Jesus was correcting his disciples belief on suffering merely as a consequence of sin.

"And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him" (John 9:2-3).

This Gospel message indicates that an innocent man can acquire a disability like blindness. Sin status has nothing to do with our disabilities and sufferings.  We suffer regardless of our sinfulness.  And there is always a burning temptation to ask why an innocent person has to suffer.

There is a danger of getting obsessed with this curious question of why an innocent person suffers.  

Just think what merits you to pursue this “why” question, especially when you are suffering. 

Being in health care, especially in emergency and critical situations, I am trained to set priorities in my response.  It is to determine and execute what is needed to be done first and what can wait.  In such a situation, it is the last thing we can do to argue "why" this patient suffer as he or she is.

Whether we are innocent or have sinned, the first priority in response to our suffering must be finding ways to alleviate our current suffering – rather than arguing on why we suffer.   

In the Book of Job, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz , Bildad ,and Zophar, made this mistake of getting into an argument with Job about why Job, the innocent and righteous, had to suffer. 

Job and his three friends argued and argued from Chapter 3 all the way to Chapter 31 (Job’s friend’s last argument was in Chapter 25) only to anger Job, worsening his suffering, rather than alleviating it. 

The Book of Job offers a lesson that it is not wise to waste efforts in pursuing a futile tempting question, such as “Why I, the innocent, have to suffer”.  Such a question may not be meant to be pursued.  There are certain things that we do not have to know. Perhaps, that is one reason why God told Adam and Eve not to eat a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 2:17). Adam and Eve eating a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is an indication of inflating ego.  Rather, we are to set priority on focusing on what we can do – what we can bring helpful and constructive results at this time as it is rather what a healthy ego does.

In my 4/29/13 blog entry, “Treating Happiness Seekers After Their Bubble of Hope Gets Busted”,  I indicated psychological problem of those who are obsessed with pursuing “happiness”.  I pointed out that happiness is not an object of our pursuit but rather a natural consequence to our necessary efforts at each given time.  In other words, happiness is relative to how fully we make necessary efforts at each given time – how fully we live now.  But, a tendency to obsessively pursue “happiness”  reflects a problem of fragile ego, psychological insecurity, or narcissism.

 Likewise, those who tend to become obsessed with “why I suffer” kind of question have a problem with ego.  In the case of Job,  his pursuit of “why” for his suffering ended up making attribution to God. That is why Job blamed on God for his suffering and slipped into “victim mentality” (Job 27). 

Doesn’t this Job’s stinking attitude sound familiar? Don’t children and sullen teenagers exhibit this? 

You do not need to be  a psychologist to understand that such a rotten attitude of blaming others for one’s own suffering is a sign of self-centeredness, a form of ego problem.  A secure ego hardly presents such a problem. 

Job’s “victim mentality , indicating an impression that his suffering was “God’s fault”, is also a similar to self-pity.  

What Job needed to do, instead of keeping himself busy expressing that he is a poor victim of unjust suffering, he was to work hard, first, on discerning what is the best thing he can do at that time to alleviate his suffering – regardless why he had to suffer.  What Job needed was not pity, not an answer to “why he suffers”,either,  but a real help in his efforts to alleviate his suffering.   That is why God did not speak to him until Job stopped blaming on God, stopped making attribution of his suffering to God, but became humble enough to surrender to God, acknowledging that his own lack of appreciation for God’s greatness. 

One important teaching in Christian psychology is that our ego, self-centered tendency, disables our abilities to appreciate and praise God’s greatness.  In other words, the greater our ego becomes, the less praise and thanksgiving we can offer to God for His greatness.  In fact, this was Job’s problem from my perspective as a psychotherapist.  This psychological problem of Job kept him from making efforts to alleviate his suffering. 

But, fortunately, Job was able to deflate his ego by Chapter 37 so that God responded to Job and helped him heal.  This state of Job's mind is like the state of my clients/patients' mind, stating, "I want you to help me find what I can do in response to my predicament” or "I am ready to work on what I can do now!".

The Book of Job is a powerful psychological resource to remind us of the importance of not to slip into a “victim mentality” which seeks an object to blame by making attribution of one’s suffering.  It also helps us redirect our attention to focus on what we can do at this moment in order to alleviate suffering. 

This psychological lesson discerned from the Book of Job, a case of Job’s suffering into healing, also reflects a clinical essence of Morita Therapy, which discourages to think – to think “why” – but to encourage to act on what one can do in order to alleviate a symptom.  In Morita Therapy, thinking is to be kept very minimum but taking actions as able at a time is a focal emphasis.  

As happiness is a natural consequence of doing what needs to be done at each moment, healing also comes naturally to those who do not waste their time in pursuing “why” and making attribution but simply to do what needs to be done at each moment amidst sufferings.