[Tyr Zalo Hawk]: 712.Essays.Mortally Wounded by Divine "Justice"

Immortal beings tend to be real bastards. They play with, or punish, humans, sorcerers, and even other divines whom they feel have not met their standards, unsettled their egos, or even simply existed without their express permission to do so. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hero god of the Norse, or a pious man who follows God unwaveringly; if they should decide that you need to be taught a lesson, given impossible tasks to overcome, or even to bring you to your death because of their discontent, that’s simply your problem. So, the questions must be asked: why do the gods feel it necessary to interfere in the lives of those who are beneath them? What could they possibly have to gain from subjecting mortal men to their every whim, good or bad? In short: What in the world is wrong with immortals?
It would seem that, no matter how well you might live your life, no matter how much time you dedicate each day to prayer, no matter how many time you purify your children in case “[they] have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts” (Job 5), or even how much you revel in God’s light and trust his every action and command, the Holy One will still end up striking you down to win a bet. The Book of Job, a story which many preachers, or so I’m told, don’t like to talk about, is a fine example of just how little it seems the greater beings actually care for mankind. As aforementioned, Job “…was a man of perfect integrity, who feared God and avoided evil” (Job 5). Job knew this, God knew this, and even the accusing angel knew this, but that didn’t stop the latter of the two from placing a wager of sorts on this extremely righteous man. The Accuser states “Just reach out and strike everything he has, and I bet he’ll curse you to your face” (Job 6). Now, the fair-minded creator of the world, who has already vouched for Job’s amazing qualities, has a decision to make: destroy everything this pious man has spent his life to gain in a test of his faith, or let him be since he already knows that he a good man. The Lord’s decision? “All right: everything he has is in your power. Just don’t lay a hand on him.” (Job 6). Once seems to be not enough though and our mortal main character, once again, suffers for the entertainment of an angel who has it out for him, and the deity who can’t seem to turn down a bet. In the end, God’s only explanation to Job is a boastful reproach in which he lowers Job, once a prized example, to the same level as dirt and claims himself as a being that simply cannot be comprehended by mortal minds or conceptions, a far cry from the bet-taking God we were introduced to.
This simple set of actions is the basis for an entire 90+ pages of poetry and prose, dedicated solely to the examination of man’s belief, trust in, and knowledge of God. Job questions his life and what he done wrong, only to be reproved by his Creator for assuming that he, God, should need to be just in the eyes of those he created. While Job is satisfied with this revelation, it can’t help but be said that many readers, if not all, would find this to be a horribly contradictory tale. Yes, some might say that the message is simply that ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ What is that supposed to mean to us, though? That God punishes on whim, making his most faithful servant suffer to win a bet and whatever other reasons only he knows? That our idea of justice, something our society is so deeply rooted in, that the wicked should be punished and the good rewarded, is something that our Creator considers to be beneath him? God asks “Who is this whose ignorant words/smear my design with darkness?” (Job 79) before he goes on to questioning whether or not Job is as powerful as He is. He offers no explanation, no proof of anything Job has done wrong other than to question him now that he has been scorned and defamed by his only God. God’s righteousness must be beyond us; his knowledge so vast that it explains how his unlimited benevolence allows him to use his unlimited power to inflict maladies on even his most dedicated servants.
Gods do not stop merely there, punishing the righteous because of obviously false accusations, they also have a notorious habit of getting rid of those who oppose or bother them in any way. In the Book of Genesis, God also enacts punishment on the people of Babel by destroying and “scattering them abroad from there over the face of all the earth…” (New Oxford Annotated Bible Gen. 11:8) Surely though, this God must have a reason for his doings, even if it might be beyond our comprehension. “And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7Come, let us go down, and confuse their language…” (New Oxford Annotated Bible Gen. 11: 6-7). It seems to be that God is getting rid of them so that they cannot do whatever they please, so that they cannot be one, unified people. The Popol Vuh, a Mayan creation story, contains a tale of how the Lords of Xibalba are offended by the ball playing of One and Seven Hunaphu, and bring them down to their domain so that they may play ball against them. Upon arriving in the ‘Place of Fear,’ the are faced with two tricks, one being statues meant to fool men into greeting them, and the other being “a variation on the hot seat” (Vuh 36) before being put through a final, deadly test where “They are given a torch and two cigars, but they are warned to keep these burning all night without consuming them.” (Vuh 36). In the end they, of course, fail in doing so, and are murdered before their ball game can even begin. Once again, we see the gods treating humans however they see fit based on their own preferences, their own whims and wills. The displeased Lords of Xibalba challenged two men to a game of ball, and kill them instead after failing to perform tasks which should’ve had nothing to do with their game. Once again, it seems that the higher beings are simply playing with mortals, punishing them to fit their own likings, to make things better for themselves, rather than acting like the deities one might expect; then again, it seems that the gods are never quite ‘what we expect.’
No matter what the case may be, it seems that the powers that be are not content with their positions unless it is known by humans that they are there in those positions. The lowly mortals mad of mud, clay, or whatever else we might be must always remember that God or the Lord of Xilbalba are prone to doing whatever they please, punishing those they see fit to punish, and scattering or killing off those who displease them in some way. The reasoning behind this is unfathomable to human minds, unimaginable to our sense of reasoning; it is a secret held only by the gods themselves. Whatever it is, it would seem that the ‘sacred knowledge’, this ‘divine wisdom’, is just far enough beyond the grasp of mortal imagination to be unattainable, and to confuse all those who try to grasp at it. Perhaps there is no secret, and those who control all of space, time, and destiny are no more reliable than those who tyrannically rule over their own domain. Perhaps that is the secret: That those in power may do as they see fit without justification. No matter what it is, the only thing that can be certain is that they have the power, and that we do not.



Works Cited
New Oxford Annotated Bible. NRSV, Oxford W, 3rd ed, 1991.
Mitchell, Stephen. The Book of Job. NY: HarperPerennial, 1992.
Tedlock, Dennis. Popol Vuh. NY: Touchstone, 1996.

© Tyr Hawkaluk (2004-Present)