Below is an excerpt from an article published today in VoegelinView on suffering and the transformative power of “repentance,” properly conceived, as it is expressed in the Book of Job. The story of Job is at once ancient and immediate to us. Thousands of years divide us from the primaeval setting of this story, and yet we encounter its strange protagonist with a sense of intimate familiarity. We may even see our own likeness in Job and his trials—who has not had his faith tested in the furnaces of hardship? Unlike the brawny and heroic figures that Homer presents in the likes of Achilles and Odysseus, The Book of Job puts on display all of the frailty of the human condition. And yet, Job also shows us the manner in which these trials by fire may become more than mere sources of suffering or woe. Instead, they can become catalysts for inner transformation. The same forge that melts the iron may also temper it. Indeed, transformation implies a dissolution of a prior form as a condition to establish the new one.
Metanoia in the Book of Job
Metanoia in the Book of Job
Metanoia in the Book of Job
Below is an excerpt from an article published today in VoegelinView on suffering and the transformative power of “repentance,” properly conceived, as it is expressed in the Book of Job. The story of Job is at once ancient and immediate to us. Thousands of years divide us from the primaeval setting of this story, and yet we encounter its strange protagonist with a sense of intimate familiarity. We may even see our own likeness in Job and his trials—who has not had his faith tested in the furnaces of hardship? Unlike the brawny and heroic figures that Homer presents in the likes of Achilles and Odysseus, The Book of Job puts on display all of the frailty of the human condition. And yet, Job also shows us the manner in which these trials by fire may become more than mere sources of suffering or woe. Instead, they can become catalysts for inner transformation. The same forge that melts the iron may also temper it. Indeed, transformation implies a dissolution of a prior form as a condition to establish the new one.