ABSTRACT
In making his complaint against God see (Section 3.3), Job might have appealed to what Albert Jonsen (see Section 6.3) would call a ‘maxim,’ viz. that people should not be made to suffer unless it is at the very least made clear to them what they have done to deserve suffering. (People who suffer because of the operation of blind causes are a different matter.) This maxim would certainly have widespread, if not universal, support; it seems to be one of those aspects of what it is for one person’s dealings with another to be fair or ‘fitting.’ Job thus has a claim that, if it had been made against another human being, would be upheld by most people, who heard it, as valid and deserving to be enforced (insofar as that is possible). That is to say, Job would be recognized by these people as having a right to be shown adequate reason for what was being done to him or a right that the perpetrator should desist and suffer retribution and/or make amends. To say that Job has a right (or a rightful claim) is to say that the perpetrator has a duty to respond in this way to his claim, and that it would be appropriate to coerce the perpetrator in some way to fulfill this duty. But God is not like another person, not merely in being inaccessible to coercion. The point of the climax of the poetic portion of the Book of Job was that the disparity between God and man is too great for maxims like this to apply to dealings between such different beings.
