Ecclesiastes: Two Perspectives in Antithetical Opposition

This is just an outline for further discussion, but most of it should be pretty clear:

1. Under the Sun: Life is Meaningless

a. Everything is meaningless, Ecc. 1:2-11
b. Wisdom and folly are meaningless, Ecc. 1:17-18; 2:12-16
c. Pleasures are meaningless, Ecc. 2:1-11
d. Toil is meaningless, Ecc. 2:17-23
e. Riches are meaningless, Ecc. 5:10ff.


2. Under God’s Authority: Life is Teeming with Meaningfulness

a. God gives meaning to our pleasures, our work, our knowledge, our wealth—in short, to all of life, Ecc. 2:24-26
b. God gives meaning by placing eternity in the hearts of men, Ecc. 3:9ff.
c. God gives meaning by promising to settle accounts in the end, Ecc. 3:17; 12:13-14


3. Contradictions

a. Christians live life as if this world is all there is (when we despair, when we say there is no justice, when we say that there is no meaning in the symbols around us [such as music], when we act as if authority is man-made, etc.); it’s the “aren’t we lucky to get this manna from Mother Earth” perspective, where Mother Earth is purely a euphemism for how the world presents itself to us, as if manna were not a gift from God
b. Non-Christians cannot help but borrow Christian capital, because it is impossible to live life consistently as if it has no meaning


4. Examples of non-Christians who seem to understand the antithesis described in Ecclesiastes

a. The origin of morality, truth, logic, rationality, knowledge, meaning, love…: it must be somewhere under the sun, and it cannot have any meaning outside of what is under the sun.
b. Quine: Neurath’s Boat (epistemology under the sun)
c. Danniel Dennett: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: cranes and skyhooks; Darwinism is the universal acid
d. Nietzsche on meaning, necessary falsehoods, morality
e. In spite of David Hume’s philosophical skepticism and protracted, vehement argument that there is no rational justification for the knowledge that we claim to have, he concludes, “But a Pyrrhonian [i.e., the most radical of skeptics] cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail.” (Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, Third Edition [Oxford reprint], p. 160)
f. Bertrand Russell: Buddha vs. Nietzsche. How can we choose Buddha’s ethic of love over Nietzsche’s ethic of hate, power, and meaninglessness? “For my part, I agree with Buddha…. But I do not know how to prove that he is right by any argument such as can be used in a mathematical or a scientific question. I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die. But I think the ultimate argument against his philosophy, as against any unpleasant but internally self-consistent ethic, lies not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to the emotions. Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it is the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.” (A History of Western Philosophy, 772-3)

At least Russell is honest enough to say that, given his life under the sun, he has no standard by which he can reasonably and logically pass judgment against Nietzsche—Russell must resort to feelings in the end. But Nietzsche would have laughed at Russell. Why must one’s ethic be self-consistent? From where does the logic of consistency come? A skyhook? Isn’t it the case that logic and the requirement of consistency itself must originate from under the sun as well? If life is meaningless, consistency is not necessarily a virtue. (We should be glad that those living in the under the sun perspective show their inconsistency by choosing to be consistent.)

g. Machiavelli: “A wise ruler, therefore, cannot and should not keep his word when such an observance of faith would be to his disadvantage and when the reasons which made him promise are removed…. [I]t is necessary to know how to disguise [a morally repugnant] nature well and to be a great hypocrite and a liar: and men are so simple-minded and so controlled by their present needs that one who deceives will always find another who will allow himself to be deceived…. Therefore, it is not necessary for a prince to have all of the above-mentioned qualities, but it is very necessary for him to appear to have them.” (The Prince, Trs. Bondanella and Musa, pp. 58-59)


5. Why would Christians seek to undermine the antithesis?

a. Thoughtlessness
b. To minimize the implications of the biblically mandated moral difference between Christians and non-Christians
i. To make ourselves less concerned about our own righteousness
ii. To sound less judgmental to non-Christians
c. (There are many other possible reasons)


6. We should highlight the non-Christian’s inconsistency and borrowed Christian capital (it is confirmation of Christianity because it points at the true nature of things).


7. We should not always highlight the non-Christian’s inconsistencies, but instead should appreciate them

a. Because truth is from God, even if the truth betrays a contradiction
b. Because it is better for the world and for our society if the non-theist rejects the moral implications of consistently applying the worldview of meaninglessness

8. Our lives in Christ should be a concerted effort to locate and eradicate all the elements in ourselves that bask in the meaninglessness of life under the sun.

Classifying Humans as Animals

I’ve thought it interesting and a little frustrating that Christians so easily accept the classification of humans in the animal kingdom. Of course, we do share with the animals the fact that we are created from the dust and are therefore of the earth. But doesn’t the fact that we are made in the image of God and therefore distinguished from the animals carry more weight? Perhaps this sounds too religious to Christians who live in the constant, scathing objections of unbelievers.

The Teacher of Ecclesiastes highlights two radically opposed perspectives: life under the sun and life under God’s authority. Life under the sun is life without reference to God or the spiritual realm or the afterlife. From this perspective, meaning itself is meaningless. Why strive for more knowledge? Does it somehow benefit you in the end, or only make you more miserable? He follows this type of reasoning in several different directions, each time finding that nothing carries meaning—not pleasures, not wisdom, not wealth, not our labors.

In contrast to this he finds that life under God’s authority does offer meaning. Under God, we can be confident that those who oppress the poor will be brought to justice in the end. Under God, the very dust from which we were made has meaning ready and willing to be comprehended by humanity.

Knowing The Teacher’s purpose makes the following under-the-sun statements interesting: “I also thought, ‘As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?’”

So when The Teacher expresses his a-theist perspective, he makes the argument that man and animal are not really that different after all, that in fact man really is just an animal, that both are from the dust and will return to the dust. From this perspective, of course man should be classified in the animal kingdom.

Is Lycaon's Feast a Mockery of Augustus?

The basic logic is as follows:
a. Jove is equivalent to Augustus.
b. Jove is a doofus.
c. Therefore, Augustus is a doofus.

When the first two parts are demonstrated, the third follows. The first is established early on in Metamorphoses (Book I) and then reiterated at the end in Book XV. Interpreters have identified the immorality of Jove as a mockery of Augustus, who was well known for his empire-wide moral reform.

Early in the story of Lycaon’s feast, Ovid says (in Martin’s translation), “…and if I were permitted to speak freely, I would not hesitate to call this enclave the Palatine of heaven’s ruling class.” (I.240-242) He then proceeds to describe awesome Jove/Augustus, who worries that the human disease will spread. Again the comparison is made between the omnipotents: “It was as when that band of traitors raged to annihilate the name of Rome by shedding the blood of Caesar’s heir; stunned by the frightful prospect of utter ruin, the human race throughout the world, as one, began to shudder; nor was the piety of your own subjects, Augustus, any less agreeable to you than that of Jove’s had been to him.” (I.279-286)

So Jove comes down in human form to get a closer look, and sure enough, Lycaon offers him cooked human flesh for dinner, and plans on murdering the great god himself. This justifies the almost complete annihilation of the world by flood.

Perhaps this is bait laid out early on, a trap set for readers sympathetic to Augustus, or even for Augustus himself.

The story is meant to rationalize the harsh punishments that followed disobedience to Augustus’ reform. Such punishments are understandable, the story teaches, given the abundance and extremities of evil. Later, when Jove is shown to be immoral himself, the point of the Lycaon story becomes a tu quoque argument—Jove himself is immoral, so isn’t it hypocritical of him to punish the world for immorality? Why not wipe him off the face of the earth?

Ovid, Christianity, and Physicalism on the Whether the World is Getting Better or Worse

Ovid poses four ages: gold, silver, bronze, and iron. To him the ages are successively, morally worse. In the golden age there is no need for laws because people are universally kind to one another; therefore there is no fear of punishment. There are no warships and there is no warfare. There is not even a need to plow the earth, because she yields her fruit freely and without coercion. Spring is the only season, and in it the milk flows, the wheat is abundant, there are streams of nectar, and honey drips from the trees. In the silver age, Jove rules the world. There are four seasons now, and people are forced to live in caves and crude shelters. The earth is abused (it is plowed and grain is sown and the earth is forced to give of its fruit). The bronze age is crueler and there is savage warfare, but it is not yet “corrupt.” It is in the age of iron that evil bursts forth, modesty and faithfulness are thrown to the wind, truth is discarded, and in their place we find fraud, guile, deceit, violence, and shameful lust to get more and more of everything. Trees are slaughtered to build ships, and the land itself is divided (private property is introduced). The earth is forced now to yield more than just food as men mine its depths for precious metals. Family strife runs rampant and evil is everywhere. Ovid is eager to associate his own day with the worst of the ages.

The Bible says that the original creation was good. At the Fall, sin entered the world; since then the world has gotten worse, morally. This does not imply that the Christian would deny the advance of technology or the progress of academic disciplines, etc. But the moral decay of the world has affected more than just humanity, and the creation itself groans in eager expectation of redemption.

Physicalist science does not pay central attention to morality as it judges the advancement of the world, partly no doubt because of the belief that morality cannot exist above the physical universe; morality to the physicalist, like humanity itself, can only be self-originating, self-creating. But center place in the judgment of advancement to the physicalist is the development of the sciences. These two things together—a diminished concern for the moral and a highlighted focus on the development of science—are why the fact that there are nuclear or chemical weapons proves to the physicalist that things are better than they used to be, even when those weapons are used to kill more people at one moment than would have ever been possible in the history of the world. So the Christian and the physicalist can look at the same facts and arrive at the opposite answer to the question of whether the world is getting better or worse. Some seem to think that pointing to the latest technology (and the past 200 years of technological development) is all that is necessary to prove their point; others point out that the technology has only given greater more deadly weapons for violent people (that is, all of us) to use.