Divining the Absence
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The question haunts many, if not all, of us: “What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun.... For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” What fascinates is not only the query itself, but the question within the question: Why does this question arise in one creature of the solar system, Homo sapiens, and, why is the creature burdened by it?
Ancient Israel’s King Solomon is uniquely positioned to raise such a query. His material resources know no bounds. Solomon, like few others, has the opportunity both to live life to its ultimate, and the brilliance to contemplate it. Dominating the region from the Euphrates to the Gaza, King Solomon’s daily board consists of a thousand bushels of fine flour and meal, thirty oxen, and one hundred sheep plus deer and fowl. His annual gold income of 50,000 pounds amounts to $1.4 billion dollars. With over one thousand women in his possession, he can enjoy the company of a different woman every day for nearly three years. His wisdom is reputed to have surpassed the wisest from Egypt to the East.
After contemplating an experiment toiling and pleasuring with his materiality, his conclusion is as startling as it is counterintuitive: “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
Bring to mind Solomon’s question: “What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?” The word ‘gain’ means profit or surplus; it is the amount of value gained exceeding value expended. ‘Toil’ is work and labor but more broadly portrayed in Ecclesiastes as the human struggle for a satisfying and fulfilling life. The temporary gain Solomon finds for all his toil is “pleasure in all my toil.” Specifically, “what I have seen to be good and fitting” is “to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils.” From the ancient philosopher Epicurus to guitarist Dave Matthews, “eat, drink and be merry” is a common rule for making the most of our toiling lot. Certainly, we like-minded laborers are one with Thomas Jefferson whom Daniel Webster observes “enjoys his dinner well, taking with meat a large proportion of vegetables.” Today we may alter it to “taking with our French fries and salad a large proportion of ribeye steak!”
For the time being, Solomon concludes, the most gain this natural, cosmic order can offer is taking pleasure in fulfilling natural biological needs. The difference between us and the other creatures, like the grey squirrel or white-tailed deer, is we are aware of enjoying the satisfaction that results from our toil. So far, Solomon’s conclusion agrees with modern-day, non-theistic naturalism. The sole return Homo sapiens can expect for the sweat of the brow is of this natural world; this is all there is. There is nothing more.
Solomon foresees naturalism’s viewpoint as inadequate. “What do people gain from all the toil?” Not enough. “All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied,” laments Solomon. Does the pleasure of eating and drinking not just offset, but provide a surplus of benefit to the pain and suffering of the struggle to secure fulfilling existence? Truth be told, eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves is but unsatisfying satisfaction! Like no other creature in the universe, given the satisfaction of eating and drinking, some of us have a taste for something more – something beyond the givenness of this fixed natural order.
Given the assumptions of naturalism—(a) the natural order is a closed system; (b) there is no reality – no God – outside of it; and (c) humans are creatures of this natural order—we would expect Homo sapiens, like every other creature, to have its needs met within the natural order. The fact that humans seek something beyond the satisfaction of natural needs raises its own question: “Why”? Why are some of us, even one of us, unlike other animals, not satisfied with only the fulfillment of natural, bodily needs? Could our unfulfillment be due to not having enough of this natural world? Apparently not. John D. Rockefeller, whose net worth was one percent of the US economy, could have anything and everything in any amount. Yet he confirmed Solomon’s experience. “His eyes were not satisfied with riches” when he said enough money was having “just a little bit more.”
Others like mid-twentieth century, sultry jazz singer Peggy Lee croons the human quest when she sings, “Is that all there is? ... As I sat there watching I had the feeling that something was missing. I don’t know what, but when it was over, I said to myself, ‘Is that all there is to the circus?’” Mega rock singer Bono of U2 attests to the human search for something absent when he wails, “And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
Why do humans bear witness to the absence of ultimate fulfillment when they enjoy complete, bodily satisfaction? Why even raise the question, “What do people gain from all the toil?” Like a carpenter’s dovetail, the “tail” of absence attractively fits the “pin” of the presence of the supernatural God. The abiding absence is the beautiful entre to supra-natural fulfillment in the God of eternity. The question and its question within have an appealing reply in the supply of an eternal God. He is the countervailing reality needed to offset the troubled striving for the fulfilled life. God provides an abundance of true “profit” and surplus exceeding the painful and grievous struggle for fulfillment in this temporal world. Solomon sees it through a glass dimly: “God has also set eternity in their heart …. Fear God.” The satisfaction of real gain and advantage from life’s toil anticipates the summons of the Coming One, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Tom is currently a retired Elder in the Virginia Annual Conference. He has pastored churches in Virginia, California and England. Studying John Wesley’s theology, he received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Bristol, Bristol, England and his Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary. While a student, he and his wife Pam lived in John Wesley’s Chapel “The New Room”, Bristol, England, the first established Methodist preaching house. Tom was a faculty member of Asbury Theological Seminary. He has contributed articles to Methodist History and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. He and his wife have two children, daughter Karissa, who is an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, and, John, who is a recent graduate of Regent University. Being a part of the development of their grandson Beau is a rich reward. Tom enjoys a good book by a crackling fire with an English cup of tea. His life text is, ‘Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire, to work and speak and think for thee’
