Ecclesiastes and Existentialism

Long after the writing of Ecclesiastes we have returned to the conclusions that the Teacher in Ecclesiastes could articulate as he speaks with the voice of the covenant breaker. Remember, in the voice of the covenant breaker the conclusion is “meaninglessness of meaninglessness, a mere chasing of the wind.”

Already, as he has spoken with the voice of the covenant breaker, we have seen him come to that conclusion of meaninglessness as he has examined several areas of life where he sought to find meaning independent of God.

But as man refuses to bow to God, man returns to the Teacher’s search and so we have found that to be the case in the 20th century and today. In the 20th century a Philosophy arose which organized the Teacher’s covenant breaking voice of despair into a school of thought called “existentialism.”

The heart of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which is to say these philosopher’s taught that man has no inherent nature or meaning in and of himself and consequently man was responsible himself to create his own nature and his own meaning.

Now we can’t go into great detail here explaining 20th century existentialism but I did want to use the introduction to expose you to this idea since it is still with us today in many respects and since existentialism tracks so well with the Teacher’s work in Ecclesiastes.

Jean Paul Sartre, one of the chief existentialists of the 20th century did us the favor of explaining the motto of the existentialists, “existence precedes essence” by writing,

“What is meant here by saying the existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, he himself, will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust towards existence.” Sartre

You see … man has not inherent meaning because there is no God. As such man must make up his own meaning in life but as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes told us thousands of years ago that apart from God all is meaningless, a mere chasing of the wind.

Elsewhere Jean Paul Sartre could write on this score,

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.” Jean Paul Sartre

If man has no inherent nature, then man has no inherent meaning until he first gives himself that meaning. (And, naturally if man is giving himself meaning then the meaning is not inherent.) And of course that meaning is entirely subjective since there is no personal objective Transcendent point of reference in order to be informed or guided by.

Please understand how relevant all this is for today. All this explains where we are at. If man has no inherent nature and so no inherent meaning, then man is himself what is called a “social construct.” If there is no personal objective Transcendent point of reference then man can say things like …“sexuality is a social construct. Male and Female are artificially contrived categories that can be blended or added to. Objectively speaking, there is no such thing as Male or Female. They can be what we want them and make them to be.” Or, similarly, “Family is what we make it to be. Family can be defined anyway we want it to be,” and so we come up with all kinds of non Biblical families of two Mommies or two Daddies and who knows what else.

And so man, apart from and in denial of God, seeks to be God by giving himself and everything around him meaning. But as we learn in Ecclesiastes there is never any satisfaction. Again, and again we learn that all this attempt to make and find meaning is a chasing of the wind.

Albert Camus, another Existentialist philosopher and popularizer, said something very similar to the task of finding meaning apart from and in denial of God,

“At the point where it is no longer possible to say what is black and what is white, the light is extinguished and freedom becomes a voluntary prison.” Albert Camus

The point of union then between Ecclesiastes, as the Teacher speaks in the Covenant Breaker voice, and Existentialism is, in the words of Sartre,

“Existentialism is nothing else than an attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position.” Sartre

And this is what the Teacher has been doing in Ecclesiastes. When he speaks in his covenant breaking voice, He has been drawing all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position, and finding that coherent atheistic position to be meaninglessness. The only coherence one can find in life apart from and in denial of God is incoherence.

The existentialists admitted that they were looking for meaning. Another of their tribe, Albert Camus could say,

“The world itself, whose single meaning I do not understand, is but a vast irrational. If one could only say just once; ‘this is clear,’ all would be saved.” Albert Camus

But for the modern existentialist nobody could stride forth to say, “this is clear,” and so for the modern existentialist like the Teacher in Ecclesiastes nothing is clear because all is meaningless.

Well, we can understand why Sartre could say, perhaps in frustration,

“Man is a useless passion.” Sartre

For without God, man is indeed a useless passion.

As we continue with Ecclesiastes this morning we see the Teacher turning to observe life apart from God.

The Teacher, viewing social order issues through the lens of the covenant breaker, makes some observations regarding oppression.

I.) The End Of All Social Order Arrangements Apart From God — Oppressor & Oppressed

4 Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. 2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

Now of course, if man is left to making his own meaning then in affairs having to do with civilization inevitably what one will get is oppressors and the oppressed. If man is left to create his own meaning in terms of justice then all social orders will ultimately reduce down to these two categories of oppressed and oppressor. And, I would say that it is likewise inevitable that, just as in much of existentialism philosophy you hear a note of despair in the voice of the Teacher, again speaking as in the voice of the covenant breaker.

Better to be dead or never born then to live as the oppressed or the oppressors in a meaningless social order. If all there was, was life as oppressed or oppressor it would be better to have never existed then to have lived and looked to closely at the Holdomar in the Ukraine, or the Killing Fields in Camboida, or the Gulags built by the Soviets, or the abortuary’s in America. If there were no God, it indeed would be better to have never existed.

Understand though that in a social order where man makes the meaning then there is no standard by which oppression or oppressed can be adjudicated. What this clues us in upon is that even when the Teacher speaks in terms of the covenant breaking voice, he must presuppose God in order to lament the damage that life apart from God brings. In other words if the Teacher was being consistent in speaking in his covenant breaking voice he could not complain about oppressor and oppressed because for the covenant breaker … for the existentialist …. for the post-modern … there are no stable categories of oppressor and oppressed, because there is no stable meaning for anything. The covenant breaker, the existentialist, the post-modern, even though they may complain, has no absolute standard upon which to base their complaint.

This reminds us that the way that social orders are organized, or the way that we do politics or economics can not bring us satisfaction if we are operating as covenant breakers. Men who will not submit to God in Christ may build all kinds of different social orders (Democratic, Republican, Monarchy, Socialist, Communist, Anarchist, etc.) but all any of them will bring eventually will be the oppressed and the oppressors. This is true of our social order today here in this nation. Over 50 million unborn children cry out as the oppressed and we the oppressors can find no comfort. Social Orders in and of themselves and by themselves can not bring salvation. They are inert arrangements. Only God in Christ can save men who then will incarnate that renewal into their social orders.

No, the solution to man’s covenant breaking problem can not be found finally in building Utopias. Indeed, man’s very problem is the attempt to build social order Utopias … Utopias that only lead to Dystopias. Man’s problem is that he is dead in his sin and has needs to turn to the Lord Christ who alone has provided a salvation upon which redeemed men can build social orders which reflect justice, do mercy and reinforce in a people to walk humbly with their God. Only in Christ Jesus can meaningful meaning be restored as men bow to the one who is God’s Meaning (the Word) and legislates by His transcendent objective Word.

In vs. 4-6 the Teacher is still exploring the matter of where the good life might be found. Clearly, it is not found in social orders apart from God because they only yield oppressors and the oppressed. And so he probes the issue of work once again.

II.) The End of all Labor Apart From God

The Teacher seems to divide the idea of the worker into three categories

First he speaks of those who diligently labor (vs. 4) and then he speaks of the one who doesn’t diligently labor (vs. 5) and so he seems to be pointing us to the idea that one is damned if he does work because of envy and one is damned if he doesn’t work because of Laziness. In vs. 6, the theme of work is continued as the Preacher deals with the person who works but can never find contentment. So, in 4-6 he deals with the issue of labor, but it could be that he is looking at labor in the context of social order still.

Michael Kelley offers here,

“All of these qualities (envy, laziness, discontentment) are meant to stress that man’s goal of community (what we are calling “social order,”) without God is bound to fall apart, for nothing can eradicate the crookedness in the nature of man himself.”

You have these categories of oppressed and oppressor that he has brought up and then he turns to the issue of envy as it relates to labor. Well, obviously, envy is one means by which oppression is achieved and by which people are oppressed in crooked social orders.

Hence, here you have this social order of oppressed and oppressor where there is the oppression of envy against the one who works.

Well, the alternative to work is not working but that is the laziness of the fool. And then the Teacher deals with the issue of discontentment.

I’m going to take up the issue of Laziness first because I want to give the issue of envy more time next week, since envy is presently such a great destroyer of men.

This problem of Laziness is a theme that is taken up throughout the Scripture,

Proverbs 6:10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.

Proverbs 24:33 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
34 and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.

II Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

I Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

Clearly the expectation in Scripture for the covenant keeper is to work.

R2K For Dummies

Periodically I get requests for just the highlights of R2K. Here is a list I compiled. Mark Van Der Molen gets a hat tip for some of the language below. This could be refined even more and sharpened in terms of the sequential outworking of R2K, but it provides a tolerable beginning for rookies trying to get up to speed.

1.) Posits that there are two Kingdoms here on earth in which the righteous dwell.

2.) Those two Kingdoms are referred to as the Church realm (grace realm) and the common realm. Grace does not restore nature and nature is never mixed with Grace

3.) For R2K those two realms are hermetically sealed off from each other. Still, Christ rules each realm, but in a hyphenated manner. In the common realm (The Kingdom of the Left hand) Christ’s Lordship is put on display indirectly via Natural law. In the realm of grace (The Kingdom of the Right hand) Christ’s Lordship is put on display directly via special revelation. Because this is true, Natural law is the norm that norms all norms in the common realm, and special revelation is the norm that norms all norms in the realm of grace.

4.) The Grace realm (The Kingdom of God’s right hand) is ruled by Christ via God’s special revelation (Bible) and is reflective of the Abrahamic covenant. The church alone is the present institutional manifestation of Christ’s redemptive kingdom.

5.) The Common realm (The Kingdom of God’s left hand) is ruled by Christ via God’s Natural law and is reflective of the Nohaic covenant. As the Noahic Covenant makes no distinction between believers and unbelievers, the state should not require nor promote any particular religious commitment to norm participation in the social order in the common kingdom. The state has no duty or goal to aid the advancement of the spiritual kingdom, and indeed it would be wrong for it to do so.

6.) Since the Church as its own realm it is not ever to speak of matters pertaining to the common realm. That is not the Church’s business, domain, or calling. The Church cannot and must not speak to issues that exist in the common realm. The Church must only speak to the redemptive realm and to individual personal morality that does not coincide with the public square. This means that ministers have no business praying at Town Meetings, writing Letters to the Editor about public square issues, or officiating at common realm events. Ministers as ministers belong to the Church and must not speak beyond the Church as ministers.

7.) Because the common realm is common it is non-sensical to speak of “Christian culture,” “Christian family,” “Christian education,” Christian law,” or Christian anything. The common realm can not be animated by the Christian faith. If it could be it wouldn’t be “common.” R2K denies that there is or ought to exist such a thing as Christian culture. In point of fact, R2K denies any and all ideas of Christendom. One of the practitioners of R2K has even said “that Christendom was a mistake.” and with a parting shot adding, “good riddance.”

8.) Some R2K advocates will even say that Christians in the common realm should not appeal to the Bible in their discussion with the pagan about policy matters for the common realm social order. We as Christians should instead appeal to Natural law which all men in the common realm have in common. So, from a Natural law view we might say incest is wrong, when arguing on policy in the common realm, but we cannot say it is wrong from a general equity Biblical case law view.

9.) The Old Testament Moral law applies to believers in their personal private lives, and though it might apply to the common realm, the Church cannot do the applying. That is left to the believer alone to do. R2K advocates individual Christian involvement in common realm affairs, but it refuses to give a “thus saith the Lord” declaration on any of that involvement. So in practical terms, this means that one set of Christians could start a Christian Marxist club, and another set of Christians could form a Christian Limited Government club, and both sets of Christians would be equally honored in the Church, because the Church does not get involved in these common realm issues. Indeed, it is even possible that members of both clubs would be members of the same Church.

10.) The moral law from the ten commandments applies to all men in all places at all times but the ten commandments do not. This is accomplished by abstracting the meaning of the ten commandments from the ten commandments themselves. (Don’t ask me how they do that. I don’t know how they do that. I just know that they do that.) Moral law becomes largely synonymous with Natural law.

11.) Christians, as such live as “hyphenated beings” in this world. When reading R2K one has to watch for this dividedness (i.e. — dualism) in everything they write. Because of this dividedness you will find their speech full of contradictions that can be maintained because of their inherent worldview dualism. One example of this dualism is when we hear R2K practitioners saying things like, “according to this dual ethic, namely, the natural law-justice ethic governing life in the common kingdom and the grace-mercy ethic governing life in the spiritual kingdom, ours is a divided existence.” (Quote in italics is a paraphrase.)

12.) Not all amillenialists are R2K but all R2K are militant amilleniallists. Their amillennialism informs them that Christ can not and does not have an embodied, temporal, corporeal victory that mirrors the submission of all Kingdoms and disciplines to the authority of Christ in and over this world and so their theology is designed to ensure that embodied victory can not come about. To understand R2K one must understand something of militant amillenialism.

13.) R2K was developed and honed as the antidote to theonomic postmillennialism.

14.) Because of this “theology” some R2K types will tell you that they can and would not discipline a Church member who advocates for (as an example) same sex marriage in the common realm because the Church has naught to do with the common realm.

15.) R2K employs a “intrusion ethic” in order to dismiss the continuing validity of the general equity of the Old Testament Judicial laws. The idea of the R2K “intrusion ethic” is that the ethic of Old Testament Israel, as based upon the Judicial laws (and the Judicials were the case law applying the Moral law) was a ethic that reflected the theocratic Kingdom of God come near. When that Theocratic Kingdom failed, because of Israel’s unfaithfulness, that theocratic Kingdom, with its Kingdom ethic, was taken off the earth and won’t appear again until the consummation. Therefore, we are, according to R2K thinking, immanentizing the eschaton, when we appeal to the abiding validity of the general equity which belongs to the Judicial law. The Law delivered at Sinai under the Mosaic Covenant was a republication of the Covenant of Works in effect only during the time of the Israel theocracy.

16.) R2K advises to obey Caesar in every situation and policy UNLESS Caesar decrees that the redemptive realm must be shut down and worship must cease. Only then can the Church tell Caesar to take a hike. If Caesar mandates homosexual marriage, as one example, then Christians must support Caesar in this and only work against such policy within the confines of what Caesar determines to be law.

17,) Principles of mercy and forgiveness do not govern the common kingdom. The common Kingdom is governed by the Lex Talionis (eye for an eye … tooth for a tooth).

Dr. Piper Fires Blanks

    “And therefore, as a man is his brother’s murderer, who, with froward Cain, will not be his brother’s keeper, and may preserve his brother’s life, without loss of his own life… so, when he may preserve his own life, and doth not that which nature’s law alloweth him to to do, (rather to kill ere he be killed,) he is guilty of self-murder, because he is deficient in the duty of lawful self-defence.”

-Samuel Rutherford, p. 157 (Lex, Rex)

John Piper citing a question that was sent into him,

“You recently said, ‘you wish people wouldn’t buy a gun with their economic stimulus checks.’ This sounded to some like you’re a strict pacifist who’d rather avoid confrontation with an intruder than protect his family. Would you respond to this.”

Dr. Piper answers,

The context of my comment was that the missionaries in 1956 who were martyred in Ecuador—Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Roger Youdarian, and Peter Fleming—were all speared to death, but they had guns. (This came out through research, and I saw it in a documentary.) And they shot their guns in the air as the spears were going through their chests. They could’ve saved their lives by just shooting horizontally, but they didn’t. They shot in the air because they decided earlier that they were ready to go to heaven but these natives were not. So why would they kill them rather than being killed themselves?

In relation to that, our Supreme Court just declared that the Second Amendment right to bear arms includes not just the right of a militia to bear arms, but the right of a person to have a firearm in his house.

And as I contemplated those two events—the missionaries’ decision and new decision of the Supreme Court—I thought, “If somebody enters my house as a thief, he probably is not ready to go to heaven either.” So then I just ended the blog with, “I hope you don’t use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun.”

I’ve never had one. I’ve never owned a firearm. I had a pellet rifle when I was little and I killed squirrels. But I’m sort of ashamed of the way I killed squirrels, because I didn’t eat them or do anything with them. I just felt it was cool, and I don’t think that’s a very wholesome thing.

No, I am not a pacifist. I am not a pacifist principally, and I’m not a pacifist actively.

Somebody wrote and asked me, “Would you protect your daughter if you had a gun?” I wrote back a one-word answer, “Probably,” and what I meant by it was that the circumstances are so unpredictable. What would you do? Shoot the guy in the head? Or shoot him in the chest? How about the leg? Or just throw the gun at him, or hit him over the head with it? Of course I’m going to protect my daughter! But I’m not aiming to kill anybody, especially an intruder who doesn’t know Christ and would go straight to hell, probably. Why would I want to do that if I could avoid it?

So no, I’m not a pacifist. I believe there should be a militia, and I believe in policemen with billy clubs and guns who should take out guys who are killing people. And I believe in a military to protect a land from aggression. And I believe that fathers should protect their children, even using force. But if they can avoid killing somebody, of course they should avoid killing somebody. And having a gun is a good way not to avoid killing somebody.

We don’t need guns in our houses.

And I’m not against hunters. Don’t get on my case about that, saying that Piper doesn’t believe that you can have bows and arrows and rifles, etc.

And I’m not going to get in your face if you have a gun lying in your drawer. I just think it’s not very wise.

Those who live by the gun will die by the gun.

Bret responds,

Really this is a bit of confusing mish mash. But what I think Dr. Piper is saying is,

1.) “I wouldn’t shoot to kill someone in defense of self and family because said assailant might not be ready to go to heaven and I would thus be responsible for sending someone to hell.”

If that is what he is saying one wonders how a Reformed minister of his stature could ever believe he could send someone to hell before God was able to get them ready to go to heaven?

I know there are many times when God sees a person die and says to Himself, “To late again … and here I was going to get that person saved for heaven next week.”

2.) Here is Dr. Piper’s question as put in the mouths of the Martyred Missionaries, and then as seemingly leveraged for a sort of pacifistic disposition when it comes to self defense, “So why would they kill them rather than being killed themselves?

Here is my answer to that question

a.) Because the Scripture gives me license for self-defense,

Exodus 22:2-3 teaches “If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”

One conclusion which can be drawn from this is that a threat to our life is to be met with lethal force. During the day, presumably because we can recognize and later apprehend the thief if he escapes, we are not to kill him in non life-threatening circumstances.

In Proverbs 25:26 we read that “A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well.”

Dr. Piper seemingly would have us faltering before the wicked by not being armed.

b.) Because God has called me to be a good steward of all that He has given me and the most precious gifts that God has given us is our family and our lives. To throw our lives away because the wicked are not ready for Heaven is to violate the call to be good stewards.

c.) Love for others requires me to protect the judicially innocent from those wicked who would do harm. It is not love for the judicially innocent for me to be so pious that I allow harm to the judicially innocent because I was too pious to squeeze off a round in order to demonstrate my love to them.

3.) Dr. Piper claims he is not a pacifist but much of his counsel comes across as pacifistic. True, the answer is full of contradictions that can be read both ways but he ends his answer by warning against owning a weapon. (“And having a gun is a good way not to avoid killing somebody.”)

4.) Dr. Piper’s statement, “We don’t need guns in our houses,” belies a serious misunderstanding of necessity of self defense, a serious misunderstanding of the average response time of the Police to a distress call, and a serious misunderstanding of the purpose of the 2nd amendment.

5.) We applaud Dr. Piper for his thoughtful counsel regarding avoidance of taking life it at all possible. However, we should keep in mind that a home invasion crisis, that includes a potential threat to life, often does not allow for easily determining the intent of the aggressor. As such, often it may not be possible to avoid taking life, and in point of fact, to much concern for the life of the aggressor might translate into not enough concern for the lives of those of the family being protected.

6.) One wonders if Dr. Piper is operating from a kind of Big Brother mindset. Note that in his list of people who should have guns he lists all the organs of the State (Militia, Police, and Military). Again, one wonders why those people are more qualified to have tools of protection where individuals are warned off against tools of protection. What makes Big Brother a better candidate for tools of protection as opposed to John Q. Public?

7.) Are we to understand that the warning in Scripture that “those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword” was meant to include those who use weapons according to a Biblical standard? When Dr. Piper says, “those who live by the gun shall die by the gun,” are we to understand that Dr. Piper is including those who use a gun to rescue their wife and children as under that curse?

8.) In the final analysis Dr. Piper’s advice on this matter is unreasonable, uninformed, and what’s worse … unbiblical.

True American Principles

“General Richard Taylor, in one of the best Confederate memoirs,’Destruction and Reconstruction’, related what happened as he surrendered the last Confederate troops east of the Mississippi in 1865;

A German, wearing the uniform of a Yankee general and speaking in heavily accented English, lectured him that now that the war was over, Southerners would be taught ‘the true American principles.’ Taylor replied, sardonically, that he regretted that his grandfather, an officer in the Revolution, and his father, President of the United States, had not passed on to him true American principles. Yankeeism was triumphant.”

Christian Plumbing?

Recently, discussion has occurred (again) at certain environs on how ridiculous it is to make a distinction between a Christian plumber and a non-Christian plumber.

However, I protest.

The reason I protest is that when we concede that Christian plumbing and non-Christian plumbing are exactly the same since both the pagan plumber and the Christian plumber are turning the same pvc pipe, using the same tools, and patching the same leaks we fail to comprehend how it is the case that the pagan plumber has stolen huge amounts of Christian capital in order to even think about plumbing in an orderly fashion. Remember, if the pagan plumber was being consistent with his Christ hating worldview there would be no order nor structure, nor rhyme nor reason to anything, including plumbing. Non Christian worldviews, if consistently thought through and acted upon would be complete and total, time plus chance plus circumstance random chaos. A Christ hating plumber, who was consistent with his worldview, could very well run your plumbing so that every time you turn on the stove water spurts forth, or alternately he could charge you for making your problem even worse.

At this point someone might protest and say .. “But that wouldn’t really be plumbing.” To which I would respond, “Apart from a Christian worldview what is plumbing?” “Apart from a Christian worldview what is a wrench?” “Apart from a Christian worldview what is a leak?” “Apart from a Christian worldview what is pvc pipe?” You see, before the plumber can even begin to plumb he has to make certain assumptions about the world and his plumbing role in it. If he is a Christ hating plumber, who is consistent with his Christ hating worldview, you’re going to get a far different finished repair job then the Christian plumber who is consistent with his Christ affirming worldview.

Now, I’m glad to concede that non Christian plumbers often do Christian plumbing, in the sense that they borrow capital from a Christian worldview in order to approach plumbing needs with a sanguinary amount of skill. However, to deny that, in principle, there is no difference between Christian plumbing and non Christian plumbing is to misunderstand the powerful influence that worldviews have on every facet of life — including plumbing.

If we lived in a world where the antithesis between Christianity and non-Christianity had arrived closer to a terminal point I think we would see more easily how it is legitimate to speak of Christian and non Christian plumbing.

Maybe if the former Soviets had had some Christian plumbers on hand Chernobyl would have never happened?