Part 5: On Vanity

Introduction

Pascal will not let go. Having exposed the hardened indifference of the libertines of his day, he continues on his quest to pierce the “carapace of complacency” in order to gain access to their hearts and remind them of an inevitable, eternal existence that awaits all mankind. Following the dictates of his own heart, he further invites them to open their eyes, to broaden their vision, that they may obtain a realistic glimpse of the brevity and futility of life and address the vanity that promises satisfaction but is incapable of delivering for the long term. His is a clear and stunning recognition of the Correspondence Theory of Truth, the claim that there are truths that correspond to reality. Will they (and we) be willing to acknowledge human vanity and learn?

The Proverbial Rat Race

“Many are still in the midst of the rat race and are galloping faster and faster to reach the unreachable carrot always dangling just inches from their noses. Others are running on the treadmill of life, hoping that the feelings of going nowhere will pass and that the sacrifices they made to ‘the system’ will start paying off. Some have even achieved the success they so desperately pursued, only to Chuck Swindoll

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The Proverbial Rat Race

discover that the same void in their lives remains. At the top of the ladder of success they find that another rung awaits them, with a dozen more to climb. If they keep busy enough, though, they become numb to the painful reality that life in this world is meaningless. After dragging themselves through the desert of life toward the elusive paradise oasis just on the horizon, many find themselves chomping on the sand of a dismal mirage.”

Simon & Garfunkel

“Like a rat in a maze, the path before me lies…”

- from the song, Patterns

A Twist on the Rat Race

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win the race, you’re still a rat.”

Lily Tomlin

The Meaning of Vanity

• Vanity, n., that which is vain, futile, or worthless; that which is of no value or profit (OED).

• Latin, vanitas, f., emptiness; untruthfulness; futility, foolishness, empty pride.

• “By ‘vanity’ Pascal means something between mere self-regard or self-flattery (as in a ‘vanity mirror’) and the total meaninglessness and purposelessness of life that Ecclesiastes means by ‘vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ He means pettiness, thinness, shallowness, hollowness, insubstantiality. This is the condition of man without God, that is, of the modern pagan” (Peter Kreeft).

Ecclesiastes: The Preacher

• “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Eccl. 1:2; 12:8).

• “A wisp of vapor, a puff of wind, a mere breath – nothing you could get your hands on; the nearest thing to zero. That is the ‘vanity’....It will no longer mean simply what is slight and passing, but more ominously, what is pointless. ” (Kidner).

Vanity in the Old Testament

• The Hebrew word used by Solomon in Ecclesiastes means “vapor, breath,” and is figuratively translated “vanity.”

• “Breath, as the contrast of that which is firm and enduring, is the figure of that which has no support, no continuance…. ‘Vanity of vanities’ is the non plus ultra of vanity – vanity in the highest degree” (Keil and Delitzsch).

• “I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath (vanity)” (Job 7:16).

• “My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!” (Ps. 39:5).

Vanity in the New Testament

• “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14).

• “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off” (I Pt. 1:24).

Things We Notice

1. One generation goes and another comes (1:4). Albert Henry Woolson died on August 2, 1956, and was the last surviving Civil War veteran. 430 die each day from the Greatest Generation. 16 million served; today, under 1 million remain.

2. The sun rises and the sun sets (1:5; cf. Ps. 104:19).3. The wind goes around and around (1:6).4. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full (1:2).5. There is nothing new under the sun (1:9). Jehovah Witnesses

believe with those who rejected the findings of the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325.

Things We Notice

6. We forget those who have already died (9:5). Who was the first person in the world to run a marathon?Pheidippides (530 BC–490 BC), when he ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of the victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.

7. Our days are full of sorrow and work can be a pain in the neck.8. Man and beast die; no difference.9. Evil, powerful people oppress other people (e.g., Stalin, Hitler, etc.)10. No one ever has enough (“his eyes are never satisfied with riches”).11. The violation of justice.12. Riches can quickly be lost in a bad venture.

Things We Notice

13. Our lives pass like a shadow (6:12).14. We have no say regarding the day of our death (8:8).15. We have sleepless nights (8:16).16. We have no control over the things that happen to us (“the race is

not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all” – 9:11).

17. Things we used to enjoy are no longer enjoyable (12:1).18. Pleasure is short-lived, no matter how hard we try to hold on.

The Lies We Believe

1. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.2. Every day and in every way, our world is getting better and better.3. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.4. Things are never as bad as they seem.5. This, too, will pass.6. “If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of

advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me’” (Ann Landers).

A Brief Catalogue of Vanities

• The Vanity of Wisdom (a striving after wind)• The Vanity of Self-Indulgence (“Self-love is the foulest of all foul

feeders, and will defile that it may devour” – George MacDonald, The Portent).

• The Vanity of Living Wisely (the wise person dies just like the fool)• The Vanity of Toil (I will leave everything to someone who did not

work for it)• The Vanity of Wealth and Honor

Enticement and Capture

“We are drawn towards a thing because we believe it is good. We end by being chained to it because it has become necessary.”

Simone Weil1909-1943

Pascal on Vanity Blindness

• “Vanity. That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable” (16/161).

• “Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future?” (36/164).

• “Are you vain?” “Yes.” “Q.E.D. (the conclusion of the proof). You are vain.”

• “Are you vain?” “No.” “Then you are all the more vain for being unable to recognize it.”

Pascal on Curiosity & Admirers

• “Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it; in other words, we would never travel by sea if it meant never talking about it, and for the sheer pleasure of seeing things we could never hope to describe to others” (77/152).

• “Vanity is so firmly anchored in man’s heart that a soldier, a rough (an irregular auxiliary in the army), a cook or a porter will boast and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and perhaps I who write this want the same thing, perhaps my readers…” (627/150).

Tunnel Vision

• Tunnel Vision, n., “a condition in which there is a major loss of peripheral vision; also, one in which anything away from the centre of one’s field of view escapes attention; also fig., inability to see more than a single or limited point of view” (OED).

• The vanity of the world is so little recognized.• Vain people cannot see the vanity of the world

because of their own vanity.• The only reason vain people want to know

about things is so they can talk about them.

Pascal on Painting

• “How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals!” (40/134).

• Pensées 40 “shows our tendency to prefer the unreal, or the less real: painted imitations to the real. Pascal does not want us to admire art less but nature more” (Kreeft).

• “If sometimes a work of art seems almost as beautiful as the sea, the mountains, or flowers, it is because the light of God has filled the artist” (Weil).

Would you prefer to look at Van Gogh’s The Starry Night or sit out under a clear sky to

admire real stars?

Pascal on Elegance

• “The more hands (people) one employs the more powerful one is. Elegance is a means of showing one’s power” (95/316).

• “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Eccl. 5:10).

• “Wealth gained hastily (by vanity) will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it” (Prov. 13:11).

• “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Prov. 31:30).

Pascal on Reputation

• “We do not care about our reputation in towns where we are only passing through. But when we have to stay some time, we do care. How much time does it take? A time proportionate to our vain and paltry existence” (31/149).

• “We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction” (120/148).

• “Fame is so sweet that we love anything with which we connect it, even death” (37/158).

Pascal on Reputation

• “On our desire for the esteem of those around us. Pride possesses us so naturally amidst all our miseries, errors, etc. We even die gladly provided people talk about it. Vanity: gambling, hunting, visits, theatre-going, false perpetuation of one’s name” (628/153).

Pascal on Appearances

“If physicians did not have long gowns and mules, if learned doctors did not wear square caps and robes four times too large, they would never have deceived the world, which finds such an authentic display irresistible. If they possessed true justice, and if physicians possessed the true art of healing, they would not need square caps” (44/82).

Pascal on Pleasures

• “All our pleasures are mere vanity” (427/194).

• Winston Churchill: “I am a man of simple tastes—I am quite easily satisfied with the best of everything.”

C.S. Lewis on Desire

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something

C.S. Lewis on Desire

else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”

Simone Weil

• “All that man vainly desires here below is perfectly realized in God.”

• “Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair” (212/528).

Principles for Facing Our Vanity

• “The enchantment of vanity. To render passion harmless let us behave as though we had only a week to live” (386/386).

• Meditate on this reality: “How many kingdoms know nothing of us!” (42/207).

• Go to God in humility. “Humility is the refusal to exist outside God. It is the queen of virtues” (Simone Weil).

• God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Eccl. 3:11). “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things will be added to you” (Mt. 6:33).

• “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Mt. 6:20).

Derek Kidner (1913-2008)

If everything is dying, “we face the appalling inference that nothing has meaning, nothing matters under the sun. It is then that we can hear, as the good news which it is, that everything matters, ‘for God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil’ (Eccl. 12:14).”

Derek Kidner was a former Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge