Job 38 and Pastoral Counseling
Rethinking Evil through the Voice from the Whirlwind
When Job finally hears from God, it is not the answer he expected. After chapters of lament, accusation, and theological debate, God speaks—not with a tidy explanation, but with a whirlwind. In Job 38, the Lord answers Job out of the storm, asking, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” This divine response is not evasive; it is expansive. It reframes the question of suffering not by solving it, but by situating it within the vastness of divine wisdom and sovereignty.
This passage offers a profound lens through which to examine the doctrine of privation and its pastoral implications. Privation, as articulated by Augustine and Aquinas, teaches that evil is not a created substance but a lack—a corruption or absence of good. It preserves the holiness of God, affirming that He did not create evil as a thing, but allowed for its possibility through the gift of freedom. In metaphysical terms, this makes sense. Evil is not a rival force to good, but a parasite on it. God remains the source of all that is good, and evil arises when created beings turn away from that good.
Yet Job’s story complicates this framework. Job is described as blameless and upright, yet he suffers immensely. His friends, operating from a moralistic retributive theology, insist that Job must have sinned. Their logic is simple: if evil is the absence of good, and good is tied to moral behavior, then Job’s suffering must be the result of moral failure. But Job protests. He knows he has not done wrong, and he dares to accuse God of injustice. “Does it please you to oppress me?” he asks. “Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy?” (Job 10:3, 13:24).
God’s response in chapter 38 does not confirm Job’s innocence nor validate his friends’ accusations. Instead, it reveals the limits of human understanding. The whirlwind speech reminds Job—and us—that the workings of creation, providence, and even evil are beyond our grasp. God does not deny His sovereignty over calamity; in fact, He affirms it. But He also refuses to be reduced to a moral vending machine. The world is not governed by simplistic formulas of reward and punishment. There is mystery in the way God governs, and that mystery is not a flaw—it is a feature of divine wisdom.
Dualism in Modern Christian Counseling
This has profound implications for pastoral care. When the doctrine of privation is filtered through moralistic therapeutic dualism—the belief that good behavior yields blessing and bad behavior yields suffering—it can become harmful. It may lead counselors to imply that suffering is always the result of personal sin, or that healing requires moral correction. It may minimize the reality of trauma by reducing it to metaphysical absence. And it may silence lament by encouraging premature resolution.
But Job’s story, especially chapter 38, invites a different posture. It affirms that evil is real, suffering is complex, and God is sovereign. It validates lament as a faithful response to pain. It reminds us that divine presence is not always felt in answers, but often in the whirlwind—in the mystery, in the silence, in the sheer magnitude of God’s governance.
The cross of Christ echoes this truth. Jesus, the sinless One, suffered not because of moral failure, but because of love. His suffering was not the absence of good, but the presence of redemptive grace in the midst of evil. Like Job, He cried out to God. Like Job, He was met with silence. And like Job, He was ultimately vindicated—not by escaping suffering, but by transforming it.
In pastoral care, we must resist the urge to explain evil away. We must sit with it, weep with those who weep, and point to the cross where perfect love entered the depths of human pain. Privation may help us preserve God’s goodness, but Job 38 reminds us that God’s ways are not ours. The goal is not to solve the problem of evil, but to trust the One who speaks from the whirlwind.