Man has a spirit which is desperately unwilling to let go of life; the animals also protect their lives with all their powers. Yet miserably, both their life and ours must come to an end and from this side of the grave we see no empirical evidence that there is any enduring existence after death. Solomon therefore asks, ‘Who knows …’ and the implied answer is, ‘No one knows’. Yet the Christian does know and with absolute certainty, for he has access to truth which the world is not willing to receive. The word of God tells us all that we need to understand on this subject and it cannot be broken. Nevertheless, Solomon speaks to those who either do not have that word available or are unwilling to receive it, and he shows the limits of unaided human knowledge.
Unbelieving men and women have not a shred of evidence that life continues after death, for we have no knowledge of the world to come, and no one has ever come back from that world to tell us about it. For all we know the spirits of men and of the animals all go to the same place. This also is a deeply depressing thought and is yet another nail in the coffin of man’s hope. All these things are exactly the way that God intends them to be, for it is his will that those who reject him should have all other doors closed to them.