NOTES for Ecc 8:17
Speaking about the works that are "done under the sun," Ecclesiastes calls them "unfathomable." What does he have in mind? Is science worth nothing? Of course, in his times science knew far less than in our day, but science has always remained science; in its basic features scientific knowledge was the same in those days as today.
The matter here is not science as such, but what in the times of Ecclesiastes was called wisdom. Wisdom then meant not scientific knowledge by itself, and not even knowledge as such. A wise person was not a learned intellectual, but a person who understands who he is, where he came from and why he came into the world, and where he is going. Wisdom consisted in answering not the question "how," but the question "why."
It was the same old question about the meaning of life, still relevant to this day. And Ecclesiastes obviously understood that knowledge as such does not answer it. Science can investigate much; human reason is not at all as weak as believers sometimes say, but the main thing cannot be understood by reason alone.
Indeed, the question of meaning, the question "why" and "for what purpose," is not a scientific one; reason alone is not enough here. In the final analysis, the answer to this question is known to God alone. In the nature created by God, which science investigates, there is no answer: neither stones, nor trees, nor animals not only do not know it, but do not even ask such a question. God Himself answers for stones, trees, and animals the question of the meaning of their existence, but neither stones, nor trees, nor animals are able to understand or even hear His answers.
More has been given to the human person: he can and must understand why and for what purpose he himself lives in the world, just as he must understand for what the world into which God has placed him has been given to him. But for the answer one must turn not to the world, but to God. In the foreground here is not intellect, not reason, but faith, faith first of all as trust in God, as the ability to ask Him a question and hear the answer.
From God one can learn the meaning of everything in the world, if only He considers it necessary to tell. Then, having received an answer to the main questions, a person becomes truly wise: his life acquires a goal and meaning for which alone it is worth living.