I’ll admit, I’ve been leaning toward that latter choice recently, though it has not been lost on me that there is significant dissonance between where Job goes (or where his friends are described as going, rather) and where I (and a few others) are currently going over in the “Universalist” thread. Over there I am making much of how “God’s goodness” is a very fundamental faith commitment, and yet nearly all of us, over there, I think are sounding a whole lot like Job’s friends, even in our dickering about it. I think I could still make a distinction between what Job’s friends are about and what I’m about as I insist on God’s benevolence. But teasing out such distinctions and defense are provoking good reflection for me right now.
One reason I have no problem re-evaluating what scriptures so often attribute to God is that the apostles freely do that. In the old testament, God is commonly said to bring both blessing and calamity (evil). In the New Testament, the attribution of evil and calamity to God seems significantly curtailed, if not outright denied. So if we want to re-evaluate ancient expressions of how God works in light of newer revelation, then I do think we’re in pretty good company.