Ecclesiastes for the Middle Class

Several years ago, I bought a provocatively titled book by Douglas Coupland, Life After God. Coupland's writings have had some degree of influence; it was he who coined the term Generation X. I initially bought the book because I wanted to understand the thinking of those who considered religious belief to be completely irrelevant; indeed, the given theme is, "You are the first generation raised without religion." (something which would resonate more in some parts of the West than in others) As it turns out, Coupland's collection of vignettes about rootlessness and irony ultimately seem to be pointing to the emptiness of seeking solace apart from God. These little interconnected stories and observations culminate in a confessionastories and observations culminate in a confessional paragraph. His protagonist narrates,

Now--here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love (Douglas Coupland, Life After God (New York: Pocket Books, 1994), p. 359)

I see this as reflected in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, in which the author laments on the meaninglessness of life without God, even with all the wealth and pleasures a fabulously wealthy king had available. It is famously reflected in another famous passage as well, which I will reproduce here, from Blaise Pascal's Pensées. The author writes,

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

And yet, after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions.

A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us little. No resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference; and hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us and, from misfortune to misfortune, leads us to death, their eternal crown.

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. He only is our true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking His place; the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to him, even his own destruction, though so opposed to God, to reason, and to the whole course of nature.

Some seek good in authority, others in scientific research, others in pleasure. Others, who are in fact nearer the truth, have considered it necessary that the universal good, which all men desire, should not consist in any of the particular things which can only be possessed by one man, and which, when shared, afflict their possessors more by the want of the part he has not than they please him by the possession of what he has. They have learned that the true good should be such as all can possess at once, without diminution and without envy, and which no one can lose against his will. And their reason is that this desire, being natural to man, since it is necessarily in all, and that it is impossible not to have it, they infer from it...(Blaise Pascal, Pensées (tr. W. F. Trotter), (1660; English translation 1944; , accessed July 13, 2007), Ch. VI section 425)

Augustin said it more concisely, but perhaps with equal elegance, when he said, "You have created us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."