I found Plantinga’s third chapter on the fall to be the most interesting of the book thus far. Plantinga starts by recalling that God created the world and it was good. It was very good. When we took the apple from the snake the world fell from that original goodness. The Calvinist concept of total depravity was discussed in class. Total depravity meaning every aspect of creation has fallen. It’s because we are depraved that we need God’s redemption. He sent Christ so we can begin to be seen as good and that original goodness can be restored. It’s the story of the bible.
Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Plantinga says that evil does not exist on its own it is only tainted goodness, but there seems to have been this knowledge of evil even when all was good. I don’t think this has to mean Plantinga is wrong. He describes how sin is bad because it is deceit against God and destroys trust. Also he says that all sin is evil, but not all evil is sin. The example in the book is a 2 year causing the death of a baby. He had no wrong in his head and wasn’t sinning though it is certainly an evil of this world. I think that part of the tainting goodness is in our heads. I don’t think that Adam and Eve had natural law. They were more like children who could do no wrong and whose hearts were pure. Anything that would now be evil wasn’t evil or couldn’t happen as they only did for good. Being totally depraved it’s hard for us to think of a world that isn’t, but seeing how goodness has been tainted is important for restoring it.
Plantinga says some things that I really liked when he talked of a connection with nature. I love nature and there’s an important connection that I think we need to have with Gods creation. There is a song on the Discovery Channel that has been termed the “Boom De Ah Dah” song.
This shows a love for creation that as Christians we should have. This video was shoes in quest when we discussed that we must love the practice of the Christian faith and love creation. One without the other will leave us short of a healthy Christian life. We want to restore creation and that means also loving it as Plantinga nails.
You made an interesting point when you said that it's hard for us to picture a world that is not totally depraved. It is amazing that the world still is filled with wonder even after it became totally depraved. It makes me think about how awesome it must have been before sin entered it.
ReplyDeleteTrying to imaging the perfectness of the world before sin has always been something that I find interesting.
ReplyDelete