The Great Reduction. Jay Trott
alas, our own behavior cannot be counted. We think and say one thing but do another. Paul has a brilliant description of this in Romans. We can love what is good, and will to do what is good, but we still wind up doing the very thing we resolved not to do.
Most of all, what is lacking in us is life. This difference cannot be counted. The philosopher cannot overcome the difference between life and mortal life through the full accounting of his wisdom. But then his wisdom cannot give him the thing he desires most.
Just how wise is the wisest man in the world if what is lacking cannot be counted? If he lacks happiness, how can he count himself happy? Solomon is beginning to see that wisdom has its limits. And this is personal for him, because he sought his identity in wisdom.
Solomon made it his life’s ambition to become wise by counting what is lacking. Now he is beginning to entertain the possibility that what is lacking cannot be counted.
Behold, I have come to greatness,
and have more wisdom than all who went before me in Jerusalem.
No, this is not a boast. It is a lament. He became the wisest man in the world, and one of its greatest, but now he finds that neither his wisdom nor his greatness can give him peace.
He thought he was filling up a hole with wisdom and greatness, but he was creating a bigger one. Why? Because “all men are like the grass.” If it is life we want, which is our own built-in standard of greatness, then wisdom cannot give us what we are looking for.
All wisdom can do is show us that we have fallen short of the mark.
I gave myself to know wisdom and madness and folly,
and I perceived that this too is vexation of spirit.
“Madness and folly” mean, we think, that which is contrary to reason. If someone knows that provoking his neighbor leads to great grief, and yet continues to do it, then this is “madness” in the sense that he is not listening to his own rational faculties.
Solomon wanted to know madness and folly as contrarieties to wisdom. He wanted to know what wisdom is through its difference from that which is madness and folly. But as we know, there was a bit of a glitch in this plan. Solomon himself was no stranger to folly.
For example, he was not wise enough to avoid worshiping his wives’ foreign gods. What could be more foolish than worshiping things we make with our own hands, as the prophets said? What could be more mad than to ignore what God has done for us and turn away from his everlasting love?
And yet this is just what Solomon did. It is a vexing thing to learn, as we grow older, that the madness and folly we decry in others are also seen in ourselves. In old age, wisdom and madness and folly fall into a foolish embrace.
For in much wisdom is much grief,
and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.
This is the exact opposite of what the philosophers tell us, by the way. They want us to believe that wisdom and knowledge are the key to obtaining the good of happiness. Solomon believed this himself at one time. He does not believe it anymore.
When you are twenty-five, it is easy to convince yourself that you can obtain happiness through the pursuit of wisdom at, say, twenty-six. It becomes much harder to believe this when you are sixty-five. Wisdom and knowledge become vexatious when they cannot give you what you long for.
You have obtained a reputation as the wisest man in the world, and still you are not at peace. How then has your love of wisdom helped you? The Queen of Sheba loves you for your wisdom. This is flattering, but if you are unhappy then how much have you really gained?
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