NOTES for Wis 2:23

The question of the meaning of life has troubled people probably since the fall itself. Before, before the catastrophe, this meaning was defined by God, and the person accepted God's definition as his own. If questions arose, the One who could give the fullest, clearest, and truest answer was always near. The problem, as can be seen, appeared when fallen humanity forgot how to listen to God and hear Him. Then this fallen person began asking himself and others questions that are strange for someone living a normal and full spiritual life: Who am I? Why am I in this world? What awaits me next? What should I do, and how should I live? And is there any meaning at all in all of this?

Why these questions arose is, in general, understandable: one of the main illusions that grips fallen humanity is the illusion that the part of creation seen in its fallen state, often without noticing anything else, is the only thing that exists. Nature is real; spirit is a chimera or at least something secondary in relation to nature. In principle, of course, there is nothing surprising in such an aberration of perception: the fallen person himself is nature first of all, and spirit only secondarily, at best. And this anomaly is perceived as the norm, as the only possible norm.

But the sacred writer reminds us that a person is by no means intended merely to be part of nature. In the natural world, a person is a guest, though not an accidental one. But he is at home only in the Kingdom of God. Of course, one can forget the Kingdom and live as though it did not exist, as though natural, physical life were the only and final reality. But then there is a great chance that nature, with its cycle of births and deaths that empties human life of meaning, will truly become for us the only and final reality. And we will never notice the Kingdom.