Three Philosophies of Life by Peter Kreeft, first published in 1989, is an exploration of the three approaches to life as represented by three particular books of Scripture.
1. Life as vanity: Ecclesiastes
2. Life as suffering: Job
3. Life as love: Song of Songs
The text is organized into an introduction and 3 parts corresponding to the abovementioned books spanning 140 pages. It is not in the form of a Socratic dialogue.
Each part is broken into sub-sections which are usually short. The sub-headings are included in the table of contents so that gives a sense of structure.
The author highlights in the Introduction that these three books also represent three “metaphysical moods”: Ecclesiastes is boredom, Job is despair, Song of Songs is love. They also teach the three Theological Virtues: Ecclesiastes teaches Faith, Job teaches Hope, Song of Songs teaches Charity.
A few notes are mentioned below to provide some idea of the content but it is not intended to be a summary.
The author of Ecclesiastes is Solomon although there are arguments for otherwise. The observation that Solomon makes is that “all is vanity”. This is not narcissism but rather everything is “in vain”, a reflection of the Hebrew word that literally means “a chasing after wind” indicating the transient nature of life.
The argument of Ecclesiastes is essentially this:
All “toil” is “under the sun”. And all “under the sun” is “vanity”. Therefore, all “toil” is “vanity”.
Solomon experiments with five “toils” in which we search for meaning: wisdom and knowledge, pleasure, wealth and power, duty, and religion and piety. These toils are the “candidates” for the summum bonum. They are real and may have short-term meaning but do not necessarily provide long-term meaning.
Solomon makes five observations to support his premise that all under the sun is vanity: the sameness and indifference of all things, death, cycles (repetition) in time, the problem of evil, and God as a mystery (an unknowable entity).
Ecclesiastes is arguably not very religious. God is not mentioned often. As Kreeft points out, like in the book of Job, God is silent in Ecclesiastes. The conclusion points to God but can just as easily lead to indifference and/or despair. Of course, whilst the latter two is rather conveniently dismissive of the argument, something that actually addresses Solomon’s argument is required, something outside that can break the meaningless cycles in life.
The book of Job narrates his suffering and God’s silence. First, there is the classical argument: if God is good and all-powerful, then why does evil exist? A typical answer is that our fallen state requires it, that suffering is a means to refine us.
That is true but simplistic and inadequate, and Kreeft also discusses the “problem of God”—that is, His silence and then His answer. Job is the questioner in the narration but God is not a mere answerer. God as the Judge asks the questions. That said, despite his suffering, Job continued to question God, in effect pursuing God. Ultimately, it is about one’s relationship with God.
In the third and final part, Kreeft goes through 26 attributes of what love is according to the Song of Songs, citing passages for each. For example, amongst others, “Love Is Dialogue” as indicated by the book’s dialogue format, “Love Is Synergistic” as the “fundamental spiritual force in the universe”, “Love Is Work”, “Suffering Goes with Love” and “Love is Accurate” for it is not blind.
Song of Songs is essentially about the power of Love—particularly Divine Love—since it is not merely a book about the earthly marriage but more importantly the heavenly marriage, the relationship between God and each particular soul. Ultimately, God and Love are the only answer to the pointlessness and purposelessness illustrated in Ecclesiastes and the seemingly unjust suffering experienced by Job.
As usual, Kreeft’s writing is unpretentious and easily accessible even though it could be described as dense or rich in terms of content. It is in any case not a long book. Although the discussion is not limited to the scriptural view as he does consider the views of philosophers and even artists, it is focused on these three books from Scripture. My only complaint is that it is missing an index.
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