I am graduating in three weeks. In three weeks, I will be walking towards Mr. Schlect as he calls my name, I will shake his hand as he gives me my diploma, and I will calmly return to my seat on the stage. And beyond that, I have no idea what my future holds. Actually, I don’t even know if I’ll even make it to graduation. As I exit NSA this very day, I could get hit by a sleek red sports car or a piano could fall from an apartment window, smearing me like strawberry jam on the sidewalk. I may have all these great plans, I might have sent out job applications and resumes, but in a very real sense, none of it matters. I don’t know if I’ll get the job, I don’t know if I’ll even make it back to my apartment this afternoon, I can’t predict anything, not even the next few seconds of my life.
But every person wants to know—and almost needs to know—that all our planning isn’t pointless, that what we seek to do hours, days, or even months from now has an ultimate purpose. Solomon himself acknowledges this need in every man; in Ecclesiastes 3:11, he writes, “God has set eternity in their hearts.” But apparently, figuring out eternity is pretty much no fun whatsoever, as Solomon understand when he writes, “I set my heart to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens; an evil task God has given to the sons of Adam, to afflict them” (Ecclesiastes 1:13). So for whatever reason, we want to figure this stuff out, to get to the bottom of the mystery that is life and the meaning to be found therein. And ultimately, we can only come to one conclusion: it is all, as Solomon puts it, “vapor and shepherding wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). The Christian knows this, the pagan knows this, the ancients knew this, and the modern man knows this. But what do we do now? If we agree that everything is just “vapor”, how do we approach life? How should we view death? A single glance at Ecclesiastes would suggest that Solomon is almost an unapologetic pessimist, a man who is very similar to the “hero” in Camus’ The Stranger.* They both see vanity and vexation beneath the intensity of the sun. But while their conclusions about life are much the same, the final responses of Meursault and Solomon are very different. Meursault feels nothing but oppressive deterministic heat; Solomon sees a piercing light, which may not always remove the obscurity but can often give a greater definition to the things he can see.
In The Stranger, Meursault’s existentialism envelops every comment he makes about life in general. As far as a job is concerned, all he can say is, “I worked hard.” He sees no future gain from his efforts in the office; the “stack of freight invoices” that were piled on his desk (24) are only another task that need to be done before he eats or visits a neighbor. Even when offered a promotion, Meursault remains apathetic. “’You’re young,’” his boss says, “’and it seems to me it’s the kind of life that would appeal to you.’ I said yes, but that it really was all the same to me. Then he asked me if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another, and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I never gave him a straight answer, that I had no ambition, and that that was disastrous in business…When I was a student I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered” (40).
Solomon would probably understand where Meursault is coming from. He also sees a general pointlessness to ambition; as he writes in Ecclesiastes 2, “I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself…I bought male and female slaves…I had more than any who precede me in Jerusalem…and I became great and increased more…my heart rejoiced because of all my labor….and I considered all my deeds that my hands had done and the labor that I had labored to achieve, and behold all was vapor and shepherding wind and there was no advantage under the sun” (Ecc. 2:4-11). Whatever joy one might get from their work, it will ultimately be short-lived because we have no guarantee that, firstly, it will last very long, and secondly, that it will be taken care of after we die. As far as Solomon was concerned, he could work all he wanted and get a whole bunch of stuff here, but if he died and it all went to some fool of a nephew who had no business sense…well, what’s the point in that? What’s the point of working towards some future goal if we have no assurance that said goal will stay intact? Both Meursault and Solomon come to the same conclusion: it ultimately doesn’t matter.
They also have a similar view on community. For Meursault, people were pretty much interchangeable; one person was no different than another. His feelings for Marie, for example, have no real importance in his life. Love was a meaningless word to him, and ultimately he would just as willingly marry another woman as he would Marie. He had no reason to settle down, to marry the woman who obviously cared for him, to raise a family. He was, in Solomon’s words, like a “man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed his eyes were not satisfied with riches [and he never asked,] ‘And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of joy?’ This too is vapor and it is a grievous task” (Ecc. 4:8). If working itself is pointless, then working for someone else, for their benefit or their security, is also pointless. Community living then becomes nothing more than each man for himself. The security to be found in a community, however nice it may be, doesn’t change the fact that ultimately every man is alone; woe can come upon the solitary man, just as woe can come upon a tight-knit family. And if you DO decide to settle down with someone, and make your “three strand cord”, WHO you choose doesn’t matter. Meursault could pick Marie or even Raymond’s mistress; but the end result would always be the same.
So work doesn’t matter, people don’t matter, and now we discover that oftentimes, the stupid bad guys DO win…which also doesn’t matter. Solomon looked around and saw “in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness” (Ecc. 3:16). “And then I looked again at all the acts of oppression that were being done under the sun. And behold: the ears of the oppressed and they had no one to comfort [them]: and on the other side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort [them]” (4:1). “Folly is set in many exalted place while rich men sit in humble places. I have seen slaves riding on horses and princes walking like slaves on the land” (10:6-7). So if the fool frequently finds himself in the winning position, what’s the point of picking sides? One seems to be just as good as another, which is exactly Meursault’s conclusion. Celeste may call Salamano’s treatment of his dog “’pitiful’, but really, who’s to say?” (26). “Raymond asked me didn’t I think it was disgusting and I said no” (27). Even Raymond’s desire to punish his mistress is an acceptable sentiment in Meursault’s mind, and he willingly agrees to help the pimp achieve his goal; “I tried my best to please Raymond because I didn’t have any reason not to please him” (31). In a world where nothing matters, you might as well just try to get along with people; if that means giving the fool, the tyrant, or the pimp the upper hand, so be it.
But these feelings of Meursault and Solomon are not just limited to this mortal coil. In fact, their overwhelming optimism about life spills over into their sentiments about death. “It is the same for all,” says Solomon, “There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean” (Ecc. 9:2). And Meursault echoes these sentiments. “Well, so I’m going to die,” he says on the eve of his execution. “Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living – and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying…Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter” (108-109). And parallels only continue. Solomon says, “For there is no lasting memorial of the wise man, just like the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten” (Ecc. 2:17); and then Meursault replies, “Remembering Marie meant nothing to me…since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead” (110). Solomon observes, “This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men…for the living know they will die...[and] their memory is forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun” (9:5-6). And Meursault responds, “Throughout the whole absurd life I’d lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across the years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him?…The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too” (115).
The postmodern would end the discussion here, probably with the admonition to do the best with what we’ve got. Like Meursault, the only happiness we can find in this world is when we finally surrender ourselves to the “gentle indifference of the world” (116). We may have our instances of happiness, our moments of joy, but those times only happen when we finally accept our lot in life and move on. As Meursault remembers, “Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about” (108). Life may be vapor, but there is no reason to hate it. Just deal with it, in whatever way you can.
But this is where we find the mentalities of Meursault and Solomon diverging. They may have come to the same general conclusion about life, but their responses are completely different. Meursault remains pessimistic, while Solomon becomes optimistic; Meursault accepts the absurdity, the complete incongruity of life, while Solomon delights in the fact that, while we may not understand our vaporous life, there is SOMEONE who has everything under control.
Perhaps a key way to see the difference between the existentialism of Meursault and Solomon’s own philosophy is in the word vapor. Vapor, for Solomon, does not mean “pointlessness” or “vanity”—in the sense that there is no rhyme or reason to what happens in the world. Solomon is more than willing to acknowledge that there is a point to life; but he is also ready to admit that, firstly we can’t always see this point, and secondly, even if we could see it, we can’t control what happens on the way to this point. Solomon first recognizes that even though God has set eternity in our hearts, “man will not find out the deeds that God has done from the beginning even to the end” (3:11). “Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover, and though the wise man should say, ‘I know,’ he cannot discover” (8:17). So man is unable to figure all this out, and since he can’t understand it, he cannot control it. But this doesn’t change the fact that there IS a point. And this is where the vapor comes in, the shepherding wind. We feel the wind, we know it’s there and it’s doing something, but we cannot see it or grab it, we cannot mold it or shape it—we can only observe the effects of the wind, either on ourselves or on other things. That is what life is like; just like the wind, it is going somewhere and doing something, but we cannot do anything to affect its course.
But acknowledging that is not depressing for Solomon; rather, this is the cause for rejoicing and even confidence. In a world of uncertainty, it seems amazing to hear Solomon say the words “I know.” As Leithart* puts it, “Solomon didn’t need to discover foundational truths of undeniable certainty to be able to say, with confidence, ‘I know.’ Human knowledge is provisional, partial, limited, fragmented, error ridden, vaporous. And yet Solomon says, ‘I know’” (99). And what, exactly, does Solomon know? “I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him” (3:14). Solomon also knows that because God has things under control, we must respond appropriately. “I know,” he writes, “that there is nothing better for men than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; and also that every man may eat and drink and see good in all his labor. This is a gift of God” (3:12-13). The permanence that God offers is a gift. It’s a rather invisible gift, but that happens to be the nature of vapor. And even if you think you can make it out, it’s more like a fog, something that conceals more than it reveals. But this is still a gift, and we must rejoice in that gift. This gift is not something we simply take. A gift is given, it comes from the hand of God—all the wisdom and knowledge and joy in life that we find (2:24-26).
This is something that Meursault, and those like him, just cannot understand. They cannot understand trust, and they can go no further than recognizing the simple fact that “We are not in control.” There they stop, but Solomon moves on. Meursault says, “Life is vapor, BUT I’ll be happy anyhow”; Solomon says, “Life is vapor, THEREFORE I will rejoice.” Meursault says, “Under the sun, there is only oppression. I must accept this”; Solomon says, “Under the sun, there is evil. I must not accept this.” Meursault assumes, “There is only this world, and no other”; Solomon believes, “If justice does not occur in this life, it will take place in the next, for ‘God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man’” (3:17).
In many ways, Solomon sounds about as postmodern as Meursault; but ultimately he doesn’t affirm Meursault’s conclusions. As Leithart notes, “Solomon talks like a postmodern to emphasize that the world is built to force us to live by faith and not by sight” (165-166). We may not see, but we have faith. We may not understand, but we believe. And because we believe, we can rejoice. We can enjoy the fruits of our labor and love our lives; without that faith, such joy would be impossible, “for who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?” (2:25). Someone IS shepherding the wind, but it is not us. Someone IS offering security and confidence in the future, but the responsibility is not in our hands. And because we know this, we can plan our careers, we can fall in love, we can enjoy a swim in the ocean or a picnic on a sunny day, we can fly a kite on the invisible breeze. We may not know where all these things are leading us, but we can trust that God is directing them. As T.S. Eliot wrote, “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
* Albert Camus, The Stranger, trans. Matthew Ward (New York: Albert A. Knopf, 1988).
Peter Leithart, Solomon Among the Postmoderns (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2008).
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