Quotes from Michael Austin

Does God really make friendly bets with Satan? Why would a just God kill a man's children in order to score debating points? Was Job tested beyond what a human being can endure? When does the action in Job occur? Why did God bother to appear to Job in the first place if He wasn't going to answer his questions? And just where is the Land of Uz? These

Job's Comforters believe that they understand why God has made Job suffer. Job does not understand why he suffers, but he thinks he should be able to find out. He

None of us wants to reject our core assumptions about the universe and start all over again. It is hard work, and it deprives us of nearly everything that makes us feel secure.

Classical philosophy holds that perpetual agreement with another person is incompatible with friendship. Because no two people can possibly agree on everything, someone who never expresses disagreement with you is acting insincerely - and true friendship requires sincerity above almost everything else.

We treat others badly not because we don't understand how people should be treated but because we don't really consider them people.

We are scared little mammals with millions of years of evolution telling us to scurry away from anything or anyone who threatens our well-being, but outrage culture gives us a script that we can follow: simply adopt a sneering, angry tone and repeat all of the talking points from our favorite blog or radio show while insisting that anyone who disagrees is crazy, stupid, or evil.

As in Job God died, so also in Christ will God be made alive.

As countless readers have pointed out, the Book of Job does not answer the question, "Why do bad things happen?" It does, however, tell us that humanity's most common answer to this question is wrong. Material misfortunes, the poet insists, do not trace back to moral choices in any way that human beings can evaluate. There