Engaging God's World: Chapter 2

Plantinga's second chapter of his book, Engaging God's World, 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.

Next, there are eight implications that creation has. The first is that everything was created good and although we are fallen we all have some good in us. "No human being is as good as he can be; but, because of the strength of creation and of God's faithfulness in preserving it, no human is as bad as he could be either." Second, God created everything with a purpose and he gave us intelligence so that we can discover that purpose. Third, we can learn things about God through creation. Because he created the world entirely good, we can know that he is a good God, and the fact that he is able to create all of this shows that he has immense power. Fourth, we are naturally going to love nature and the creation because God created it but we should not worship it because it is not God himself. Fifth, after God created Adam and Eve he told them to work in the Garden of Eden and also to populate the earth. This shows that work and marriage are good things and we can glorify God in all types of work, not just things such as preaching. Sixth, as humans we all have responsibilities to God. He created us and gave us authority and every single human was created by God and has a purpose here. This is seen when C. S. Lewis says, "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." Seventh, we are all individuals and are unique in our own way. We all have different talents that we bring to the church and we need to respect that in other people. Last, we are images of God and through other people we can know God better. "To sum up, the first act in the world's drama is God's act of creating and sustaining 'all things visible and invisible,' out of a generous desire to enlarge the realm of being, to bestow life and goodness on others, and to assist others to flourish in the realm created for them.