-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Fisher
i do see what you mean. i blew right by that, thinking about thomas's hypothetical reaction to leibniz or spinoza. i guess it would surprise me if thomas would be so . . . irrational about it. for him, god is both rational and good, so it's not a question of god needing a theodicy so much as there being a reason for what god does, whether we can understand it or not. of course, our job (um, so to speak) is to understand it as best we can and let go of the rest.
but, unless i'm mistaken, and i may well be, thomas would have read job in the traditional way: job stayed "patient", never cursed god, and was rewarded at the end for remaining faithful. this is a rational view of god's activity, and more or less the wisdom tradition's view of justice, which is precisely what i would argue job was written to undermine.
i can't believe that i would claim to understand thomas better than maritain, but i also can't see thomas (or maritain, really) reading job the way i do. you're clearly right, however, about maritain's point in that passage -- indeed, god not only doesn't need but doesn't want a theodicy. i'm alternately intrigued and left cold by maritain. i may have to go back to him afresh.
j
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It just seems like a variation on the Euthyphro 'problem' [which is also the spectre enveloping Job]..............Divine, yet unintended capriciousness as an epiphany that frightens us; hence in some sense, 'the fear of the Lord'.
Ian