It is logically true that life is neither inherently pleasant nor inherently painful. However, living means there is always the capacity for suffering. More specifically, only a conscious being could experience pain, and short of the power to do anything logically possible whatsoever, humans are left without a universal ability to will away burdensome feelings or thoughts or the problems that could give rise to them. The Bible comments repeatedly on how suffering and deterioration are not foreign to this life following the introduction of human sin. Trouble is not something rare by default, nor does it inevitably amount to a minor affair; this is precisely the opposite of what Jesus predicted would befall many of his followers (such as in Matthew 24:9), and it is absolutely not what many, whether Christians or not, do indeed experience.
The author of Ecclesiastes, who calls himself the Teacher and identifies himself as an Israelite king (1:1, 12), does not shy away from such grim truths as the facts that pain is widespread, likely, and devastating. Words like the following are seldom spoken by those in the church, yet they are not only correct, but straight from the book the church supposedly looks to for its religious doctrines. Emotionalistically cheerful optimism is nowhere to be found:
The dead have the advantage of no longer facing the struggles of life "under the sun", making them in a sense objectively better off than those who still live with all of the pains and complications of this human existence. Later in this post, I will address why the author of Ecclesiastes, to be consistent with what they themself present, would not mean that those who have died are happier in that they (some or all of the human dead) are conscious in some blissful afterlife. No, they are "happier" in that they do not face the turmoil and grief and oppression that can come from this life. But those who are the best off in this manner, the Teacher correctly acknowledges, are those who have not yet tasted conscious existence at all. They alone of the three groups mentioned have not experienced the trials or potential for suffering—if not one, then the other—that are inescapably part of life in a fallen world. This is logically true: as far as avoiding suffering goes, only never coming into existence at all truly and utterly avoids pain [1].
As for the dead, according to Ecclesiastes itself, they cannot experience happiness. Whatever their circumstances in life and the moral alignment of their deeds, they have descended into total unconsciousness. The ESV is quoted below for its inclusion of the Hebrew word Sheol, the Old Testament word for the place/state of the dead, in the English wording, which reinforces that the author is speaking about the same Sheol a multitude of other Old Testament verses mention. What those who die face afterward is not exactly what most people claim the Bible puts forth.
Ecclesiastes 9:4-6, 9-10—"But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing . . . Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going."
Why does Ecclesiastes propose that a living dog is in a better position than a dead lion? At least the living have the hope of finding relief from their misery while still consciously existing in order to savor whatever peace or pleasure (though obviously immoral things should never be done no matter the pleasure they result in) they can secure for themselves. In this regard, it is better to be alive, for an unconscious person cannot experience their absence of pain and worry. While it might almost seem to contradict Ecclesiastes 4:1-3, Ecclesiastes 9:4-10 only means that the living alone still have a chance to experience joy and accomplishment, because everyone in Sheol lacks perception altogether, no matter who they were in life, just as Job describes in the third chapter of the book bearing his name.
The condition of unconsciousness means the dead experience no pain, including pain from alleged divine torment, but it also means the dead can experience no joy, no comfort, and no excitement. They are not even at peace except in the sense that they cannot be if agony of any kind due to not perceiving anything. Whatever release they receive from woe in death only entails the termination of any suffering in their last moments among the living. To be truly dead, one cannot consciously experience anything in an afterlife, and thus to be truly dead means one cannot even savor the end of some trouble.
Yahweh does not torture anyone without end, which would be the ultimate injustice. Sheol is not even the actual hell of Christianity, which itself does not torment anyone eternally, instead consuming them until they die (Matthew 10:28, etc.). However, there is a grim ramification of Sheol's real nature. The dead are still cut off from experience and thus think, perceive, and carry out nothing. If you want to accomplish something or enjoy anything which is permissible, the only opportunity you have is restricted to when you live. This universal fate of unconsciousness in Sheol is of course pragmatically so much better than any sort of endless or even years-spanning torture, but it is worthy of a different kind of somberness, because the unconsciousness of death brings an an end to activity of all forms, to pleasure, and to one's grasp of all that is true and good (logic, God, morality, etc.), not just the capacity to experience pain.
All perception of objectively and subjectively positive and negative things comes to an end. You would not know you are dead because you do not grasp or experience literally anything, not even the self-evident truth of logical axioms and your own existence as a consciousness. In such a condition, the dead could not possibly feel happy, because they have no thoughts or emotions, unlike those whom the Teacher encourages to find happiness with their wives (Ecclesiastes 9:9), for both they and their wives still live. Yet the dead would be better off in another sense than those living in the grip of suffering, especially if the suffering is extreme. Still better off are those who have never faced the diverse difficulties of human life to begin with because they have not yet been conceived. What Ecclesiastes freely declares about "happiness", conscious human existence, and the unconsciousness of genuine death does not involve any contradiction even as it contradicts scores of idiotic heresies.
[1]. See posts like this one:
No comments:
Post a Comment