Integrative Essay

In this essay I will try to explain each of the five chapters in Plantinga’s Engaging God’s World, and then I will compare that with some of the things that Lewis has said in the essays that we have read. The first chapter, on longing and hope, is seen in “We Have no Right to Happiness,” and The Four Loves. Comments on how to view creation are in “Our English Syllabus,” and “The Poison of Subjectivism.” The fall and the implications of it are seen in “The Weight of Glory.” “Learning in Wartime” has some thoughts on redemption and “The Inner Ring” and “Man or Rabbit” mention things that can be related to chapter five and our vocation.

The first chapter of Cornelius Plantinga's book, Engaging God's World, has three sections; longing, hope, and shalom. In the first section Plantinga talks about our longings as humans and how they are never fully satisfied. We have longings for many little things in life but behind every little longing lays our true longing which is for God. "But, if they come, they will not fill all our niches because we want more than these things can give." We may fulfill some of our longings in life, such as finding a job, and these accomplishments will make us feel satisfied at first but in time that satisfaction and joy will die out because our true longing is for God and only through him can we find true joy. The second section is about hope and how longings are a part of our hopes and dreams. I think of hopes as more specific longings or for things that are more realistic. A couple examples are: you long for a job and hope for a specific job that you prefer; if you are in a difficult time in your life you may long to go back to the times when you were a child and everything was so simple, while you hope that you will be able to make it through the difficulties quickly. The last section is about shalom and how we should hope and long for it. When translated into English, shalom means peace but its actual meaning is much greater than that. "In the Bible, shalom 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."

Lewis does not directly talk about this in either of these two readings but both relate well to it. The first is the essay, “We Have No Right to Happiness.” We think at times that we have a right to happiness and so this is something that we hope for. This happiness is different from joy and I don’t think a right to happiness is a part of shalom. Lewis’ book The Four Loves, talks about topics that have to do with this as well. Eros love is something we long for because it is the romantic love that we all want. This is not all of our longing though and it will not fulfill us. We truly long for the agape love and more specifically the agape love from God. We long for this love and for God to bring shalom so that all can be right in the world.

Plantinga's second chapter of his book is titled creation and discusses how God created humans in his image, and what the eight implications of creation are. God created everything and therefore we can see God in everything but he created humans in his image so God can be seen even more in humans. The first way in which we are created like God is that he gave us authority in the world and we have a responsibility to honor God with that authority. Second, we have relationships with each other just as God has relationships with us. Last, we are like God because we are like Jesus. Jesus suffered and died and everyone on earth will experience that so we mirror God in that way. A couple of the implications of creation are: God created everything with a purpose and he gave us intelligence so that we can discover that purpose. We can learn things about God through creation.

“Our English Syllabus” gives a need for creation not directly mentioned in Plantinga’s chapter but it is still important. Lewis talks about choosing what to study and the analogy of the tree. When studying the Bible it is sometimes easy to just cut out the Old Testament because we think it does not apply to us anymore but to understand God’s story we need to study the whole thing and so creation is important. “The Poison of Subjectivism” also brings up an interesting point about how we are made in the image of God. It talks about the Trinity as being like a 3D object and we are only 2D so we cannot understand it. I think we are made in the image of God this way too. We are like God but we cannot know everything about him because we are just like a 2D image of him.

The third chapter of Engaging God's World is about the fall and how it has corrupted man and society. Evil is what has corrupted the world, not just sin, because evil is more than sin. Plantinga says that evil is any spoiling of shalom, and all sin is evil but not all evil is sin. A natural disaster would be an example of an evil that is not a sin because there is no one responsible for it. A sin would be an evil that someone commits. As humans we can be corrupted more than animals because we have more initial good to be corrupted. "The better stuff a creature is made of--the cleverer and stronger and freer it is--then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong." Humans can be better or worse than animals, and supernatural beings can be better or worse than us. When we sin we are corrupting ourselves but we also need to remember that we may be corrupting others as well. This gives us a greater responsibility not to sin because we are affecting other people, as well as ourselves, when we sin. We need to be careful who we surround ourselves with because if they are sinning they are likely corrupting you. I think this can also work to some extent in the opposite direction as well. If we are doing good around people we can help make them less corrupt and less inclined to sin.

 “The Weight of Glory” has something to say about the last part of the chapter. C.S. Lewis says at the end of the essay, “All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations (eternal splendor or horror). It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” This is important because we are always helping people either towards splendor or horror. This also fits under the redemption chapter. We are fallen and have evil in us but because we have been redeemed we can help people get out of their sin by our actions around them.

Because the world is fallen, God had to send his son to redeem us and that is what the fourth chapter of Engaging God's World, is about: redemption. Jesus was sent to redeem all of creation because everything is fallen. As Plantinga said, when Jesus came into the world, "he acted like a repentant sinner. He got himself baptized, like every sinner. He absorbed accusations. He accepted rebuke without protest. He endured gossip about his choice of friends and his eating and drinking habits." Jesus didn't just live without sin, he also went through everything, and a lot more, than every sinner has to go through. He showed us how to live, and redeemed us through his death and resurrection. In “Learning in War-Time” Lewis Talks about how we should not wait for our life to be normal to do things. Our life will never be normal and it is just an excuse to get away from doing things. As Plantinga says, the whole world has to be reformed and if everyone waited for their life to be normal, no one would get anything done. We have been redeemed but we can’t just wait for everything to work out perfectly before we act.

The fifth and final chapter of Plantinga's Engaging God's World is all about our vocation in the kingdom of God. Our vocation is our calling and Plantinga talks about how our calling is not just what our job will be once we graduate, but it is much more than that. Our calling has many parts to it and we have to try to fit all those parts together to honor God. Some of these callings might include being a student or teacher, being a parent, being a husband or wife or child or friend. It is hard to know what God wants from us though, because He doesn't just tell us. We have to be patient and do the best we can to follow God's calling for us. A quote that I liked by Joseph Hall was, "the homeliest service that we do in an honest calling, though it be to plow, or dig, if done in obedience, and conscience of God's Commandment, is crowned with an ample reward; whereas the best works of their kind (preaching, praying, offering Evangelical sacrifices) if without respect of God's injunction and glory, are loaded with curses. God loves adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well." God doesn't ask that we all do the "best" things. He just asks us to do our very best at whatever our calling is and that we do it for him.

Lewis’ essays, “The Inner Ring” and “Man or Rabbit” are good examples of parts of our vocation. “The Inner Ring” talks about how we are always trying to become an insider of whatever we are doing. There are “inner rings” in all of our vocations and we have to stay focused on God’s purpose for us rather than worrying about becoming an insider. The quote at the end of “Man or Rabbit” is talking about morality but I th9nk it also applies to vocation. “Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying." We all have specific callings and our callings, along with God, equip us for the climb and the further ascent afterwards.

Plantinga gives a good outline of the Christian faith in Engaging God’s World, and the essays of C.S. Lewis that we read paralleled many of the ideas in Plantinga’s book. Lewis is very good at putting theological topics in easy to understand terms. Reading Lewis alongside Engaging God’s World, made everything easier to understand and more enjoyable than just studying one theological book. 

The Problem of Pain

Chapter six of Lewis's book, The Problem of Pain, is titled human pain, and talks about where pain comes from and what it is. "When souls become wicked they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another; and this, perhaps, accounts for four-fifths of the sufferings of men. It is men, not God, who have produced racks, whips, prisons, slavery, guns, bayonets, and bombs; it is by human avarice or human stupidity, not by the churlishness of nature, that we have poverty and overwork." We have created this kind of pain in the world, but physical pain is not the only type of pain in the world. "Pain is synonymous with suffering, anguish, tribulation, adversity, or trouble, and it is about it that the problem of pain arises." If God is all powerful and all good, then how is there pain in the world? That is the question, and the problem of pain. As seen in Lewis' quote earlier, mankind has created much of the pain in the world. Some of the other pains, such as diseases, are controlled by Satan as seen in the Bible in Job. Another explanation is that pain can be good for us. Many times it takes people pain or some big event in their life to turn back to God. We want God as our backup but in the good times when everything is going right we don't think we need him. As a friend of Lewis said, "We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; its there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it," The pain of being poor can actually be good because we don't have the distraction of money to keep us from God, but it can also get in the way if our poverty is all we worry about. "Poverty is blessed and yet ought to be removed."

Engaging God's World: Chapter 5

The fifth and final chapter of Plantinga's Engaging God's World, is all about our vocation in the kingdom of God. Our vocation is our calling and Plantinga talks about how our calling is not just what our job will be once we graduate, but it is much more than that. Our calling has many parts to it and we have to try to fit all those parts together to honor God. Some of these callings might include being a student or teacher, being a parent, being a husband or wife or child or friend. It is hard to know what God wants from us though, because He doesn't just tell us. We have to be patient and do the best we can to follow God's calling for us. A quote that I liked by Joseph Hall was, "the homeliest service that we do in an honest calling, though it be to plow, or dig, if done in obedience, and conscience of God's Commandment, is crowned with an ample reward; whereas the best works of their kind (preaching, praying, offering Evangelical sacrifices) if without respect of God's injunction and glory, are loaded with curses. God loves adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well." God doesn't ask that we all do the "best" things. He just asks us to do our very best at whatever our calling is and that we do it for him. The one part I don't agree with on that quote is where it says that the best works without respect of God are filled with curses. I agree that they are not as good, and those people are not fulfilling their vocation, but God still uses those works to do good things even if they are for the wrong reasons. A way to try to make sure we are working for God is that when picking a job we should "strive first for the kingdom." We need to take the job in our calling that best suits us to do the most good for God's kingdom. This may mean taking a job with less benefits but it doesn't always mean that. Just because a job has a higher salary and better benefits, doesn't mean it is worse, those just shouldn't be the main reason for picking a specific job.

Man or Rabbit?

"Man or Rabbit" is an essay in which C.S. Lewis answers the question of whether or not we can still live a good and successful life without being a Christian. Lewis first describes how Christians and non-Christians act differently and how their definitions of good are different. Christians know that individuals are the most important because they are eternal while materialists believe that civilizations and organizations are the most important because they can last much longer than a human will live. This causes materialists to try to do whatever brings the most happiness to the most amount of people. Lewis also says that their definition of happiness is wrong though. They think that happiness is whatever makes you feel best; while Christians believe that the only way to bring people true and lasting happiness is to unite them with God. The real question that is being asked is not whether you can be good without being a Christian but rather, "Need I bother about it? Mayn't I just evade the whole issue, just let sleeping dogs lie, and get on with my being 'good'? Aren't good intentions enough to keep me safe without knocking at that dreadful door and making sure there is or isn't someone inside?" They don't want to bother with it because they are worried that they might find the truth and then that could disturb what they think is a good life. "He is like the man who won't go to the doctor when he first feels a mysterious pain because he is afraid of what the doctor might tell him." "Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are 'done away' and the rest is a matter of flying." I like this quote a lot because it is a great picture of what happens to many people. They think they can live a good life without God, and when they finally reach their summit, they are left there by themselves either to freeze, or to go back down right to where they started.

The Inner Ring

In "The Inner Ring" C.S. Lewis talks about how everyone is trying to get into an inner ring and what that does to us. Everyone wants to be in the inner ring and I think we are all working towards that goal whether we realize it or not. Getting into the inner ring could mean a lot different things like being a part of a certain group of friends, working your way up in a large corporation, or joining a gang. "In the whole of your life as you now remember it, has the desire to be on the right side of that invisible line ever prompted you to any act or word on which, in the cold small hours of a wakeful night, you can look back with satisfaction?" When we try to get into those inner rings, generally we do things that we will later regret and Lewis says that getting into these inner rings makes us into scoundrels. Also, whenever you make into that group, there is almost always a more inner ring that will draw you in. The rings are like an onion that keep getting smaller until there is nothing. "You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain." We are always on the outside of some ring and we have to learn to accept being an outsider or else our whole life will be given away trying to get into the inner ring and we will never be satisfied. Inner rings are always exclusive because if they were not exclusive then nobody would care if they were a part of it. We want to be a part of the inner ring because we are searching for that sense of belonging and we think that getting into that certain group will bring that. There are rings that exist that are not bad though. These rings are rings of friendship that form mostly because of similar interest. This is seen a lot in high school with groups of sports or music. I had a group of four friends that loved to golf, and that formed a sort of inner ring because people that didn't like golf weren't a part of that group. This is not a bad type of ring because we were still friends with those other people, but just outside of golf. We can join rings but we need to make sure that they are not a bad influence on us and that we are not losing friends because we join these rings.

The Four Loves: Eros

The Four Loves, is a book in which Lewis describes the four types of loves in our lives and the use of all of them. The first is Storge which is the affectionate love that you have for someone that you are familiar with. This is commonly seen between family members. The second is Phileo which is the love of friendship. This is the bond between close friends and is more than just companionship. The third love is Eros which is the romance love. And the fourth is Agape, or charity. This is the unconditional love and the love that God is full of. Our reading and this blog post will focus on Eros, the love of romance. Eros is the sense of being in love and is different than sexuality. Eros loves someone for who they are and does not just judge by how they act or look. It does not long for the sexual connection but rather an emotional connection with the other person. "What comes first is simply a delighted pre-occupation with the Beloved--a general, unspecified pre-occupation with her in her totality." The sexual appeal is not what comes first in falling in love but rather, it is that she is all you can think about and you just want to know her better. With Eros, their appearance doesn't matter as much because when you love someone you see them as even more beautiful whether other people think so or not. Lewis says that falling in love happens but being in love is a choice. I thought it was interesting because you cant always control who you fall in love with but you can control if you pursue that feeling or not. He also said some interesting things about what love does when you are married. When you are married, and even before that, both people are trying to change the other in little ways so that they can become the 'ideal' man or woman. This will end up leaving both people unhappy with each other because neither will ever become that perfect image that they have in their minds. I think it is important to understand what the Eros love is but sometimes it is hard to completely grasp. I think it would be interesting to read this again after being married for a little while so that we could understand it in a different way.

Engaging God's World: Chapter 4

Because the world is fallen, God had to send his son to redeem us and that is what the fourth chapter of Engaging God's World, is about: redemption. Jesus was sent to redeem all of creation because everything is fallen. As Plantinga said, when Jesus came into the world, "he acted like a repentant sinner. He got himself baptized, like every sinner. He absorbed accusations. He accepted rebuke without protest. He endured gossip about his choice of friends and his eating and drinking habits." Jesus didn't just live without sin, he also went through everything, and a lot more, than every sinner has to go through. He showed us how to live, and redeemed us through his death and resurrection. One thing that Plantinga says is that "nobody gains union with Christ by himself." I don't completely agree with this. This means that you need a church or at least a group of believers to be unified with Christ. What if there is one person in a remote country who comes to believe in God and there are no other Christians around? Does this mean he can't be unified with God and is doomed just because of his geographical location and culture? I think a church is still important but I also think it is possible, but not easy, to become a unified with God without one.

Jesus died and then rose again and we can symbolize being unified with him through baptism. The act of baptism is like a death and resurrection. Being immersed in water symbolizes death and then you are "resurrected" in being pulled back up. We are redeemed by Christ and baptism shows that we believe and understand that. Our job is not done though once we believe in God. We need to help bring others to know the truth and try to change the parts of our lives that are bringing us further away from the perfect peace of shalom. We do this by using the Bible as a guide to help us know what shalom looks like and what we can do to help.