Lecture 1 — What can man understand?

^38:1^ Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

^38:2^ Who is this man who envelops his opinion with inept arguments?

^38:3^ Gird up your loins like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me.

^38:4^ Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding,

^38:5^ who determined its measurements, if you know it? Or who stretched the measuring line upon the earth?

^38:6^ On what were the bases of the land sunk or who has laid the cornerstone

^38:7^ when the morning stars praised me, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

^38:8^ Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth as though coming from a womb,

^38:9^ when he laid out the clouds as his clothing, and wrapped it in fog like the swaddling clothes of an infant?

^38:10^ I prescribed my bounds of it, and placed the measure and the doors.

^38:11^ And I said: Thus far shall you come, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.

^38:12^ After your rising, did you command the dawn, and have you shown the dawn its place?

491. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said. After the discussions of Job and his friends about divine providence, Eliud had assumed to himself the office of determining the answer, contradicting Job in one thing and his friends in others. But because human wisdom is not sufficient to understand the truth of divine providence, it was necessary that the dispute should be determined by divine authority. Job thought correctly about divine providence, but in his manner of speaking he had gone to excess because he had caused scandal in the hearts of others when they thought that he did not show due reverence to God. Therefore, the Lord, as the determiner of the question, contradicts the friends of Job because they did not think correctly, Job himself for expressing himself in an inordinate way, and Eliud for an inadequate determination of the question.

So the text continues, the Lord answered Job, because this answer is more on his account, although he had not spoken immediately before in the chapter. The text shows the manner of response, saying, out of the whirlwind, which can certainly be understood according to the literal sense to mean that the voice of God was formed miraculously in the air by some disturbance of the air, as happened on Mt. Sinai in Exodus, or like the voice which spoke to Christ, which some said was like a clap of thunder (John 12:29). Or, this can be understood metaphorically, so that this answer of the Lord is an interior inspiration divinely given to Job himself, and so the Lord is said to have answered him, out of the whirlwind, both because of the disturbance which he still suffered, and also because of the darkness which accompanies a whirlwind, since we cannot perceive divine inspiration clearly in this life, but with the darkness of sensible likenesses, as Dionysius says in Chapter 1 of The Heavenly Hierarchies. The Lord indicated this, even if he had made his voice sensibly heard from a corporeal whirlwind.

492. Once a dispute is determined by the opinion of the judge, nothing else remains to be said except to reject the statement of the determination. So the Lord first rejects the determination of the question which Eliud had made. He rejects it because Eliud had enveloped the true opinions which he had proposed with many false and frivolous words, and so the text continues, he said: who is this man who envelops his opinions with inept arguments? In his arguments, Eliud had accused Job of saying he wanted to dispute with God, and said that his claim to be just was tantamount to detracting from the justice of the divine judgment. But he enveloped these opinions with many presumptuous and even false statements, as should be clear already, which are called here inept arguments because every lack of order proceeds from a defect of reason.

493. So after the Lord rejects the determination of Eliud, he himself begins to determine the question. First, he gets Job’s attention when he says, gird up your loins like a man, which here is used as a metaphor. For men usually gird up their loins in preparation for a journey or work. The Lord therefore wanted Job to be ready to consider what he said to him by removing every impediment. So he clearly tells him to gird up his loins, because "loins" metaphorically mean carnal desires, which block listening with the mind in a special way; as Isaiah says, to whom will he teach knowledge, and whom will he make understand and listen? Those who are weaned on milk, those taken from the breast (Isa 28:9).

494. First, he begins in his determination to accuse Job for having spoken presumptuously when he provoked God to discussion. Since Job had given God two options when he said, call me and I will answer you, and I will question you and you will answer me (Job 13:22), and as Job had already said enough, the Lord, as though choosing the second alternative, says, I will question you and you will answer me. God certainly does not question to learn, but to convince man of his ignorance. He questions him about his effects, which are easily accessible to the experience of the human senses. When a man is shown to be ignorant of these, he is much convinced that he does not have knowledge of the highest realities. Among other sensible effects, he begins to ask about the principal parts of the earth. Of these, earth is more known to us, because it is more immediate to our experience. he begins to ask him about this and says, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? He rightly compares the earth to a foundation because, as a foundation is the lowest part of a building, so also the earth is the lowest of bodies and it lies under everything. Since the earth is the principal matter of the human body, matter precedes in time that which is made from it, and even more, the plan of the artisan who created the matter precedes it. So he clearly says, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth, as if to say, “You cannot know the plan of the foundation of the earth, because when the earth was laid on its foundation you did not yet exist as a really existing thing.”

495. Consider that some of the ancients did not attribute the position of the earth and of the other elements to some ordering plan, but to material necessity, according to which the heavier elements sank under the lighter ones. So to disprove this opinion, the Lord as a consequence compares the foundation of the earth to the foundation of a building. This foundation is constructed from the plans of the architect. In the same way, the foundation of the land was made according to divine providence, which human intelligence is not capable of understanding fully. He makes this clear when he says, tell me, if you have understanding, as if to say, “Therefore, you cannot give the answer for these things because your intelligence is not capable of grasping them.” Consider that an architect puts four things in order in the foundation of a building.

First, he orders the size of the foundation. In the same way, divine reason has disposed how great a quantity the earth should have, and not more or less. He expresses this, saying, who determined its measurements, in all its dimensions. He clearly says, determined, for earth, by its nature does not require a certain quantity by necessity, but this quantity was only imposed on the earth from divine reason, which man cannot know. So he says, if you know it, since man cannot know or tell this.

Second, an architect puts in order in his plans the determination of the site of the foundation, which he encompasses by the extension of the measuring line, and so he says, or who stretched the measuring line upon the earth? This means the plan of divine government, which clearly determined the place of the earth in the composition of the universe.

Third, after the architect has determined the size of the foundation and where it must be located, he determines how to make the foundation solid. As to this he says, on what were the bases, of the land, sunk, because it was founded on the center of the world.

Fourth, after these three things, the architect now begins to lay the stones in the foundation. First he lays the corner stone, on which all the different walls are aligned. As to this he says, or who has laid, put down, the cornerstone, on which the very center of the earth is clearly determined, according to which the different parts of the land are aligned.

496. Men usually lay the foundation of a building because they need a place to live. But to show that God does not lay the foundation of the earth from need, he adds, when the morning stars praised me, which is as if he should say, “Although heaven is my dwelling and the stars praise me, yet I founded the earth, not because I need the servants who live there, but only from my will.” He does not say this as though heaven was made before the earth, especially as we read in Genesis, in the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen 1:1). For the text says that the stars which he mentions here were created on the fourth day (Gen 1:14). But Genesis says this to show that in the order of nature, heaven and the stars are prior to the earth as incorruptible to corruptible and moving to moved. He says the morning stars, that is, ones newly created, because we call morning stars the ones which usually appear at the beginning of the day. The fact that the morning stars praise God can be understood materially in one way, inasmuch as they are the material of divine praise in their brightness and nobility. Even if they were not so fair to man, who still did not exist, they were so for the angels who already existed.

In another way, according to those who call the heavenly bodies animated, the stars in the beginning of their institution praised God, not with vocal, but with mental praise. This can even be referred to the angels whose ministry is to move the heavenly bodies, as the text continues, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, which refers to the angels of the highest hierarchies, whom Dionysius says are located in the entrance court of God. Therefore, as he clearly attributes praise to the lower angels, so he attributes shouting for joy to the higher angels, because this connotes greater excellence in praise.

497. After the foundation of the earth, he continues then speaking about the waters which are immediately placed over the land. The natural order of the elements requires that water covers the earth at every point like air covers earth and water at every point. But by divine disposition, for the generation of men, animals, and plants, a part of the land remains uncovered by the waters, as God closes the waters of the sea within their certain limits by his power, and so he says, who shut up the sea with doors, with determined limits. There were some who thought the action of the sun dried a determined part of the earth, but the Lord shows that it was from the beginning, by divine disposition, that the sea does not everywhere cover the land. He describes the production of the sea using the comparison of the birth of a living thing, a child, because water is especially apt to be changed into living things. This is why the seeds of all things are moist.

The child first comes forth from the womb of its mother, and he means this when he says, when it burst forth as though proceeding from the womb. He uses the word to break forth in the production of the sea because it is a property of water to move almost continually.

He says water proceeds, from the womb, not because it has its origin from some corporeal matter, but because it proceeds from the hidden origin of divine providence as from the womb.

Second, a newborn child is dressed, and expressing this he says, when he laid out the clouds as its clothing. For, since the clouds are born from water vapor, clouds are much more numerous in maritime climates.

Third, a child who is born is wrapped in swaddling clothes, and expressing this he says, and I wrapped it in fog like the swaddling clothes of an infant. The fog does not mean those high water vapors confined in the clouds, but the vapors which darken the air on the face of the sea, and perhaps he alludes to this when Genesis says, and darkness covered the face of the abyss (Gen 1:2).

498. After he posits these things which express the primordial production of the sea, He explains his conclusion as though he said that when the sea was newly made, then, I prescribed my bounds for it.

He puts three things here which pertain to the boundary of the sea.

One of these is shown when he says, my bounds, that is, those placed by me.

The second is when he says, I placed the measure,

and the third when he says, and doors.

These three things are commanded by divine power, and so Hexplains them in this way, and I said: thus far shall you come, which pertains to the nature of a boundary, for a boundary is a measure by which the forward motion of something is impeded, and here shall your proud waves be stayed. This pertains to the gates which are placed for the purpose of not allowing entrance or exit, except according to a determined measure. Thus, even the sea does not change its shore at will, but according to the determined measure of the ebb and flow of the waves.

499. After the land and the water, he proceeds on to the air, which, according to appearances, is continuous in heaven. The first common disposition to the whole body which stretches over the waters and the land is the variation of night and day, which happens from the motion of the day, which is first of movements. Therefore, he says as a consequence, after your rising did you command the dawn? as if to say, “Do day and night succeed each other on this earth by your command?” For dawn is a kind of boundary between day and night. He clearly says, after your rising, as when he spoke about the earth before he had said, where were you? (Job 38:4). For just as the earth is the first material principle of man, so also the highest heaven, which varies its motion day and night, is the first principle of the human body among corporeal causes.

Consider that the clarity of the break of day or the dawn is diversified according to the diverse places of the intensity of signs which accompany the sun, because when there is the sign of a quick rising, in which the sun rises immediately, the dawn lasts only a little while. When the sun shows signs of a delayed rising, it endures longer. The measure of place is determined from where the brightness of the sun begins to appear when the sun is there, and expressing this, he then says, and have you shown the dawn its place? as if to say, “Have you ordered the places in the heaven from which the dawn will gives its light?” He implies the answer, “no.” From all these things you can understand that your reason cannot comprehend divine things, and so it is clear that you are not suited to dispute with God.