Page 45 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
Along these lines, Rutherford defends Milton’s argument that the God of Christianity does not ground tyranny.245 Indeed, Milton argues that tyrants ought not be revered or regarded with tenderness and complacency since they are not Christ’s deputies or vice-regents.246 If Yahweh grounds tyranny, the God of Christianity grounds the highest good. Kafka shares Milton’s sentiments. If Kafka refutes Yahweh’s despotic theodicy and metanarrative of original sin and moral absolutes 3⁄4 the incommensurable, the impossible to attain,247 he rejoices in Plato’s God.248 “Passing satisfaction I can still have from works like The Country Doctor. But happiness only if I can raise the world into the pure, the true, the unchangeable.”249 If Kafka’s Country Doctor loses his way, Kafka finds his way in the world of the Forms and Plato’s World of Ideas.250 In such a world, “God, the world of perfection, of the Platonic ‘highest good,’ is under the same laws as we are.”251 If Jewish morality aspires towards the highest good, then “Our God is one God,”252 says Brod of Kafka. “Our morality runs towards this goal, without it, it is true, our being able to comprehend the goal, but the path that leads to it we can comprehend.”253 Kafka insinuates that Yahweh’s irrational contradictions aspire to rationality, perfection and the highest good, if modelled after Plato’s God 3⁄4 the fuse of Milton’s Christian God.
Unjust Yahweh, the non-Platonic God, indubitably subjects Job when he authorizes Satan to do everything that is in his power to test Job, except doing away with his life (2:6). Once Satan has incited Yahweh against a righteous and innocent Job, Yahweh wills “to destroy him without a cause” (2:3), causing the irreparable death of Job’s first offspring Yahweh never restores. Job’s defiance against Yahweh is as impassioned as K’s. Both assert their self- agencies by willing to zealously argue and justify their ways and take their case into their hands: K to the Court (T125-27), Job to Yahweh’s Face (13:14-16).254 If Josef K’s courageous volition and sense of duty is as unshakable as Milton’s and Kant’s, Job’s rebellious spirit, as he anticipated (13:18-19),255 surrenders his heroic criticism and dignity in the Whirlwind speeches.
245 Rutherford in Lex, Rex, bases his interpretation on Deut. 17:14 which stipulates that the Rule of Kings is according to God’s Law: “When though art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations about me.” Rutherford argues that the King’s authority is a power to rule according to God’s law, given that it is an official power given by the King of Kings to all Kings under him. However, it is not a power to do ill and to tyrannize, for God does not ground tyranny. Milton’s libertarian treatises and Paradise Regained favour the merciful God of the New Covenant who redeemed mankind from original sin and guilt through Christ’s sacrifice. Hence, Yahweh’s image is also renewed into the loving God of Christianity. It is the God of Christianity who does not ground tyranny. Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 757
246 Milton.CompletePoemsandMajorProse. Ed.ByMerrittY.Hughes.TheSecondDefenseoftheEnglishPeople.Indianapolis:HackettPublishingCompany,Inc., 1957. 818b
247 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 181
248 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 181
249 A direct quote from Kafka’s journals. Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 67
250 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 176
251 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 184
252 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 184
253 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (chapter I to VIII) and by Richard Winston (chapter VIII). New York: Schocken Books, 1937. 184
254 Job cries, “You ask why I place my flesh in my teeth/and take my life in my hand?/Yes, He may slay me; I have no hope,/ But I will justify my ways to His face! (13:14-16).
255 Job says, “Now, if I could prepare my case/I know that I would be vindicated./But if God says, “Who dares to argue with Me?”/Then I must perish in silence” (13:18-19).
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