Ecclesiastes 11:5

Thou knowest not the work of God, who doeth all

Christian agnosticism

(with James 1:5):--The favourite intellectual mood of unbelief in recent times has been agnosticism.

It declares that the greatest things we do not know, shall never know. Ecclesiastes is a very modern book in respect of this recognition of human ignorance. And it is more than modern in that while it fully states the puzzle, it gives the key.

I. We know nothing. There is a farmer observing the wind now, saying, “It is in the right quarter; I will put in my seed.” He shall not. The seed is six miles away, and a cart-wheel is broken. To-morrow the land will be flooded. The next day his child will be dying, and he will postpone everything. Another was very anxious about the rainy harvest; he “regarded the clouds,” he chose a good week and set the men on; but he fell from his horse and died; some one else saw the harvest home. “Thou knowest not what is the way of the wind.” That is the kind of experience that makes Tennyson say, “Behold, we know not anything.” Of course there is very much in the regularity of things to make us think we know. A shrewd and careful farmer usually gets on well. The wind is a sign, and the clouds are a sign, that any man of common sense must pay attention to. Say we do not know what God doeth, if you like. But lay upon Him all that is done. If a man sows wild oats it is God who makes them come up. Do not say it is nature; it is God. And then if they seem not to come up--one man does wrong and is punished, another does wrong and is not punished--you are not embarrassed with any irregularity hard to account for. God has them both in hand. And with Him is no variableness or shadow that is cast by turning.

II. We know God. The unbelieving agnostic says we can know everything earthly, but nothing heavenly; we cannot know God. The Christian agnostic says, “We are not certain of anything earthly; but we are certain of God. We know whom we have believed.” God shines into all the world with the pure light of goodness; and all iniquity, greed, violence, and so on, of which we say the earth is so full, is really a vision, too, of God by contrast. The earth is full of the glory of God, and that is why the bad things about us show up so. Christ has come--a human character up against which every one begins to feel ashamed by sheer contrast. He dares to say, “I am the light of the world,” and men have to recognize it, because they all show up dark against it. The character of God is there, plain enough, in touch with us.

III. If we know God we are in the way to know everything--and the only way. Do not imagine there is some long, toilsome path, as the Deists used to say, “through nature up to nature’s God.” It is not far to get through nature. It is as thin as paper. Put the two texts together--“Thou knowest not the work of God, who doeth all.” “If any lack, let him ask of God, in faith, nothing doubting.” By faith all things are yours, ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (J. H. Stowell, M. A.)