There's currently a story in the atheistic world which argues that the biblical book of Job is just like the story in the movie "Trading Places." TP, if you will recall, is the story of two old rich men who conspire to ruin a young wealthy man (Dan Aykroyd) and elevate a homeless man (Eddie Murphy) into his place.

Why did it take so long to make this connection?

Probably because there's not actually that much similarity between the stories.

First, the focus is entirely different. The point of TP is a bet between two old men: Is having wealth and power more a matter of position (Ayroyd's connections to the old men) or ability? Unsurprisingly, given that the story comes out of Hollywood, the lesson learned at the end fits the view of the left: that wealth is mainly a matter of being connected to the right people. The "self-made" man would seem to be a myth: even a street person could be wealthy if his circumstances were changed a little. Poverty is not an intrinsic problem -- if we just gave the poor a bit more money, they'd be just like the rich!

(I once thought that way. Now I recognize the lessons learned from welfare reform and years of solid social research. Poverty is a much deeper problem than simply a lack of money, and wealth is not usually created only by inheritance and position.)

In contrast, the story of Job doesn't involve anyone trading places. Job presumably starts out in a rather normal economic situation and builds a vast empire. He is clearly a self-made man, not simply an inheritor, given that he's described as "the greatest man among all the people of the East." After attaining wealth, he becomes destitute and sick -- and after being destitute for a short time he becomes even wealthier than he was before. The book of Job is 42 chapters long, but the story of Job's initial situation and fall (upon which the atheist narrative focuses) only occupies the first two (rather short) chapters.

That alone should make us ask: Well, what's the rest of it about?

The point of the discussion in the rest of Job is to ask and answer the question: "Why do bad things happen to good people?" In Job's time, people believed in something like Karma -- that if bad things happened to you, you must have deserved it. So Job's friends gather around him, and inform him that if God exists, and something bad befell Job, well, he must have done something which warranted his unfortunate turn of circumstance!

(Apparently, at least a few religious teachers in Jesus's time failed to consider Job, as they also brought a blind man before Jesus and asked: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?")

The text of Job and the story of the blind man give the same answer: God allows bad things because a universe which allows for the possibility of undeserved suffering is better, for reasons which are hard for us to understand, than one in which such suffering would be impossible.

The outcome of suffering in each story could also not be more different: the two bored, scheming old men exchange the single dollar they bet, signifying that the lives of these two men were worth no more to them than a vending machine candy bar. In contrast, Job and the blind man are more than compensated for their trouble: Job's earthly wealth is restored many times over, and Jesus has promised his followers (including the blind man) an everlasting reward which more than compensates for their temporary suffering.

This is not a small distinction. How many people undergo painful dentistry or plastic surgery for what they feel to be a long-term payoff? This is true even in cases where we didn't personally choose the suffering: How many of us were disciplined by parents who we resented then, but are grateful for now? Jesus's promises to his followers is that at the end, when all is known, they will more than agree that they got an excellent deal. Paul the Apostle, for example, writes: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)

Making a person suffer for a mere dollar traded in a bet to dispel boredom is truly immoral. But allowing suffering which is more than eclipsed by the total sum of goodness which results is a moral calculus we all agree to each day. The atheist fails to notice this distinction, but it is utterly crucial to the story.

If you believe that any kind of God might exist, something like the story of Job is inevitable. If God exists, and has power over the universe, then it must be true that God allows bad things to happen. The story of Job is no different than any story of a child with cancer, a good man who dies young leaving a widow and children behind, or a generous woman who is tragically killed. If any kind of God at all exists, God must have allowed each of these things to happen. The only freedom left is to ask what that implies.

The story of Job is nothing more than an exercise in intellectual honesty, given that situation. Yes, God allows bad things to befall good people. And so what does that mean? You either argue (as the atheist who buys this narrative does) that it means God must be bad for allowing suffering, or argue that all suffering is deserved (as Job's friends do), or argue that suffering is actually, in the long run, a positive thing, however sad it might seem to us now.

The intellectually honest seeker confronts this tradeoff. We must either agree there is no ultimate meaning to this universe and our lives (which is what atheism, looked at honestly, implies), or we must ask, given that we think there is a purpose of some sort, where suffering fits in with that. The atheist mocks the idea that a God who could allow suffering could be moral, but the atheist's only alternative is to suggest that all experience, suffering included, is inherently meaningless and pointless.

The only crime the book of Job has committed, then, is to ask the question, and seriously think about the ultimate implications of one's beliefs. Sadly, that's more than I can say for its critics, who imagine they can reject that particular answer, and yet avoid subjecting their own alternative beliefs to the same kind of honest, searching analysis which occupies the bulk of the story.

In our culture, shallowness is a positive virtue. It's bad, the atheist argues, to suggest that undeserved suffering could possibly allow for hope. So what does the atheist offer in response? Either intellectually honest hopelessness, or a lack of honest evaluation -- more often the latter.