I've been writing and thinking a lot about Nietzschean themes in art and the book of Ecclesiastes.
Both say that we should enjoy life here and now. Both point to contradictions and puzzles in life.
Nietzsche poses a thought experiment in his doctrine of Eternal Recurrence.
What if, he speculates, the whole of history is cyclical, and you will be destined to live your life over and over again in exactly the same way. He says this:
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything ultimately small or great in your life will have to return to you, all the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
Trevor Hart explains Nietzsche’s doctrine this way:
The idea of eternal recurrence functions as a kind of illumination of what it would really mean to accept fully the lack of meaning and purpose in the world. To live without a metanarrative, liberated from the Christian and modern dream of a reality different from what actually is, should mean to be able instead to affirm the totality of life just as it is.
Nietzsche is not after an escape, for that would be a curse on life. He is after a kind of acceptance, or affirmation of this life, love of fate.
The book of Ecclesiastes opens up with the teacher, Qohelet, announcing that all is hebel. This can be translated as “vanity,” “vapor” or “useless.” Scholar Michael Fox translates it as “absurd.” Fox draws upon the definition of absurd given by existentialist philosopher Albert Camus. For Camus, the Absurd is the disconnect between pretension and reality, between what we expect to be the case and what really is the case. For Camus, it is an empirical fact that we expect certain things of the world. We have a desire, or expectation for justice, for there to be a personal aspect to the universe, and for things to make sense. But that is not in fact what we find. Instead we find a world filled with injustice, and the universe is profoundly indifferent to our presence.
Similarly, in Ecclesiastes, Qohelet explores the areas in life where pretension disconnects from reality. We think that knowledge and wisdom should lead to happiness, but instead it often ends in sorrow (1: 16-18). Pleasure ought to lead to happiness, but instead it is fleeting and ultimately useless (2:1-3, 2:10-11). Work ought to lead to satisfaction and fulfillment but instead we find that its rewards are fleeting compared to the effort put into gaining them (2:4-9, 18-19, 21). Not only is our work temporal and fleeting, but so are we; death is inescapable (2:16, 3:21). Righteousness ought to be rewarded and wickedness punished (8:12-13), yet often it seems to work the other way around (3:16-21, 4:1-3, 7:15, 10:7). Perhaps the ultimate disconnect is due to the fact that “[God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done form the beginning to the end” (ESV 3:9b-11). We in some sense long for or expect “eternity” yet live in time. We cannot, as Camus says, “reduce the world to a rational principle” or explain all the loose ends of life (its injustices, quandaries, oppressions and sufferings). The world is just too big for us to work things out and we are finite by nature (3:1-8, 8:6-7, 8:16-17, 9:11-12).
But rather than despair, Qohelet finds that God, in the midst of absurdity, in finite time, bestows temporal enjoyments. These fleeting pleasures are to be enjoyed as gifts (2:24-25, 3:12-13, 22, 5:18-20, 8:15, 9:7-9). In this way we can embrace our humanity with its temporality, finitude and even its suffering. We do this by enjoying these gifts with gratitude and with hope (9:4). At root we find a fundamental faith in the writings of Qohelet in spite of life’s absurdities. We are able to enjoy the temporal pleasures in life precisely because we know they are from God. Furthermore, while it is true that from our vantage point the world is absurd, Qohelet advocates a faith in the God who has a larger vision (5:1-7, 12:13-14). Vaporous gifts, fleeing pleasures and fading beauties are seen as appropriate for our “lot” in life in virtue of the creator-creature distinction.
So while Qohelet highlights the cyclical nature of life (1:4-11, 12:7, 3:15). He at the same time embraces a forward-looking element, a hopeful element. While it is true that from our point of view injustice reigns, pleasure is elusive, and paradoxes abound, we get the idea that God is up to something far bigger than we can conceive. “Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it” (ESV 9:17). “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen, that it is from the hand of God” (ESV 2:24). Again and again, Qohelet juxtaposes these two realities, pointing out the absurdities of life and then telling us to enjoy our lot in life (no less than six times, by my count, in chapters 2-9). Finally, he ends the book with the admonition to fear God and a reference to God’s eventual judgment (12:13-14). Peter Leithart puts it this way:
Like the closing chapters of Job, Ecclesiastes teaches that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophies or theologies, that God is up to more than we can possibly conceive and that, limited and finite as we are, it is only natural that our grasp of the pattern of history is partial and our control of life is limited…Solomonic joy is a hedonism that arises from the confidence that the world is always under Yahweh’s control…Instead of chafing at our finitude and yearning to be gods, Solomon counsels that we rejoice in our limits and in all the vaporous life that we are given.
So what is the fundamental difference between Nietzsche and Qohelet? In these two thinkers we find identical imperatives with opposing indicatives. For Nietzsche, we are to enjoy life (imperative) because this is all there is (indicative). For Qohelet, we are to enjoy life (imperative) precisely because what we see is not all that there is (indicative).
