Prudence is something that I think would be wise to work on. If anyone reading is like me,then you find it easy to schedule things,but difficult to hold fast to that schedule. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,“There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under the heavens. . . .”This seemingly gives purpose to the book,but monotony and repetition and contingency is the Teacher’s worldview. Nothing is meaningful;nothing is changing. Life itself is a toiling mess. The sun continues to rise,harvests continue to grow. Qoheleth even shows this contradiction and gives what he believes is the best possible good for people in 3:12 and 13,“I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live,that each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil —this is the gift of God.”But later he says,“For who knows what is good for people in life,during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow?”,Ecc. 6:12. The answer,of course,is no one.
I find myself thinking in these patterns many times. The more questions I raise the less sense things seem to make. I remember taking an upper level philosophy course at OBU and the first thing that the professor says is that what they teach you in Intro is a lie. He meant what Yoda intends when he says,“You must unlearn what you have learned.”Well,now that I’ve brought Yoda into the discussion I can make my inquiry:If everything is really meaningless and without substance,then why do anything at all? One can by the process of elimination and negation determine what things are not,but can one actually ever truly say what something is? I myself think that this is where a cognitive faith comes in,which is to say that at some point one must make the mindful decision of what they are going to believe and do. Surely our beliefs are something more than existentialist musings.