I don’t bear in mind after I first learn the book of Ecclesiastes. I first taught it on the Catholic Stonehill Faculty. There we had been free to show Intro to Faith nevertheless we needed, so to observe my very own mental curiosity I made it “God in the West”. The one factor we had been required to show was the e-book of Exodus, which I believe the division had chosen for an uplifting social-justice message through which God acts to free a folks from slavery. However the Hebrew Bible, not to mention the entire Christian Bible, has by no means spoken with a single voice, and I chosen Ecclesiastes to show alongside Exodus as a result of the distinction between them is so exceptional.
Very similar to the Song of Songs (or Track of Solomon), which it instantly precedes, Ecclesiastes is a e-book you don’t count on to seek out within the Bible. It makes you surprise: what is that this e-book doing right here? The Track of Songs bears the obvious distinction with what we predict we all know concerning the Bible: here’s a textual content that’s clearly a few younger couple having intercourse, seemingly celebrating it, they usually don’t even seem like married. That’s not the kind of factor that we’re led to think about would seem within the Bible. But it surely’s in there.
Ecclesiastes’s distinction to the remainder of the Bible is a little bit subtler, nevertheless it’s nonetheless notable. Exodus, and different prophetic books, offer you a God who acts on this planet with righteousness, liberating his chosen folks from slavery with terrifying wonders. Ecclesiastes offers you a God who does not.
What one as an alternative finds in Ecclesiastes above all is a bittersweet depiction of the unjust world, a world ruled by fickle fortune. The textual content hauntingly proclaims: “All issues have I seen within the days of my self-importance: there’s a simply man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there’s a depraved man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.” Or extra famously: “I returned, and noticed below the solar, that the race is to not the swift, nor the battle to the sturdy, neither but bread to the smart, nor but riches to males of understanding, nor but favour to males of ability; however time and probability happeneth to all of them.”
And I really like Ecclesiastes for all of that. In midterm evaluations, certainly one of my Stonehill college students complained that I used to be solely instructing “the unhealthy components of the Bible, like Ecclesiastes.” I responded: “for me these aren’t the unhealthy components. I’d say it’s my favorite e-book of the Bible. You don’t should agree with me; you’re free to hate it. However it’s essential know that it’s in there; in the event you’re Catholic, that is a part of your custom, and it’s essential give it some thought.”
I really like Ecclesiastes as a result of its unjust world is the actual world. (That, and I really like the magnificence of the textual content – a magnificence the Byrds appreciated after they made a portion of it into “Turn! Turn! Turn!”. That’s why I’m utilizing the King James Model right here; whatever the translation’s accuracy or archaism, I do know of no different English translation that matches the fantastic thing about King James.)
Ecclesiastes claims that God judges the righteous and the depraved – however he doesn’t do something about it! Not even within the afterlife: there isn’t any point out of a heaven or hell, and “the useless know not any factor, neither have they any extra a reward; for the reminiscence of them is forgotten.” That is the world that we moderns know, with no proof that consciousness goes anyplace after demise, and the place tens of millions perish unjustly below the horrors approved by Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Putin, for no greater goal. The place the last word destiny of the human species will not be a kingdom of heaven with out finish, however extinction.
This God will not be ibn Sīnā’s God, who’s required for us to know nature and the world; it’s a God whose presence doesn’t appear to make a lot if any distinction to the best way the world works. And such a God appears far more consultant of the world we really stay in. The claims about God’s judgement, in flip, make sense within the gentle of Augustine’s and Gandhi’s view that truth is God: your actions are actually good or unhealthy, although they don’t seem to be rewarded or punished for being such.
Ecclesiastes offers a warning to eudaimonists: don’t count on that your advantage will repay in external goods. Advantage is advantage and God will decide it, however he won’t reward it. Thus Doull takes Ecclesiastes because the mannequin of an ethics the place what makes an motion good is unbiased of our needs, in distinction to the Sophists’ view the place they’re an identical – externalism over internalism. With that recognition in thoughts, the eudaimonist place it’s best to finish up in is that of the Stoics and Epicureans, the place exterior items don’t matter; the payoff of advantage is in psychological happiness and within the goodness of advantage itself.
This all makes Ecclesiastes sound gloomy and miserable. And to those that had been anticipating a God-soaked world of divine justice, it’s certainly miserable by comparability. However Ecclesiastes seems completely different after we take it by itself phrases. There, what I discover inspiring in Ecclesiastes is that within the midst of all this struggling and injustice, we will nonetheless discover pleasure and sweetness within the on a regular basis, within the cruel, crazy, beautiful world: “it’s good and shapely for one to eat and to drink, and to benefit from the good of all his labour that he taketh below the solar all the times of his life, which God giveth him: for it’s his portion.” Right here Ecclesiastes carefully resembles the Aztec Cantares Mexicanos and their reminder that “solely in passing are we right here on earth. In peace and pleasure allow us to spend our lives: come, allow us to take pleasure in ourselves.”
So too I see Ecclesiastes as near Leonard Cohen’s Zen Judaism, which finds magnificence and pleasure amid the world’s darkness. Cohen is aware of the Dao is in the piss and shit. God is current in Cohen’s lyrics, however he’s a mysterious presence, haunting the world within the background. This God desires it darker – not in contrast to Krishna, who can be a god for the real world.
I discover all of this to be a consolation at these occasions, which floor in all of our lives, after we are reminded of the world’s injustice: when in the midst of our personal lives we see the righteous perish and the depraved thrive. We need to see advantage rewarded and vice punished with one thing greater than inner items – we now have a theodicy instinct – however far too usually, that’s simply not the best way the world really works. Would it not be higher if it did work that method? Certain, however what issues is it doesn’t. This world is the one we really we stay in. If we’re to have an excellent and completely satisfied life, we should have it on this world, not in a only one. Ecclesiastes, just like the Cantares, reminds us of a common lesson additionally taught within the Desiderata: with all its sham, drudgery and damaged desires, it’s nonetheless a fantastic world. Be cheerful. Attempt to be completely satisfied.
