Introduction: The Forensic Examination of Divine Silence
Qoheleth’s engagement with divine absence and hebel does not culminate in a resolved theodicy. If you remember, I hate that word anyway. Rather, Qoheleth’s argument forms a distinct theological witness. Within this witness, the prevalence of injustice and the perception of a God best approached with caution do not require deep thought to understand. Understanding them simply requires one to look at the world.
The fact is, as I noted in the previous post, that God in Ecclesiastes is not one who can be approached easily, cheerfully, or especially intimately. So, what does one do? Decry God’s existence? Call God a bully?
No. The act of “searching without finding” is perhaps the most honest posture one can maintain in a world where God is distant and inscrutable. But of course, in this divinely ordered chaos, the fear of God becomes a bit more nuanced.
Everything is Suitable for its Time
It was a warm evening in late May 2018. I had just graduated high school a few days before. That evening, I returned home from coaching swimming. Mom and dad had just returned after spending the weekend in a hospital in Atlanta.
My mother had been sick much of that year. She still homeschooled my little brother throughout it. She was still a swim mom, attending competitions and practices. It was almost as though nothing was wrong, perhaps just a bug. But when she pulled me into her room that evening, I knew something wasn’t right.
“Luke, I have cancer.” Words I never wanted to hear. I did my absolute best to remain stoic. But to this day, there is no way any strength of mine could compare to hers in that moment. She was not afraid. She was as calm as she always had been. I hear she was the exact same when the doctor first broke the news to her.
Her reason? Because it was under God’s control. She called upon the Psalms, which state that God has ordained the days of our lives (139:16). But, perhaps more so, the sentiment of her favorite biblical book: Ecclesiastes. In particular, the verse I include in my dedication:
“He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” ~ Ecc. 3:11, NRSVue
She was unafraid. She had just been diagnosed with inoperable stage four liver cancer, but she remained strong. Instinctively, I tried to match that strength.
But the moment I returned to my bedroom, I collapsed on the floor. Bawling.
No Single Image
As I have tried to attest throughout this series, I am well aware that I do not have the final say in Qoheleth’s theology. What I argue is just that: my argument. As such, part of my thesis is this: there is no singular image of God in Ecclesiastes.
For instance, some liberationist interpretations, such as that of Elsa Tamez, identify God as a source of power who can and will change the situation for the oppressed in 4:1. My argument is on the other end of hopefulness there, as I find the situations to be pretty hopeless. But that does not mean I am right. It is just an argument, but it is my argument and, well, I sure hope it’s right.
But I do not dictate the truthfulness of my own argument. People have wrestled with Ecclesiastes for over 2000 years. I could be dead wrong for all I know, and I’ll be the first to admit it.
However, one thing I find across interpretations of the book is that Qoheleth never offers a tidy solution to all the problems he outlines. Not once does he make sense of the existence of wickedness in the places of justice and righteousness. And for me, that is where his courage lies.
He does not want his readers hoping for a utopia on earth; there isn’t one. He captures this tension constantly, demonstrating what it is like to live in a world that seems confusing, misleading, or just flat out frustrating.
It is Hebel because God has Receded
God creates the world. The world fails God constantly. God hides, as such. And chaos ensues. Pain and suffering everywhere; the world is saturated by it. That is what lies under the sun.
A world where the sun rises, and also sets, over toxic hierarchies, injustice, oppression, wickedness, and the suffering of the isolated. A world that God created. And a world in which God “has made everything suitable for its time.” And it is all hebel. All is hebel.
The term does a lot more than just signal futility. One word to describe all the absurdities, all the injustices, and the endless supply and demand of corruption.
It clearly bothers Qoheleth. After seeing the oppressions, he exclaims that it is better to be dead (4:1–3). Things that are hebel are also often grievous ills, great evils, a chasing after wind, or an unhappy business, among other negative terms.
As I mentioned before, there is not just a fracture in the world. There is also a fracture in Qoheleth himself. His faith is indeed fragmented—so much so that Ecclesiastes barely made it into the canon. But that fragmented faith is in no way a failure. It is, as I argue, “a courageous testament to the resilience of honest questioning with the tradition.”
In the Garden
It’s all hebel. Again, to quote Jacobus Gericke, Qoheleth “pronounces a universal value judgment on the entirety of divine creation.” We do not find any other biblical authors doing this. Hebel, by itself, may not be an overwhelmingly negative term, but it is far from positive.
This is not what a garden tended to by a great gardener looks like. It’s what it looks like when the gardener has long since given up on gardening. The plants all wither, the weeds spread, and insects and vermin eat and destroy whatever good is left. Such is the hierarchy.
The garden is not hebel because of killer weeds (LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed, anyone?). It is hebel because its caretaker has stopped caring. So what if the crops are overcome by weeds? They were not producing good fruit anyway. Kinda like a certain fig tree…
The world is chaotic because no people on earth could please God. The fruit was rotten. So, God let the weeds, the oppressors, the corrupt, overtake it. The garden, beginning in Eden perhaps, was abandoned.
The Hebrew Bible recounts numerous times where God helped humans, who then took it for granted or did nothing in return, not so much as heeding a behavioral correction.
As the Hebrew Bible progresses, God’s role shrinks. And shrinks. And shrinks. Until suddenly, the deity who once walked among humans in the Garden of Eden no longer shows up, speaks, or acts… within the confines of human comprehension, at least.
Enter Qoheleth. Someone claiming to be an old king. Someone not afraid to call it as it is. It’s hebel. It’s not the way it should be. The mist rising off the plants in the early morning? That is all that everything is. Nothing more, but everything less: grievous ills, great evils, unhappy businesses.
It is absurd. It is futile. Meaningless. Frustrating. Pointless. Emptiness. That which is fleeting. “Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, all is vanity” (12:8, NRSVue).
A Role Model for the Skeptic
Qoheleth is not some zealot trying to convince you that his message comes directly from God, and he’s “just the messenger.” Not once does he feel the need to construct a neat theodicy. The oppressed have no comforter—but God hears your cry! Wickedness in the place of justice—that’s because God is testing you!
Qoheleth never does that. There is no need to present an argument for God’s benevolence when reality allows such tragedies at alarming levels. There is no need to silence the “unhappy business” of oppression, suffering, isolation, corruption, and the like. God is clearly sovereign and could thus step in; that never happens. In presenting such an honest theology, Qoheleth sets a model.
He sets a model of a faith that does not require easy answers to every impossible question. Divine silence and hiddenness are just the norm. That’s the way it is. God is in heaven, you upon earth.
In the midst of such divine loneliness, Qoheleth stands with a resilient, though skeptical faith that all who seek meaning can value. His voice is essential in the never-ending battle between faith and doubt.
When even those who do not believe, or those who question their own beliefs, look at the world and ask, “Where are you, God? Why are you doing/allowing this?”, they participate in the same theology of absence Qoheleth articulated long ago.
God is hidden. And because God is hiding, life on earth unravels. It is chaotic. It is depressing. There seems to be no solace, whether in the streets or in the temple. There is just the anxiety of pissing off a disgruntled deity.
And that is something we should protest. The cancer, the foreclosure, the annoying coworker, even stepping on a LEGO. We feel the pain. We feel the pain not just physically, but spiritually. In not knowing whether there is a deity out there who cares at all because their presence cannot be felt.
Hebel defines everything under the sun. All of creation. In a world where you must guard your steps going to the temple, perhaps saying “this too is hebel” is the wisest form of protest. A protest against faulty theologies or even lies about God. A protest against the reality that things are not the way they should be, everything absolutely sucks, and life itself is utterly absurd.
Qoheleth gives a voice to this frustration humanity has long felt. Where is God when the world is on fire? That no divine action or even comfort can be felt among even the lowest in the province, in my view, indicates that God is not present, and that is the reason justice fails and everything sucks.
And that is where Qoheleth’s protest truly cultivates wisdom. As I conclude in the thesis:
“His refusal to offer a shallow theodicy is his greatest gift to public discourse; he validates the experience of the sufferer who finds God hidden, rather than silencing them with platitudes.”
Practical Application
As I mentioned in the first post, both the thesis itself and this adaptation are dedicated to my mother. Ecclesiastes was her favorite book. No doubt, we would disagree in our interpretations. But I believe she would at least be open to hearing it.
And as such, I have tried to emphasize that this is just my interpretation and I do not have the final say. But more so, I have tried to keep the practical application in mind. I did not want it to scream “angry skeptical agnostic!” though that’s exactly what the title suggests (This Too is Hebel: Divine Absence, Oppression, and the Problem of Suffering in Qoheleth). Can Christians, or any other religious individuals, benefit from the idea of a protest against a hidden God in this biblical book?
I believe so. The concept of the Deus absconditus (hidden God) was significantly developed by Martin Luther, as well as Blaise Pascal. Luther contrasts the Deus absconditus with the Deus revelatus (the revealed God, Jesus). A hidden God eventually became God incarnate and walked among humans. Reminder: Ecclesiastes was written at least 200 years before Christ.
For Pascal, humankind is “in darkness and estranged from God, that He has Hidden himself from their knowledge.” He goes on to say this is so that “the Church” can be a light to others. That is where I disagree, as the church can be a place of great darkness for many. But I admire Pascal’s hopeful outlook.
While my thesis does indeed present God in a more pessimistic light (no pun intended), perhaps it can speak to the frustrating search for this hidden God. Or even, as my mother interpreted it, it’s Solomon’s reflection on his life apart from God. In such circumstances, the idea that Qoheleth (or Solomon) believed God to be hidden certainly isn’t ludicrous.
The Case for the Hidden God
After mom’s diagnosis, my mind and soul became restless. How could God allow this to happen? Taking inspiration from Christian apologist Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ, I set out on my own (and very expensive) quest for answers. His wife became a Christian and he, a snobby atheist, was determined to disprove God. Certainly makes me feel a little better about my intentions, at least…
But our conclusions couldn’t differ more. He found a God who satisfied his logic. I found that very God to be hidden. Perhaps, as Luther suggested, the Deus absconditus is, so that the Deus revelatus can be. I wouldn’t rule that out, though I have yet to find it compelling.
What I do find compelling is the idea that all the pain in suffering comes not from a horned goat man with a pitchfork, free will, or even directly administered by God. Rather, it results from the darkness that follows when the light recedes. Because God is omnipotent, but we are severely limited. We are limited because that is how this God created humankind. And when God pulls away?
The Final Word
“Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Ecc. 12:12). Or making many blogs, perhaps…
For many, the epilogue of Ecclesiastes is the moral anchor to an otherwise bleak book. The conclusion emphasizes the fear of God: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for that is the whole duty of everyone” (12:13). Under the traditional, awe-inspiring approach to the fear of God, this is a beautiful closer.
Under a theology of absence, it is still beautiful, though closer to beautifully frightening. We’ve looked extensively at the hebel world, the world God has created. We have explored isolation, the absence of comfort, God’s location in heaven and ability to become angry, and finally, a hierarchy that can only end with the Highest One. That does not cultivate a sense of awe and wonder. Instead, it induces anxiety and terror.
The very last verse in the book says, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:14). You’d better fear. You’d better obey. There is indeed an eventual judgment, though not likely within this lifetime. That judgment doesn’t sound so harsh if you have a clean, sinless soul. You do not.
This judge is not the easy judge. It’s already clear that even a poorly formed utterance can invoke the deity’s wrath. But more so, this deity has intentionally prevented you from understanding certain things.
Divinely engineered obscurity. And within that obscurity, nothing makes sense, everything is broken, and everything sucks. It is such because it is hebel. It is one word that sums up everything, from the quest for meaning to the reality of pain and suffering.
God remains hidden, even while creation groans and burns. The promises of divine comfort are not coming true. The Deus absconditus resides comfortably in heaven, waiting for your slightest misstep so that your works can be destroyed.
And that too is hebel.
Where the Ocean Meets the Sky
I miss her. I always will. The reason I have included all the photos of Greece are in part because that’s the closest I’ve come to observing the world preserved from a similar point in history. But on a more spiritual level, because both mom and I felt closer to God in certain locations.
She always said that she felt closer to God at the sea. And during that trip around Greece, passing through the mainland with mountains on one side and clear blue seas on the other, I felt something similar.
I mentioned that the conclusions in my thesis changed along the way. Well, this is where they did. I realized, seeing the beauty of creation, that I could not reconcile it with total divine absence. And reflecting on Qoheleth’s own observations on creation, I realized he probably could not either.
Qoheleth is an artist in pain, to borrow from Marcus Gigliotti’s terminology, which I suspect may be why my mother loved this book. It is beautiful, but it is indeed very bleak, if the last 16 posts have not made that clear enough. It is bleak because it is honest.
As I have wrestled with my grief in the years since, I have found a particular sense of relief in the phrase “this too is hebel.” It isn’t just that the pain of loss is temporary like fog. It is that sometimes, there is no bright side. The mist rises and returns in a never-ending cycle, whether there is any light or none.
And so does human life. It is here one moment, gone the next. That isn’t very hopeful. It is at the very least frustrating, but perhaps closer to grievous. Human life is like water; when it is heated to a certain point, it becomes vapor. And when everything in our lives is upside down, when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel… then, suddenly, it all becomes hebel. Like vapor, mist, or fog. Empty, vain, or even meaningless.
As frustrating as life is, there are, indeed, beautiful moments. Although Ecclesiastes is certainly darker than some biblical texts, it is not all doom and gloom. Qoheleth commands us to eat bread with enjoyment and drink wine with merriment (9:7). He encourages us to enjoy our time with our loved ones (9:9) and reminds us that two are better than one (4:9). Hebel defines all things, but perhaps there are some things that mean a little more than just that.
She felt closer to God at the sea. And that final night in Greece, as I watched the moon glisten over the tranquil sea, I felt her there with me. After a week of walking in spaces that have been sacred for centuries as one who had since lost the faith, I constantly felt as though I might be desecrating these spaces by not having faith like a child. I was not; my soul was just reaching for the pieces that had long since left. On that final night, I realized she was with me.
Not just that night. Not just that week. Throughout these seven long, painful years in her physical absence. As I close out this project on the great Teacher, on what would be her 72nd birthday, I reflect on her life and my time here with her. It was cut short. It wasn’t fair and it never will be.
Because it, too, is hebel. As the sun rises and then sets, as the wind blows round to the south and then to the north; as the streams run to the sea, but never fill it; as the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing: in the end, “the breath returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities says the Teacher; all is vanity” (1:5–8; 12:7b–8, NRSVue).
She may be gone. I will not meet her again this side of heaven, in this life under the sun. I have the memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, memories that always bring with them a sense of warmth. But I know in my heart that one day we will meet again. Where the ocean meets the sky, where the hebel world meets the silent heavens, there I know that I will see her smiling once again.
Acknowledgments
In addition to the dedication to my mother, I would like to acknowledge that this work could not have been completed without the wonderful faculty at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. I did not have space to place such a note in the draft of my thesis.
I am especially grateful for Dr. Roger S. Nam, who agreed to be my thesis director at the very last minute and also the first time we met. He constantly challenged me to make my work accessible, and as such, was a tremendous inspiration for this adaptation as well.
Dr. Susan E. Hylen, my advisor, secondary reader, and so much else. She is one of the first professors I met at Candler. I knew in the very first class that I wanted to work closely with her. She not only supervised my thesis, or graded me in three classes (a lot for a 2-year degree), she completely changed the way I read the Bible. She was one of the professors on the Greece travel seminar as well, so she deserves at least some credit for the photos.
Dr. Alison Collis-Greene, my program director and, in some ways, counselor. She’s the one who saw all the real frustration and disillusionment; at my very lowest, she provided love and encouragement. She certainly saw me living out my research… which is never fun for anybody. But this project literally would not have been possible without her; all she had to do was say, “No, go study something else.” She was the final signature, indeed, but I feel the whole process would have been much darker without her.
The Rev. Dr. Steffen Lösel, also one of the first professors I studied under, a brilliant professor of Systematic Theology at Candler. The moment I saw his name, I thought “why am I taking this course? I am so going to fail.” And he was indeed the toughest professor I had. But also one of the most loving people I have known. He admired the audacity of an agnostic to take a class on Ecclesiology (the study of the church, not Ecclesiastes)… and he also took me out of the country, to Cuba, on a travel seminar in January 2025.
The Rev. Dr. R. Kendall Soulen, who is one of the reasons I wanted to attend Candler. He taught a course entitled “God and Evil,” which, of course, I knew I needed to take. I did, last fall, and it was indeed one of the most pivotal classes I took, for reasons I never expected. Like Dr. Lösel, he was tough—but for all the right reasons. He pushed me outside of my comfort zone, with a problem that required me to be completely outside the comfort zone in the first place.
Finally, I want to thank Dr. Lauren Calvin-Cooke, who I have also mentioned before. Dr. Calvin-Cooke was the last professor I met at Candler, and also the last to read my thesis. But she remains as influential as Dr. Hylen, Lösel, and the others. I signed up for her class, “Teaching for Wisdom,” at the very last minute in my final semester. We immediately connected over a mutual interest in Ecclesiastes, and she graciously read my thesis, providing thorough feedback and encouragement.
This was certainly much larger than just a final research paper. I could go on thanking people, but this was already my longest blog post about 1000 words ago. Ultimately, my greatest gratitude is toward my mother. As the breath returns to the God who gave it, so does my final word on the matter return to the person who gave me Ecclesiastes—who gave me life under the sun—in the first place.