The older I get, the more I like\u2013really\u00a0<\/em>like\u2013Psalms and the wisdom books, Proverbs<\/a>, Job, and Ecclesiastes.<\/p>\n Genesis through Nehemiah tells a story<\/em>, a\u00a0story of Israel, from\u00a0Adam** to the return from Babylonian exile.<\/p>\n And the story\u2013though deep, complex, and worthy of far more than a Tweet-sized summary\u2013goes something like this:<\/p>\n God formed a people of his own,\u00a0delivered\u00a0them from slavery, and gifted them a land and the promise of his presence if they remain faithful to his\u00a0covenant, to the law of Moses. Obedience ensures\u00a0perpetual presence in the land (i.e., \u201clife\u201d) and disobedience ensures\u00a0eventual exile from the land (i.e., \u201cdeath\u201d).<\/em><\/p>\n Israel\u2019s main storyline is pretty black and white, a lesson to be learned, a story with a moral\u2026<\/p>\n But for\u00a0Psalms and wisdom literature, life isn\u2019t black and white. Life is messy, unpredictable, and often makes no sense.<\/p>\n These books take issue with the storyline and its morals. They interrogate the black and white script and conclude, \u201cLife isn\u2019t that straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n I like these parts of the Bible because, the older I get the more I live\u00a0where the script makes less sense. Too much of life has happened. It\u2019s all too messy.<\/a><\/p>\n Job\u2019s experience threatens the foundation of his moral world. God punishes the wicked, yet Job isn\u2019t wicked. So why is God doing this?<\/p>\n Job never gets a straight answer to the question\u2013other than God telling Job \u201cI\u2019m God, the Creator. You\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t take that to mean,\u00a0\u201cBe silent before the sovereign overlord, you puny human. How dare you question meeeee!\u201d<\/p>\n I take it to mean, \u201cYou are human, Job, present here on earth for a few moments. You\u00a0can\u2019t possibly comprehend how the universe works, or my part in it. The script of the sacred story is fine as far as it goes, but this world and my place in it aren\u2019t constricted by it. You will not figure this out, Job.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, to get to my point.<\/p>\n For me, in my little private thought-world, the biggest reason not to believe in God in the conventional sense is the universe we inhabit.<\/p>\n Morality\u2013discerning what makes up\u00a0proper conduct toward others\u2013is so very central to the human experience, and which\u00a0people of faith ground in God\u2019s goodness and justice.<\/p>\n Yet the universe we inhabit is largely deaf to our moral preoccupations. It is distant, cold, empty space, beholden to an apparently endless cycle of destruction and rebirth.<\/p>\n Here on earth, tsunamis take out coastlands and tens of thousands of lives. Mudslides, hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanoes hit with little or\u00a0no warning. Our environment is hostile, and we know, despite what an occasional crackpot T.V. preacher says, that God doesn\u2019t cause these disasters because America has ceased being a \u201cChristian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Sentient beings kill and eat each other.\u00a0The entire\u00a0evolutionary process is fueled by suffering and death on a massive scale.<\/p>\n So what kind of God is this,\u00a0who abides by this\u00a0clash of interests\u2013a God who is good and just, expecting the same from us, but whose universe operates by a different standard?<\/p>\n I\u2019m not the first person to ask these questions and I have no interest in answering them here\u2013though I think Job points us in the right direction.<\/p>\n God\u2019s answer to Job, if I may translate into the contemporary idiom, is that the divine is \u201ctrans-rational.\u201d<\/p>\n At some point, for most of us, as it was for some biblical writers,\u00a0God stops making sense.<\/p>\n The question then is whether the non-sense leads to disbelief in God or becomes an invitation to seek God differently\u2013even through confrontation and debate, as these biblical books model for us.<\/p>\n I know people who have answered that question both ways\u2013people close to me, whom I love and respect. I\u2019m not judging anyone and I\u2019m not here to debate the issue or try to make an argument.<\/p>\n I\u2019m just saying that over time I\u2019ve come to answer that question in the second way\u2013as I think Job, some psalmists, and the author of Ecclesiastes did.<\/p>\n Some might call that kind of faith \u201cfideism\u201d\u2013an irrational belief in God rather than based on \u201csound reason.\u201d But I think the charge of fideism\u00a0misses the halting lesson life insists on giving us, and also persists in presuming what Job\u2019s friends also insisted on\u2013that where God is concerned, things make sense.<\/p>\n The issue as I see it isn\u2019t simply whether your faith is or isn\u2019t \u201creasonable.\u201d \u201cReasonable\u201d is a moving target.<\/p>\n The issue is whether we are able to accept\u00a0that our cognitive power\u2013which can be\u00a0limiting and deceiving as well as liberating and enlightening\u2013is truly up for the task of grasping the divine.<\/p>\n That, I think, is what these books of the Old Testament\u00a0are after in their own way and in their own time and place. And that\u2019s why I like them.<\/p>\n **I see Israel\u2019s story beginning with Adam because I see the story of Adam as a preview of Israel\u2019s story. As Adam was placed in a garden paradise and exiled from it because of disobedience, Israel was gifted the lush land of Canaan and exiled because of disobedience\u2013but I digress<\/a>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0802866492\")
At the end of the day, the human thought process can only get you so far when it comes to God<\/em>.<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=158743315X\")