Creation

Ch.2, by Plantinga

"Creation is neither a necessity nor an accident."  God doesn't need us because He is in constant communion within the Trinity and He didn't make us on a whim.  Rather, "creation is an act  that was fitting for God.  It was so much like God to create...."  I found this last quote to be particularly striking because I had never thought about it that way, despite talking how God doesn't do things contrary to His nature.  I also liked it because it reflects a deeper relationship with Him, a knowing of His character, much like how good friends know each other.  Creation can be though of as an "act of imaginative love."  Plantinga quotes Chesterton saying " 'the whole difference between construction and creation is ... that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists." 

A main point in the chapter was that God's glory is visible in all of creation; creation is a mirror, a reflection of God.  We can study creation as well as God's Word to understand him better.  Creation really reveals the awesomeness, the inventiveness, and infiniteness of God.  We have no idea what else created and what we do know is overwhelming. 

Plantinga included some reformed theology, deeper meanings, that can be drawn from creation.  The first is that the original goodness of creation, which it still retains though corrupted, is "potential redeemable."  This concept has been emphasized a lot at Calvin, and I never really thought about redeeming the world.  To me, it seems to be returning things back to the way they were created, how it should be.  Another point is that we are to love creation but not worship it; we should instead worship the Creator, who also created us.  The doctrine of creation "places us in the scheme of things."  Being only an image of God, we are not gods.  But as His images, we know He created with purpose and design, not by random chance, and we are to reflect God "in our personhood, communion, responsibility, dignity, virtue, suffering, and freedom."  Plantinga also says being an image of God "secures a range of human rights, including the right to respect, the right to life," and to other freedoms.  The image that came to my mind was being citizens of God's kingdom and His children. 


Some other aspects of bearing God's image:
1) He gave us dominion over creation.  With this authority, we should empower, not overpower, caring for its well-being and living in a "healthy interdependence."  It is a stewardship, and we should "lord under" rather than "lord over" it.  Just like Jesus is our Lord and yet, "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many"  (Mark 10:45).  Plantinga also mentions "cultural gifts, such as government, art, and family, as part of creation and under our dominion.  I had always thought of creation as nature and not parts of human life.  His reason is that it is still a reflection of God.  With this, the implication is that we must develop cultural possibilities - filling the potential - like learning a language, building, etc.  In class, we also talked about the servant nature of the human being evident in the universe.  We cannot live without the planet and the animals, but they can survive without us.  Even by our very nature, we must be stewards or else we won't survive.  

2)We are to be in community with others, which reflects God's Trinity.  It is something we must take seriously, as said in "The Weight of Glory" by C.S. Lewis, because all are made in the image of God and that cannot be taken away.  We must encourage people to be on their way to become "everlasting splendours" and deterring them from becoming "immortal horrors."  While we are in community, we need to be reminded each person is unique, despite being dependent on others.