Solomon and Vanity

Is everything truly meaningless?

You’ve probably read the opening of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, with the Preacher proclaiming that everything is meaningless (or ‘vanity’). I don’t dispute the wisdom of Solomon. However, I think from a slightly different perspective, everything can be considered both meaningless and meaningful.

I feel that if everything were entirely meaningless, God wouldn’t choose to create. There must be something that motivates God to create. When I experience an emotion or sensation, that experience is very real. The reality of the experience makes it meaningful.

God creates beings who experience things. Would He do this if our experiences were entirely empty of any meaning or significance?

It may well be the case that everything in life is fleeting, which lends weight to the idea that everything is meaningless. But if I give someone a hug and feel the reality of their body, the fact that the experience passes doesn’t make it entirely meaningless. It was meaningful in that moment and therefore it was meaningful.

Perhaps the truth is that everything is transient, but not entirely meaningless. If God has purposed for something to exist or happen, that in itself makes it meaningful.

If God is complete within Himself, suffering from no lack or imperfection, then arguably absolutely everything God does is both positive and meaningful.

And even if everything truly is meaningless, need this necessarily be a negative thing?