Ecclesiastes: Life as Vanity
Kreeft states in the books introduction, “The essence of Hell is not suffering but vanity, not pain but purposelessness, not physical suffering but spiritual suffering.” Ecclesiastes is the result of a life lived with God not at the center, a life defined by secularism. Solomon’s philosophy found in Ecclesiastes is useful in our culture today because it is an existential book about human existence that asks the question, “do humans have any reason to be here at all”? It shows “modernity’s greatest fear,” which is meaninglessness. Ecclesiastes deals with human despair and shows what happens when an individual tries to figure out his own ultimate values.
Solomon, looking back on a life of Hedonism realizes that all he has acquired ultimately will not go with him when he dies and warns against allowing God to exist only by the means of the secular “rather than the secular being defined by the sacred.” Ecclesiastes also tries to answer the epistemological question, “how can we know truth”? Unfortunately, it can only be answered by means of the areligious. Ecclesiastes gives a lucid example of what a life looks like when lived with God not at the center of one’s life.

Job: Life as Suffering
Job gives the reader insight into the long pondered problem of evil. Kreft takes the arguments of Jobs three friends and attempts to answer this problem. The arguments of Jobs friends are:
1.Faith premise: God is good and trustworthy
2.Rational premise: Justice means rewarding the good and punishing evil
3.Commonsense premise: Rewards make you happy; punishments make you unhappy
4.Experiential premise: Job is unhappy therefore he must be evil.

The Faith premise for example is God good and trustable. We as humans are held to a higher moral standard than dogs, in that it is not wrong for a dog to be sexually promiscuous, as it is for man. In the same way if a man tried to act like God he too would not take on goodness. If a human father deliberately lets his child be run over by a car when he could have prevented it he would not be a good father. God can save, yet he is good in not saving people from all harm because in his infinite wisdom he can see what we need for our ultimate fulfillment and wisdom. Kreeft continues to hash out the problem through the rest of the premises.

Song Of Songs: Life as Love
Love is a relationship between God and His creation. Symbolically, Solomon is God and the chosen bride is a symbol of the soul, or his chosen people. A love relationship with God is hope of the heart, the purpose of our lives, and the hidden key the rest of the Bible. The Bible is a love story because God is love. Song of Songs is the answer to the question of Ecclesiastes and to the quest of Job. (100)