"As God liveth, who hath taken away my right,
And the Almighty who hath vexed my soul;
Surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness.
Till I die, I will not put away my integrity from me,
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go."[52]
Another suggestion of the book is that evil comes to prove man's
sincerity: "Does Job serve God for naught?" and from that standpoint the
answer is, Yes; he does. "There is a disinterested love of God."[53] In
this setting, also, the experience of suffering produces a shifting of
values from the extrinsic to the internal.
The other treatment of the problem of suffering is found in the latter
half of Isaiah. It finds an interpretation of the problem by a deeper
view of social interdependence, in which the old tribal solidarity is
given, as it were, a transfigured meaning. The individualistic
interpretation of suffering was that it meant personal guilt. "We did
esteem him stricken of God." This breaks down. The suffering servant is
not wicked. He is suffering for others--in some sense. "He hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows." The conception here reached of an
interrelation which involves that the suffering of the good may be due
to the sin or the suffering of others, and that the assumption of this
burden marks the higher type of ethical relation, is one of the finest
products of Israel's religion. As made central in the Christian
conception of the Cross, it has furnished one of the great elements in
the modern social consciousness.
§ 3. THE MORAL CONCEPTIONS ATTAINED
The moral conceptions which were thus worked out may now be brought
together for convenient summary under the two heads of the "How" and the
"What" indicated in our introductory chapter. Under the first we specify
the conceptions resulting (1) from recognition of a standard of right,
and an ideal of good, (2) from free choice of this ideal. Under the What
we indicate the content of the ideal on both its personal and its social
sides.
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