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July 14, 2025

Is Everything Meaningless? A Deep Dive into Ecclesiastes

by Jason Neill

Scripture reading: Ecclesiastes 12; John 4 & 6

As a licensed mental health counselor, I've had my share of clients who lost their meaning in life and, as a result, their will to live. For those individuals, I had to refer them to a hospital for additional assessment and treatment because they posed a danger to themselves. Since the counseling agency where I worked was an outpatient clinic, we simply weren't designed to offer full-time inpatient care.

On the other hand, I've also had clients who experienced horrific things. It would be a fair assessment to say they experienced trauma; however, their resilience truly amazed me. They found a way to reframe the terrible things people did to them. These varied experiences with my clients naturally lead to a fundamental question that resonates with us all: what truly gives life meaning?

Meaning is something we all search for, something we all desire. This is exactly what we find in the book of Ecclesiastes. The word "vanity" or "meaningless" is a recurring word, depending on your translation. The NASB, NKJV, and ESV use "vanity," while the NLT and NIV use "meaningless."

Although the author never names himself, his description and identification as King David's son best match King Solomon (see Ecclesiastes 1:1, 12). What's remarkable is how truly relevant this ancient text remains today, as Solomon's journey mirrors our own. Solomon shows us that the avenues he explored to find meaning are the same paths we venture down today. Imagine the world as a buffet offering various ways to satisfy our hunger for meaning, depending on our appetites.

The first is knowledge (see Ecclesiastes 1:12-18). The goal of life, in this view, is to pursue and collect as much knowledge as possible. If you want to succeed in life and find meaning, then you must "know stuff."

The second avenue is hedonism (e.g., the pursuit of pleasure) (see Ecclesiastes 2:1-11). We only go around this earth once, so we must grab as much pleasure as possible. The best vacations, the best food, the best experiences life has to offer—that's where it's at. Anything less is not satisfactory.

The third avenue for life's pursuits is materialism (see Ecclesiastes 2:1-11; 5:10-17). I once saw a bumper sticker that declared, "He who dies with the most toys wins." That perfectly encapsulates the materialist's goal: acquire as much as you can, as quickly as you can. The mindset is simple—if one of something is good, then two, three, or four must be even better.

Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, another phrase to take note of is "under the sun." It's Solomon’s way of highlighting life’s ultimate meaninglessness when lived apart from God. In essence, if we view the world solely through a secular lens, life inherently lacks purpose. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it, "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning." Since we have this sense that life “ought” to have meaning, that must mean (pun intended) that life has an objective meaning (e.g., a meaning outside ourselves and that is applicable to all humanity).

Authorship and Date: The book was written by King Solomon, most likely during his later years. The book was likely composed around 935 B.C.

Jesus in Ecclesiastes & Its Application: Jesus uses the imagery of hunger and thirst at least twice to communicate that God is who we really desire beyond all the world has to offer. He told the woman at the well if she drank the water he would give her, she would never thirst again (see John 4:13-14). On another occasion, Jesus told a crowd that he was the bread of life and that whoever comes to him would never hunger again (see John 6:35). The meaning behind both analogies is this: drinking the water or coming to Jesus as the bread of life means to believe in Jesus for eternal life (which can never be lost). The consequence of such belief, or trust, in Jesus for eternal life is first that we will never be eternally condemned, and second, we will have found what our hearts longed for but tried to fill it up with other things.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 reads, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (ESV) (Italics mine). God has placed eternity in our hearts meaning, he has placed within us a desire that only he can meet. Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer, put it aptly, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.”