A reader responds to this line in my column :

“If animals look to us as gods, and we in turn torture them for our amusement, have we not willingly made ourselves into devils?”

And then he asks:

What is the story of Job but God torturing a man for His amusement?
Did He thus willingly make Himsef into the Devil?

Me: Now, I’m reluctant to post this because there are, by my rough calculation, 14 trillion Corner readers who know the Bible better than me and experience tells me they are all itching for the opportunity to send an email to prove it. Also, it’s been a long time since I read the Book of Job all the way through. But I don’t seem to recall God’s motives being known. I thought part of the whole moral of the story was that God’s motives are often unknowable and mysterious and that the man of faith should put his trust in God. I don’t recall God smacking Job around and then admitting he was doing it just for kicks.

So I think the reasoning holds. For example, I’ve had to take Cosmo to the vet several times now for him to have painful procedures. These have been rough experiences (for everyone involved). Cosmo surely asked “Why are you doing this?” in his little head. But I’d like to think he didn’t think we were putting him through all of that for the fun of it. More importantly, we weren’t doing it for the fun of it. We were doing it because it was in Cosmo’s best interests. And one of the more painful aspects of the experience for us was that our motives would remain a mystery to our beloved dog. But we still did what we had to do out of love. And, when it was all over, Cosmo held no grudges and was tail-wagging happy to see us. Is the book of Job really so different?