Modern Age - Winter 2017 - 64

MODERN AGE

WINTER 2017

has set the one alongside the other in such a way that no one can
find out what is to happen afterwards." In this connection, almost
all of us are uncertain and concerned about what happens after
death.
Finally, Ecclesiastes's speaker would insist that, high or low, rich
or poor, all human beings struggle with a particularly perverse
spiritual creature related to those just above, for "this is what is
wrong in all that is done here under the sun: that one and the
same fate befalls everyone." This latter grim power, who has been
called, colloquially, the great equalizer, would always seems to be
hovering about and matching up entries of rich and poor just for
the obituary section of your local paper, if you still read one.

O

ne major implication of this brief and incomplete summary
of Ecclesiastes is, again, that through more or less permanent decrees (which I have personalized by delegating their
enforcement to specific great spiritual powers), God has set up all
manner of ironical barriers or limitations for humankind.
Why does God place such barriers? It would all be conjecture,
of course, but one feels bound to guess . . . so one might have to
live by faith, perhaps. Or so that one's reach should exceed one's
grasp (as Browning once put it). Or perhaps, in the words of Ecclesiastes itself, "In dealing with human beings it is God's purpose to
test them and to see what they really are."
Again, I must emphasize that the main point isn't that you or I
can't find out God's purposes-by divine decree, they are all (at
least from the standpoint of human wisdom) unknowable. They
remain mysterious, "Far beyond hindrance of all human wit," as
Dante puts it. And "under the sun," even the wise can never know
why. Instead, the main points of the text seem to be that all these
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Modern Age - Winter 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2017

Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2017 - Cover1
Modern Age - Winter 2017 - Cover2
Modern Age - Winter 2017 - Contents
Modern Age - Winter 2017 - 2
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