Fact Collecting by Robin McKenzie

Fact Collecting

Child of the enlightenment 

Going from one extreme to the next 

Throw the baby out with the bathwater 

Purging that which can’t be replicated in the lab

Makes no sense of love or intuition 

One must know, only the facts

Overthink, analyse, scrutinise 

Analysis paralysis 

But true wisdom is knowing what can’t be known 

Embrace the mystery 

Accept the contradictions, shades of grey

It doesn’t have to make logical sense.

You don’t have to be able to understand 

Forget fighting the slippery thin edge of the wedge

What are we so afraid of?

The prompting of the spirit?

Feelings that can’t be calibrated? 

Our forefathers rejoiced in their new understanding 

Why the sun sat

Where lightning came from 

How to kill a germ

Would they be aghast to see the baby disappear with the water?

Our denial of things immaterial?

Is fact collecting always preeminent?

Surpassing the value of spiritual engagement?

Do facts alone lead to sanctification? 

Ah, The fear of the thin edge of the wedge

      

Engineering principles undergird  bridges

But just as important is the soul 

A corrupt heart leads to use of shoddy material

And bridges falling down.

Who is man that he assumes he is capable of knowing everything?

That knowledge is the answer to all predicaments?

As God said to Job “ Why do you confuse the issue?

Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about? 

Pull yourself together.  Up on your feet!  Stand tall. 

I have some questions for you and I want some straight answers… 

Tell me since you know so much!” 

Science, contemplation, theory, and theology: from Boyle to McLeish

 I really enjoyed watching the 2021 Boyle Lecture, given by Tom McLeish, "The Rediscovery of Contemplation Through Science."

A paper based on the lecture is here. I have extracted a few choice quotes below. 

McLeish suggests that there are four “wrong turns” concerning "science and religion" that occurred with the scientific revolution and the rise of a modernist worldview.

1. (1)  A turn from human contemplation of nature as subjects fully immersed in the world, toward an illusion of perfect objectivity.

2. (2)  A turn from the appreciation of imagination as a legitimate pathway to knowledge, in partnership with reason, to an elevation of reason alone.

3. (3)  A turn from science as a shared cultural experience, to a restricted, professional, and institutional expertise.

4. (4)  A profound misreading of the Book of Nature—that traditional metaphor of the natural world and our epistemological relation to it as “God’s Second Book.” 

5. If we are to understand science theologically, I will propose that we should rediscover how to read the world, not as prose, but as poetry.

He makes a subtle point drawing on his experience working as a theoretical physicist on soft matter. At this point in the video, he gives a physical illustration of this in terms of modeling polymers [molecules that are very long chains of atoms].

1. The glorious paradox is that by negotiating our entropic relationship with the world, by formally knowing less in this way, we can arrange to understand more.

McLeish has discussed the Old Testament book of Job extensively in his wonderful book, Faith and Wisdom in Science. Here he states

1. Job, like modern science, needs a re-orientation in his relationship to an apparently chaotic cosmos more than he needs anything else.

2. In the long question-form poem, Yahweh points Job to his co-creating imaginative task to reach behind the surface of the world, into the ice, out to the star-clusters, onward to light itself. It remains a great pity that mainstream scholarship has tended to interpret this most healing and affirmative of texts as a form of petty divine put-down.

3. The textual encounter of Job, where the Creator, a human image of that Creator, and created nature meet, feeds our task to fashion a theologically conceived framing of science. Surprisingly to those attuned to the old “natural theology,” this re-orientation is entirely opposite to that tradition. It urges us not to look on the natural world for signs of God, nor through it as a window onto some dim divine image, but to learn to look on nature with God’s eyes, aligning our servant gaze with, not at, the divine.  

Finding order in the chaos of life

Life in this world often seems to be chaotic. Think of your experience of the weather, the economy, politics, and human relationships. It is hard to predict what will happen next. We yearn for order and sometimes seem to be able to create little oases of it, only to see them slip from our grasp. Sometimes things even seem to make sense; much of the time they don't. 

On the other hand, some claim there is a grand plan for the universe and it is all pre-determined. We just follow our destiny.

What is the relationship between order and chaos? Is the universe random or deterministic? Scientists have wrestled with these questions for centuries. How might different scientific views related to how the Bible addresses (or not) these questions?

I have enjoyed re-reading,  Let There Be Science: Why God Loves Science, and Science Needs God, by David Hutchings and Tom McLeish. This week we are discussing it in the theology reading group.  I think that this is the best introductory book I have encountered about the relationship between theology and science.

The questions above are nicely discussed in Chapter 6, entitled Order from Chaos. Here are some highlights.

chaotic systems are both predictable and random (p. 115)

The probabilistic approach shows us that order really can emerge from disorder (p. 118)

Theoretically predictable systems (can) collapse into randomness. Theoretically random systems coalesce into predictability. 

Is the future knowable, or not? It seems that science gives a rather unscientific answer: “sort of”. (p. 119)

Some related issues are discussed in posts I wrote a while back. 

The collective activity of many randomly moving actors can be effectively predictable, even if individual motions are not.

Random dynamics at one level can lead to deterministic dynamics at a higher level, and visa versa.

True randomness requires design. This is illustrated by the fact that it is very hard to make random number generators that are truly random.

Job struggled with the chaos of life. He lived a morally ordered life, yet he experienced chaos, reflected in his great suffering. He ranted at God.

Even if I summoned him and he responded, 

I do not believe he would give me a hearing. 

He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. 

Job 9:16-17

In a development that is both surprising and entirely fitting, God does indeed respond to Job, speaking to him and his four counsellors from within a storm. This is our first clue that there may be far more to the apparent randomness of nature than Job had brought to his argument. (p. 122)

Job is being invited into a new way of thinking. God will push him to examine things afresh. Could it be that randomness and overall divine care can walk hand in hand somehow? (p. 122) 

God goes on to take full responsibility for the processes Job has raged about, but he suggests that Job has misunderstood the situation badly: 

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?  

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?

                     Job 38:22-27 

Here, God turns Job’s argument on its head. These events do not show a lack of control; they are actually how God brings about his plans. Job has seen them as individual, one-off uncertainties. He has seen them as uncontrolled events which terrorize mankind. God, though, is saying that they are not isolated instances at all; he is painting a bigger picture. The apparent randomness on the smaller scale is combining to form the order which emerges for creation as a whole. Job’s field of vision is far too narrow. God is telling him to widen it. (p. 123)

The authors then allude to some of the scientific research that McLeish has been involved in.

The mystery was solved when it was realized that billions of bumbling peptides had managed to glue themselves together into tapes. Their rapid, erratic motion was crucial to this: only by crashing around haphazardly would they eventually build up any kind of emergent structure. 

 The result of all this “randomness” is the formation of cell walls, the maintenance of correct chemical concentrations, overwhelming victories for the immune system and more. It is from within all the chaos that overall order is formed – and life exists.  

This video illustrates this with a computer simulation of an HIV virus capsid being surrounding by a drug, taken from this paper.

Modern scientists have learned that randomness and predictability are two sides of the same coin. (p. 124-5)

If our world was entirely random or entirely predictable, life as we know it would not be possible, and we could have no hope of any meaningful interaction with either nature or its Creator. 

We are told in the Bible that God has made it neither of these: he is found in both the chaos of the storm and the certainty of his love. (p. 125)

Science is wonder-ful

 Many books have been written about science and Christianity. Many of them I don't like, find helpful or recommend. I do like some because they present a good understanding of both science and Christianity, and engage in a constructive dialogue between the two. Even then, many books rehash the same old topics and same old arguments about creation, evolution, big bang cosmology, free will, reliability of the Bible, ...

The introductory book that I recommend is A User's Guide to Science and Christian Belief, by Michael Poole. Unfortunately, it is now out of print.

Writing a new book that brings a fresh perspective to the subject is necessary but also daunting. I am very happy that David Hutchings and Tom McLeish have done this with Let There Be Science: Why God Loves Science, and Science Needs God. The book is at the basic/popular/introductory level and is very accessible, so some non-scientist friends tell me. This accessibility may have been aided by the experience of Hutchings as a high school physics teacher. I am not surprised that McLeish would be involved in producing such a wonderful book given that I loved his Faith and Wisdom in Science, which is at the advanced academic level.

The book has many strengths. It is clear, engaging, interesting, creative, original, invitational, and balanced. The authors succeed because they believe that science is a human endeavour. Indeed, science is wonderful because `doing science is a fundamental part of what it means to be human'. Hence it is natural to use stories.

Stories get us thinking about people – their motivations, hopes, or pain; their moments of inspiration or moments of disaster. Stories are how we best understand ourselves and our beliefs. Stories, as we shall see, can be key in the search for a bigger picture.  

Some of the main ideas that are developed are the following. 

Science is a way of thinking. 

 ... we will count something as true science if – and only if – we can show it meets three distinct criteria. First, there must be observation of something in nature. Second, there must be a discussion of a possible physical cause. Third, there should be some form of analysis or testing involved. This last requirement might be through planned experiment, physical interaction, or by further observation. 

Although the term "scientist" did not exist until the nineteenth century, "science" has been around for a long time. Isaac Newton did natural philosophy, which might be defined as "Loving wisdom about nature".  (Chapter 2)

It is remarkable that humans can do science at all. The universe is rational and we do have the capacity to understand it. Furthermore, this rationality is seen in our ability to make connections between phenomena that may appear to have no connection to one another. (Chapter 3)

There are parallels in the manner that people change their minds about scientific theories, about God, and about how they should live their life.  (Chapter 4)

Science does not always go smoothly. It can be a source of personal pain for the scientist. Nevertheless, they persevere because they have scientific hope. (Chapter 5)

 “Order consistently emerges from apparent chaos, even at the very deepest levels of our current understanding.’’ (Chapter 6)

 In both science and theology it is important to ask the right questions. (Chapter 7)

 Love is even more important! (Chapter 8)

 our science stories will intermingle with faith stories – the two are bound together far more tightly than some modern commentators might have us believe. The big pictures painted by the history, the people and the findings of science look very much like those that emerge from the pages of the Bible – and we will go on to find, in Chapters 9 and 10, that this connection might just be of universal significance. 

The stories are captivating and the authors beautifully weave together sets of apparently disparate stories into single stories with a profound point. For example, chapter 3 covers silk, the philosophical question of the existence of numbers, the axioms of Euclidean geometry, weaving looms, the shape of pomegranates, Charles Babbage and the first computer, error correction in computers, and the book of Job. What is the point of all this?

The Bible’s answer to the mathematical debate we began this journey with is simple but profound: the reason that we can know about numbers, despite their lack of physicality, is because God has put wisdom in our minds. Far from being opposed to reason, Christianity gives us the basis for believing two things that are absolutely crucial if good science is ever to be carried out: that we are reasonable beings, and that the world is a reasonable place.

Start with emphathy

When I encounter new ideas and new social movements my first reaction is analysis and critique. This probably stems from being an intellectual, being male, and being a reflective personality. When I was newly married I went out for lunch with an older married friend and he gave me one piece of advice about relating to my wife, ``sympathy before solutions".  This eventually became a catch cry in our family. However, I think this idea has much broader implications, particularly in living as a Christian.

For all their faults, it is striking and challenging that Job's friends actually sat and wept with him for days before they presented their "solutions" to the suffering of Job. They entered his pain.
When Jesus saw the crowds, "he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless.'' He did not immediately lecture them about their "poor life choices" or their "wrong theology". There are countless scriptural examples from the Old Testament prophets to the letter of James that rebuke God's people for not listening to the cries of the oppressed.

Everyone has a story. Everyone's life has produced a rich raft of experiences, with a diverse mix of joy, pain, disappointment, struggle, ... These experiences shape their world view and response to their circumstances.
Many of my experiences are probably quite different. In particular, although my life has not been devoid of pain or struggles, I have had a privileged existence as a wealthy white male living in one of the most privileged countries in the world. I really don't know what it is like to be a Dalit, to live in a slum, to be an African-American living in the southern USA, to be a refugee, to live under military dictatorship in a poor Latin American country, to be a Muslim in Australia, to be a woman who has been sexually assaulted, ...

So when I encounter issues such as liberation theology, #metoo, economic inequality, racism, immigration, ... a challenging starting point is to listen and try and put myself in the shoes of those who cry out. What is their experience? What is their pain? How does that affect their perspective?
That does not mean I have to agree with absolutely every single detail of their agenda, their perspective, their claims, their politics, their theology, their methods, ....

In discussing the idea of "double listening" John Stott says

For the voices of our contemporaries may take the form of shrill and strident protest. They are now querulous, now appealing, now aggressive in tone. They are also the anguished cries of those who are suffering, and the pain, doubt, anger, alienation and even despair of those who are estranged from God. I am not suggesting that we should listen to God and to our fellow human beings in the same way or with the same degree of deference. We listen to the Word with humble reverence, anxious to understand it, and resolved to believe and obey what we come to understand. We listen to the world with critical alertness, anxious to understand it too, and resolved not necessarily to believe and obey it, but to sympathise with it and to seek grace to discover how the gospel relates to it. . . .

The Contemporary Christian: An urgent plea for double listening, page  28.

An excellent book on the theology of science

I have just finished reading the wonderful book Faith and Wisdom in Science by Tom McLeish. I think it may be one of the best (advanced) books about the relationship between science and theology.
Next monday night I will lead a discussion about the book at the monthly theology book club I am a part of.

Maybe the book partly resonates so much with me because like me, McLeish is both a theoretical condensed matter physicist and a Christian.

To get some of the flavour of the you can look at the associated blog which links to several reviews and a few videos where McLeish discusses the book.

The book is rich and highly original. Here are just a few ideas that I thought were particularly valuable.

Science should be be viewed as a richly human scholarly endeavour that should not be divorced from the humanities. Here he draws heavily on the classic book Real Presences by the literary critic George Steiner, who suggests

"Only art can go some way towards making accessible, towards waking into some measure of communicability, the sheer inhuman otherness of matter..."

McLeish takes this as a departure to explore that this is actually what science should really be about.

We should not think about "theology versus science" or "theology and science" but "a theology of science" and "a science of theology".

The book of Job, rather than Genesis, should be the starting point for a theology of science.

Science involves pain and love and worship. Science should be about "a meaningful reengagement  and reconciliation with nature".

Science today has lost this richness due to being instrumentalist and seen solely as a means of "wealth creation".

Drawing from a report about the safety of nanotechnology, McLeish considers several popular narratives for science, identified by the philosopher, Jean-Pierre Dupuy

1. Be careful what you wish for - the narrative of Desire
2. Pandora's Box - the narrative of Evil and Hope
3. Messing with Nature - the narrative of the Sacred
4. Kept in the Dark - the narrative of Alienation
5. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer - the narrative of Exploitation.

The mystery of the providence of God

I don't know.

I gave a talk, "The mystery of the providence of God", based on Job 38. I began by showing this video.

Suffering does not make sense

Why is there evil? Why is there suffering?

I recently read Vinoth Ramachandra's excellent book, Gods that fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission. In the chapter about creation he states

Evil itself is left unexplained in the Bible, for perhaps the very good reason that it is  inexplicable. The moment we 'explain' it we have related it to a meaningful framework within which it now 'makes sense'. But the whole point of evil is that it does not make sense. It is insane, an absurd intrusion into God's good creation. To explain it is to explain it away.That is why every attempt o explain evil... only ends up trivialising evil...

A chapter,  "Job and the Silence of God", draws on a commentary by Gustavo Gutierrez. Vinoth concludes

The God of the Bible gives us no theoretical answer to the mysteries of evil and suffering. I suspect that no `answer' is possible, for evil in God's good world is a monstrous absurdity, an insane affront to One who is perfectly holy, true and loving. It is an enemy to be confronted and defeated, not a problem to be solved. Suffering and evil are so deeply embedded in our experience of human life that, in the attempt to turn them into intellectual problems for philosophical analysis, we may well lose a major key to their understanding, namely empathetic involvement in the suffering of others.

From Job's suffering to a cartoon Joseph

The sermon at church on sunday was part of a series on suffering and focussed on the whole book of Job. Why does God allow suffering? Job and his friends actually never get an answer. But, human wisdom and understanding is contrasted to the wisdom and power of God manifest in creation.

At the end of the sermon the preacher, Dave Pitt, took things in an unexpected and surprising direction (to me at least), that I thought was quite helpful and challenging. He played the song, "You know better than I" from the DreamWorks animated movie Joseph King of Dreams.

A highly creative engagement of science and theology

Tom McLeish is a Professor of Physics at Durham University and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Next week, Oxford University Press is publishing his book Faith and Wisdom in Science. It looks like a refreshingly new and constructive approach to exploring the relationship between science and theology. Here is are some of the book highlights from the publisher website.

• Communicates science from within real stories over a timespan of millennia
• Argues that science can be a deeply religious activity
• Takes the most significant Biblical book for science to be Job (rather than e.g. Genesis)
• Takes the most significant science area for thinking about science and meaning/purpose as Statistical Mechanics (rather than e.g. Quantum Mechanics or Cosmology)
• Insists that rather than debating "science and theology" we need both "science of theology" and a "theology of science"
• Readers will be able to use suggestions practically, whether in church, politics or university

McLeish recently gave a seminar, related to the book, at the Faraday Institute. Here is a summary of the talk from Ruth Bancewicz and you can watch it here.

An article in The Conversation puts the book in the context of broader social debates.

I thank Leigh Trevaskis for bringing this to my attention.

Confronting the mysteries of the created and moral order

I am back into reading Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins by Richard F. Carlson and Tremper Longman III. A really nice and helpful feature of the book is that before looking at Genesis 1 and 2, they examine other biblical texts with creation themes. This may be one of the strongest features of the book. Passages they examine in detail include Isaiah 40, Job 38-41, various Psalms and New Testament passages. Here is part of what they say about Job:

In referring to the cosmic order and the animal creation, God does not simply give Job some scientific information. Instead, God asks Job to consider the mystery and complexity of the created order that God himself fashioned, and to learn important principles from that. The point is that the natural order of the universe parallels the moral order in many ways, some of the natural order being beyond human understanding. Some aspects seem hideous, futile, wasteful, or fearsome, but all represent the work of a wise God who intentionally made the cosmos in the way it is for his own purpose. (p. 87)

The authors reference p.481 of David Clines article on Job in the New Bible Commentary.
A more detailed summary and discussion of this part of the book is in a post Creation and World View at Musings on Science and Theology [which mirrors posts on Jesus Creed]. [I cannot figure out who the author rjs is.] In particular, they discuss how these passages may force a rethinking of some Christian concerns about whether predatory and wasteful aspects of evolution are inconsistent with Biblical notions of creation.

The Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind, William Blake.
Plate 13 of Illustrations of the Book of Job

Testing faith: an alternative reading of Job

What is real faith? Do I believe just because of the benefits to me [peace, comfort, hope, better relationships, sense of purpose, potential prosperity from following Biblical wisdom]? Or will I still believe even if I suffer materially and relationally?

Indeed, critics of religion such as Feuerbach, Freud, and Marx considered Christianity was not true and explained away the persistence of belief by claiming that there were hidden reasons people believed.

These were some of the questions addressed by Walter Moberly in a nice talk he gave at the conference on the Academy and the Church this week.
[Aside: all his talks were given while sitting and without Powerpoint. I found it intriguing and challenging that this uncommon delivery did not diminish the effectiveness or clarity of his talks.]

Moberly suggested the "Modern hermeneutics of suspicion are anticipated in the Biblical text; and so should be taken seriously."
Some would portray the narrative of Job 1-2:10 as describing a cosmic battle between God and Satan for the soul of Job. However, Moberly pointed out that the word "Satan" which appears in our English translations of this passage are misleading. The Hebrew (ha-satan) is a term with a definite article, not a name. "the satan" is a term akin to a prosecuting lawyer.
[It seems the devil is in the details!]

The text presents a stark contrast between self seeking and serving God regardless of the consequences (good or bad). Faith should not be motivated by self interest.
Job holds to God "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health".
The "life of faith is a life of purification of motive and desire as well as of conduct."

The Patient Job, by Gerard Segners. Notice his wife on the right, urging him to abandon his integrity and curse God.

Do you want to be a star?

After 37 "chapters" of Job and his friends philosophising and arguing about the theological significance and explanation of Job's suffering, the LORD speaks:


³¹"Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
   or loose the cords of Orion?
³²Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
   or can you guide the Bear with its children?
³³Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
   Can you establish their rule on the earth?

Although this is humbling to the modern reader it had probably even greater significance to readers in the Ancient near east where the distinctions between stars, deities, kings, and pharoahs was blurred. This then ties back to the "polemical" nature of the Genesis account of creation which again is stark contrast to Babylonian epics.

Another angry young man

Continuing my reading through Job this morning I got up to chapter 32 where the angry young man Elihu speaks his mind. My post last year suggested that perhaps he was so angry because he was scared that the answers were not as simple or as definite as he wished.
Coincidentally, later in the day I read an article Wayne Rooney faces two-game ban for a recent expletive filled outburst in front of the TV cameras. It was interesting to read what Harry Rednapp (manager of rival Tottenham Hotspurs) said about successful young footballers:

"Why is he so angry? I don't remember Bobby Charlton doing that when he scored or smashed one in from 30 yards, or Jimmy Greaves.

"Why do some of these young players have to be so angry with the world? They're getting hundreds of thousands of pounds to play. I respect him as a player, but he's a silly boy and he shouldn't have done it."

The epistemology of Job

¹² "But where shall wisdom be found?
   And where is the place of understanding?
¹³Man does not know its worth,
   and it is not found in the land of the living....
²³"God understands the way to it,
   and he knows its place.
²⁴For he looks to the ends of the earth
   and sees everything under the heavens.
²⁵When he gave to the wind its weight
   and apportioned the waters by measure,
²⁶when he made a decree for the rain
   and a way for the lightning of the thunder,
²⁷then he saw it and declared it;
   he established it, and searched it out.
²⁸And he said to man,'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
   and to turn away from evil is understanding.'"


Job 28

Not so wrong

Job rebuked by his friends, by William Blake, from Illustrations of the Book of Job

I have been re-reading the book of Job and am struck that much of what Job's friends said was close to the truth. This should humble us because it shows how we can be quite confident that we or someone else is right but actually be wrong from God's perspective.

A good place to start the search for understanding

I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

This is how Job responded to God's challenge to him and his friends.

(Job 42).

A good default position is that everything is more complicated than we may think. We are not God.

Who is questioning who?

We all have questions about God and for God? On one level this is fine, but on another we need perspective. God is God and we are not. This comes through clearly in the book of Job. After 37 chapters of Job and his friends arguing about the answer to the question, "Why is Job suffering?" God finally speaks.

As we read the Bible we may have questions but we need to careful to not overlook that it has questions for us!

Chapter 38 begins

¹ Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
² "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

³ Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁴ "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

This is an engraving by William Blake from his Illustrations to the Book of Job.

Right but wrong

Today I read through the fourth speech by Elihu (Job 36-37), the angry young friend of Job. He seems to be sincerely concerned to defend God's justice and righteousness. Elihu's speech shows an awe and respect for God's power manifest in Creation. It ends,

God is clothed with awesome majesty.
²³The Almighty—we cannot find him;
he is great in power;
justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate.
²⁴Therefore men fear him;
he does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit."

So, what is the problem? Perhaps, Elihu seems to try to impose on the world and Job his neat little equation (or mantra) suffering equals unconfessed sin. Furthermore, those who disagreed with him were portrayed as arrogant and attacking the very character of God.

This should humble us and how we relate to others.

The angry young man boldly corrects his elders

Why do we suffer? Why do the "innocent" suffer?
Why don't the wicked get what they deserve?

Is there justice in God's world?

Job experienced great suffering. His friends had a simple answer. It was because Job had sinned and needed to repent. They claimed there was a simple equation, "The righteous prosper. The unrighteous suffer." The "friends" lectured Job at great length. But, Job claimed his integrity.

The painting is Job and His Friends by Ilya Yefimovich-Repin 1869. I found it here.

In Chapter 32 of Job, a new character enters the conversation.

¹So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. ²Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. ³He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong.⁴Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. ⁵And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger.

Why was he so angry? Was he scared that the questions did not have the simple answers he clung to.