Job Humphrys Interviews God

John Humphrys: And now on the programme we have God. Supreme ruler of the universe and eternally sustaining Ground of all Being. So God - before you make any decisions about whether you are going to randomly destroy part of the world in a volcanic eruption, or send out a plague - and remembering that you are an eternal Trinity - do you talk to yourself? And does that affect the way you capriciously scatter weal and woe? Do you accept responsibility for all the suffering in the world?

God: Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
    or press down his tongue with a cord?
Can you.....

JH: Could I ask you to stick to the question.  Are you in any way responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God:  .....put a rope in his nose
    or pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many pleas to you?
    Will he speak to you soft words

JH: But are you in any way responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God: Will he make a covenant with you
    to take him for your servant forever?
Will you play with him as with a bird,
    or will you put him on a leash for your girls?

JH: This is the BBC. We have to say "women". But are you in any way responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God: Will traders bargain over him?
    Will they divide him up among the merchants?
Can you fill his skin with harpoons
    or his head with fishing spears?

JH: But are you in any way responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God: Lay your hands on him;
    remember the battle—you will not do it again!

JH: But are you in any way responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God: Behold, the hope of a man is false;
    he is laid low even at the sight of him.
No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.
    Who then is he who can stand before me?

JH: Well, I am at the moment. Are you responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God: Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?
    Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.
“I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,
    or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame.
Who can strip off his outer garment?
    Who would come near him with a bridle?

JH: So are you admitting responsibility?

God: Who can open the doors of his face?
    Around his teeth is terror.
His back is made of rows of shields,
    shut up closely as with a seal.

JH: Are you responsible?

God: One is so near to another
    that no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another;
    they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
His sneezings flash forth light,
    and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

JH: Lord,  will you please stop diverting the subject onto crocodiles?

God: Out of his mouth go flaming torches;
    sparks of fire leap forth.
Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke,
    as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

JH: It's not even anatomically correct and leads me to question whether this whole book is literally true at all.

God: His breath kindles coals,
    and a flame comes forth from his mouth.
In his neck abides strength,
    and terror dances before him.
The folds of his flesh stick together,
    firmly cast on him and immovable.

JH: Are you responsible for the bad things in the world?

God: His heart is hard as a stone,
    hard as the lower millstone.

JH: It's no good trying to drag George Osborne into this. He's not responsible for all the hardship in the world. Though we have Polly Toynbee on next, to tell us he is.

God: When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid;
    at the crashing they are beside themselves.
Though the sword reaches him....

JH: Are you responsible for all the suffering in the world?

God: .....it does not avail,
    nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin.
He counts iron as straw,
    and bronze as rotten wood.
The arrow cannot make him flee;
    for him sling stones are turned to stubble.

JH: But are you in responsible for the bad things that happen to people?

God: Clubs are counted as stubble;
    he laughs at the rattle of javelins.
His underparts are like sharp potsherds;
    he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire.
He makes the deep boil like a pot;
    he makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
Behind him he leaves a shining wake;
    one would think the deep to be white-haired.

JH: I am both white haired and deep.  On earth there is not my like, a creature without fear. I snark the high down to their places, and consider not the low. I see everything that is high; I am king over all the sons of pride. I bring into being, and destroy. I am the source of life and of death. I bring down even Directors General in my might. Look unto me, O mortals,  and quiver.  For I am HUMPHRYMANDIUS, KING OF KINGS!

God: So.  Do you accept responsibility for all the suffering in the world? It would be nice for someone else to get the blame.