After Job’s three friends counsel with him multiple times, a young man named Elihu decides to join the conversation. “Against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God. Also against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job” (Job 32:2-3). Elihu explains that he waited to speak out of deference to his elders, but he can’t restrain himself any longer.
During Elihu’s speech, he quotes or paraphrases Job six times, always followed by a rebuttal or corrective counsel. The trouble is that his quotations misrepresent Job’s position. Even when he gets the words right, he selects the statements that support his claims while ignoring other statements that would clarify Job’s views. For example, he quotes Job as saying that God puts his feet “in the stocks” (Job 33:11; see Job 13:27). Job did say that, but to express confusion about his undeserved punishment, not to accuse God of injustice.
The most stark example comes when Elihu offers these words of correction to Job: “Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him” (Job 35:14). But did Job claim that he would never see God? He did express frustration that God was hard to find:
Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! …
Job 23:3, 8-9
Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him:
On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.
But in the very next verse, Job affirms, “He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). And only a few chapters earlier, Job testified, “I know that my redeemer liveth, … and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26). Job believed that he would see God, so Elihu’s characterization of his position was inaccurate. Elihu distorted Job’s words by changing present tense to future tense, converting a statement of immediate frustration into a theological claim.
And what about Elihu’s corrective feedback: “Trust thou in him”? Good advice, but Job had already pledged, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). Elihu’s counsel was good but unnecessary. Job was already following it.
A straw man argument is a rhetorical device in which the speaker mischaracterizes the position of his or her opponent in order to easily overturn it. If you can convince your audience that your opponent believes something ridiculous, then you can easily win them to your side.
The trouble with straw man arguments is that they rely on a credulous audience. If your listeners are willing and able to evaluate your characterization of your opponent’s views, and if they disbelieve it, then your argument loses credibility. No wonder Job never responds to Elihu, even though Elihu invites him to speak three times (Job 33:5, 32; 34:33). His misrepresentations weaken his arguments to a degree that no response is warranted.
In the Book of Mormon, the lawyer Zeezrom employs a straw man argument against the missionary Amulek. After asking Amulek if there was more than one God (“No.”), whether the Son of God would come (“Yea.”) and whether he would save his people in their sins (“He shall not.”), Zeezrom turned to the people:
See that ye remember these things; for he said there is but one God; yet he saith that the Son of God shall come, but he shall not save his people—as though he had authority to command God.
Alma 11:35
It’s a rather insidious straw man. Amulek didn’t say that the Son of God wouldn’t save His people, only that He wouldn’t save them in their sins. As Helaman would later clarify to his sons, the preposition is the problem. “The Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but … he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins” (Helaman 5:10). By lopping off the entire prepositional phrase, Zeezrom distorted Amulek’s meaning entirely.
The remedy for these types of fallacies is simple: honesty. Let people speak for themselves, and strive to describe them in words that they can accept. Even when you disagree with someone, you’re better off if you can state their position accurately before responding to it.
Today I will strive to understand the people I interact with, particularly when I disagree. I will avoid straw man arguments and will engage instead in substantive and respectful debate as I strive to address difficult issues.
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