Ch. 5 by Plantinga
I found it interesting how Plantinga talks about each of us having our own little kingdom within God's kingdom. I had always thought of us being just a servant in God's kingdom. I guess this gives us more of a sense of responsibility, this area I have to take care of.
A vocation is what a person is called to do. One person can have many vocations, such as father, lawyer, elder, son, and coach. These vocations all fall under the vocation of serving the Lord. Plantinga lays out questions lays out questions one should ask when looking for a career:
"Where in the kingdom does God want me to work? Where are the needs great? Where are the workers few?...How honest is the work I'm thinking of doing? How necessary and how healthy are the goods or services I would help provide? How smoothly could I combine my proposed career with being a spouse, if that's also my calling, or a parent, or a faithful child of aging parents? How close would I be to a church in which I could give and take nourishment?" Is my job going to result in me conquering less evil than I take in?
While I do not think one should compromise his standards, I thought some of these questions seemed really ideal because there are always circumstances which stop you, for example the current economy, distance, people you need to care for, the lack of money. Then I saw how Plantinga said we should also consider how it goes with our other vocations, especially those related to other people. Maybe ultimately you are to become a doctor, but at this point in time, you are called to be a waiter, in order to fill the needs of your family. A part of this chapter was on the idea of doing our best whatever the calling is, even in the small mundane tasks.
A problem I have had with the discussion on vocation is how do you know what God is calling you to? I know that right now, my calling is to be a student, to "prepare for further calling", as Plantinga says, but I have no clue, nor much idea how to find out, what that exactly is.
Plantinga discusses the difference between a secular and Christian college education. Most Christians in secular education will have a harder time developing a Christian philosophy, or worldview on everything in life, and will not take the time to differentiate between good and evil on campus and develop such a philosophy whereas a student in a Christian college will have their faith integrated into their learning. He warns the Christian-college attending student to be wary of just going with the flow and to really think about what you are learning, to push yourself out of your safe zone. While I agree a secular education has many difficulties that a Christ-centered education does not, I have found we, at Calvin, get caught up in work and don't have time to think about our own Christian philosophy, just like the secular student. For example, our floor class was focused on origins of this world. It was supposed to present different views, give people a better understanding of what those views are exactly, and to promote discussion. One of the things I discovered is that it didn't help get any closer to finding out what I believed.
Plantinga talks about how knowledge, skills, and virtues are necessary to fulfilling our vocation. I like Plantinga's description of skills as "'how to' disciplines that...require a certain amount of sweat and repetition, and then yield some wonderful freedoms" and his comparison of this idea to a jazz musician. By learning the skills and having discipline, the basics, the jazz musician has the freedom to improvise. A student will be able to use the skills they have learned and apply it new ways and to different problems. Virtues I feel are less emphasized in society but play a huge part. A person who slacks off but is extremely knowledgeable or skillful may end up being of less value than a person who is very diligent, doing the best he can, and sets out to learn everything they can about the job.
Showing posts with label Engaging God's World - Plantinga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Engaging God's World - Plantinga. Show all posts
Friday, January 21, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Redemption
Ch. 4 by Plantinga
"Everybody wants liberty. The problem is that everyone wants it on his own terms." Freedom in God is found in following His laws and commands; they keep us from falling back into the bondage of sin. I found it very interesting the way Dr. Ribeiro compared it to an escapee from a concentration camp. The escapee has received papers from an Allied spy with instructions about where to go and where to stop at. If the papers say to stop at a certain checkpoint, the escapee can choose to, and receive help from someone else and continue on his journey to freedom, or he can disregard the instructions, which means he gets less help and has to figure things out for himself, making it harder to escape.
An important part of this chapter was the idea of double grace: sanctification and justification. Justification is the forgiving and reconciling of sins by God, and sanctification is the process of becoming holy, the lifelong transformation of becoming like Christ. In transforming, we need to act more like Christ. Plantinga included a quote by Martin Luther that captured the relationship between salvation and good works: "Good works are not the cause, but the fruit of righteousness. When we have become righteous, then we are able and willing to do good. The tree makes the apple; the apple does not make the tree." So good works are the result of our salvation, the result of God's grace and of a life in pursuit of God and His will. We cannot do anything to earn salvation.
For Reformed Christianity, redemption is not just for people; we also need to redeem the structures, the systems, the societies of this world. "Everything corrupt needs to be redeemed, and that includes the natural whole natural world, which both sings and groans." The idea of redeeming our culture and even economic structures was pretty new to me. I never thought of that as part of redemption. I knew we should be a steward of what God has given us, and it was innate to me that we should fix what is wrong, but I never realized it was part of God making things right in this world.
I found it interesting how Plantinga described our dying and rising with Christ as a rhythm. "...The central rhythm of reform is dying and rising with Christ, practiced over and over till it becomes a way of being." Death to our old selves, confessing our sins, and rising as a transformed person. It is not a one time thing, something we need to constantly work on.
Reformed people have traditionally prayed a "prayer of illumination" before Scripture reading because they know "unless the Holy Spirit breathes through Scripture all over again is it's read, we might hear it the right way and we might not believe it." This is a good reminder that our understanding may be blurred and that we should always rely on the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, ears, and hearts to what God has to say. In our groups discussion, Andrew brought up a Bible verse that was really fitting: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
"Everybody wants liberty. The problem is that everyone wants it on his own terms." Freedom in God is found in following His laws and commands; they keep us from falling back into the bondage of sin. I found it very interesting the way Dr. Ribeiro compared it to an escapee from a concentration camp. The escapee has received papers from an Allied spy with instructions about where to go and where to stop at. If the papers say to stop at a certain checkpoint, the escapee can choose to, and receive help from someone else and continue on his journey to freedom, or he can disregard the instructions, which means he gets less help and has to figure things out for himself, making it harder to escape.
An important part of this chapter was the idea of double grace: sanctification and justification. Justification is the forgiving and reconciling of sins by God, and sanctification is the process of becoming holy, the lifelong transformation of becoming like Christ. In transforming, we need to act more like Christ. Plantinga included a quote by Martin Luther that captured the relationship between salvation and good works: "Good works are not the cause, but the fruit of righteousness. When we have become righteous, then we are able and willing to do good. The tree makes the apple; the apple does not make the tree." So good works are the result of our salvation, the result of God's grace and of a life in pursuit of God and His will. We cannot do anything to earn salvation.
For Reformed Christianity, redemption is not just for people; we also need to redeem the structures, the systems, the societies of this world. "Everything corrupt needs to be redeemed, and that includes the natural whole natural world, which both sings and groans." The idea of redeeming our culture and even economic structures was pretty new to me. I never thought of that as part of redemption. I knew we should be a steward of what God has given us, and it was innate to me that we should fix what is wrong, but I never realized it was part of God making things right in this world.
I found it interesting how Plantinga described our dying and rising with Christ as a rhythm. "...The central rhythm of reform is dying and rising with Christ, practiced over and over till it becomes a way of being." Death to our old selves, confessing our sins, and rising as a transformed person. It is not a one time thing, something we need to constantly work on.
Reformed people have traditionally prayed a "prayer of illumination" before Scripture reading because they know "unless the Holy Spirit breathes through Scripture all over again is it's read, we might hear it the right way and we might not believe it." This is a good reminder that our understanding may be blurred and that we should always rely on the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, ears, and hearts to what God has to say. In our groups discussion, Andrew brought up a Bible verse that was really fitting: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Monday, January 17, 2011
Fall
Ch. 3 by Plantinga
"Evil needs good in order to be evil." Everything God created was originally good but then it got corrupted. A corrupted person misuses God's gifts, perverts it, and "pollutes his relationship with foreign elements." I had never really thought of evil needing good until class. Good is the standard, evil is just everything besides it. Plantinga expanded on the second part about polluting your relationship by saying sometimes we want both God and the world, but that isn't possible. This disregards what God has done; the world will never fulfill as God does. I've often felt the tug from both sides and just really struggled because I just want it all. It makes me think of a verse from Romans 7, where it says "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do....For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."
Total depravity means that every part of our lives is affected by sin. Common grace is the fact that God empowers everyone to be good; it is " the goodness of God shown to all, regardless of faith,consisting in natural blessings, restraint of corruption, seeds of religion and political order, and a host of civilizing and humanizing impulses, patterns, and traditions." The concept of common grace was a relatively new idea for me. I never really thought of the good found in people as grace. If the way God created man was naturally good, then wouldn't that be the standard rather than something else that God has additionally given us?
"The glory of God's good creation has not been obliterated by the tragedy of the fall, but it has been deeply shadowed by it. The history of our race is, in large part, the interplay of this light and shadow." I really liked the second sentence here because it was great imagery and so true. Someone in class mentioned how the first sentence offered the idea of hope, which I didn't think of. Even though sin has permeated everything, goodness has not been defeated. Ultimately, God will triumph over all evil and isn't that something to look forward to?
"Satan goes to church more than anybody else because he knows that at a particular time and place, a corrupt church can devastate the cause of the gospel." This is a scary thought but it is true. Think about all the things "Christians" have done, the attitudes they have, that deter people from truly knowing God, that have hurt them. Using Christianity to promote oneself or a selfish cause is another example of perversion.
A recurring theme throughout this class that appeared again in discussion was the idea of how the little things matter. It first starts with a little sin, then we feel more comfortable with it and continue to sin until we no longer recognize this sin and we need others to alert us of our wrong. Every sin, every person has to be redeemed, has to be saved, individually.
"Evil needs good in order to be evil." Everything God created was originally good but then it got corrupted. A corrupted person misuses God's gifts, perverts it, and "pollutes his relationship with foreign elements." I had never really thought of evil needing good until class. Good is the standard, evil is just everything besides it. Plantinga expanded on the second part about polluting your relationship by saying sometimes we want both God and the world, but that isn't possible. This disregards what God has done; the world will never fulfill as God does. I've often felt the tug from both sides and just really struggled because I just want it all. It makes me think of a verse from Romans 7, where it says "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do....For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."
Total depravity means that every part of our lives is affected by sin. Common grace is the fact that God empowers everyone to be good; it is " the goodness of God shown to all, regardless of faith,consisting in natural blessings, restraint of corruption, seeds of religion and political order, and a host of civilizing and humanizing impulses, patterns, and traditions." The concept of common grace was a relatively new idea for me. I never really thought of the good found in people as grace. If the way God created man was naturally good, then wouldn't that be the standard rather than something else that God has additionally given us?
"The glory of God's good creation has not been obliterated by the tragedy of the fall, but it has been deeply shadowed by it. The history of our race is, in large part, the interplay of this light and shadow." I really liked the second sentence here because it was great imagery and so true. Someone in class mentioned how the first sentence offered the idea of hope, which I didn't think of. Even though sin has permeated everything, goodness has not been defeated. Ultimately, God will triumph over all evil and isn't that something to look forward to?
"Satan goes to church more than anybody else because he knows that at a particular time and place, a corrupt church can devastate the cause of the gospel." This is a scary thought but it is true. Think about all the things "Christians" have done, the attitudes they have, that deter people from truly knowing God, that have hurt them. Using Christianity to promote oneself or a selfish cause is another example of perversion.
A recurring theme throughout this class that appeared again in discussion was the idea of how the little things matter. It first starts with a little sin, then we feel more comfortable with it and continue to sin until we no longer recognize this sin and we need others to alert us of our wrong. Every sin, every person has to be redeemed, has to be saved, individually.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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.
"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.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Longing and Hope
Chapter 1 in Plantinga's Engaging God's World: A Reformed Vision of Faith, Learning and Living
Plantinga begins with the idea we have a longing that nothing can fulfill apart from God and that we should find things to excite that longing for Him. Longing is a part of hope, and “genuine hope always combines imaginations, faith, and desire.” Plantinga uses Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example of a person who had a longing for justice and appealed to people’s hope. Hoping for oneself but we should be too focused on ourselves. Instead, as Simone Wiel says, we should
empty ourselves of our false divinity, to deny ourselves, to give up being the center of the world in imagination, to discern that all points in the world are equally centers and that the true center is outside the word, this is the consent to the rule of … free choice at the center of each soul Such consent is love.
Biblical hope is a yearning for the new heaven and earth, it is for shalom, which “means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, all under the arch of God’s love. Shalom, in other words, is the way things are supposed to be.”
Plantinga states that “nobody hopes for what he’s convinced is a lost cause or a logical impossibility.” I think Christians should always be hoping because God can do anything and He is coming back, so everything will be made right. Even when they feel something is a lost cause, they can still hope in Jesus Christ. And sometimes, that is the only place they can turn to.
A point of discussion that struck me is that we should be here in the present, the here and now, and that we shouldn’t dream then. Often, I have drifted away so I’m not here, experiencing life to the fullest but am in some other world, constantly thinking about stuff instead of just enjoying the moment. Thinking about stuff, dreaming, is meaningless unless it leads to action.
We also discussed the place of doubt. Doubt occurs at the crossroads of life and on the way along the road. Doubt is good for reflection and examination of life but is not good when it paralyzes you. This definition struck me because I have often questioned how much doubt is healthy. One must question oneself but to what extent is it too much?
We also discussed the place of doubt. Doubt occurs at the crossroads of life and on the way along the road. Doubt is good for reflection and examination of life but is not good when it paralyzes you. This definition struck me because I have often questioned how much doubt is healthy. One must question oneself but to what extent is it too much?
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