Integration Essay - "Learning in Plantinga"

While reading the book entitled Engaging in God’s World by Cornelius Plantinga Jr., I discovered that its five themes connected nicely with the sermon “Learning in War-Time” by C. S. Lewis that we read for our DCM class. Throughout the history of the world, the human race has constantly been learning, and this sermon discusses the importance of education in a Christian life. The five topics in Plantinga’s book (longing, creation, fall, redemption, and vocation) help explain the reason for education in the life of a Christian.

The first chapter of Plantinga’s book speaks of the hope and longing we have on earth. These desires can never be fulfilled in this life because what we truly long for is eternal life with God in heaven. One of these desires is the desire to learn. “Learning in War-Time”, a sermon by C. S. Lewis, speaks of this desire, “An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain. We can therefore pursue knowledge as such, and beauty, as such, in the sure confidence that by so doing we are either advancing to the vision of God ourselves or indirectly helping others to do so” (Lewis 3). In this quote, Lewis says that there is a reason for all our desires, including education, and with this desire we can either come to knowledge ourselves or help others come to it. It is important for humans to gain knowledge because they have a natural longing to do so.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, there was no sin so there was no reason for man to learn. “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31). Nowhere in the Bible do we read of God telling Adam to learn everything he can about mathematics or science while in the Garden of Eden, but instead God commands Adam to care for the earth. In Lewis’s sermon, “Learning in War-Time”, Lewis speaks of the reason for this, “If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated” (4). Before the fall into sin, man did not need to be educated because there were no wicked philosophies he needed to fight against.

By eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man gained the knowledge of sin. In Genesis 3:5, the serpent tempted Eve in the garden by telling her, “… that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Because man gained this knowledge of evil, it was necessary for him to acquire more knowledge so that he could fight against the now present sin in the world. It did not take long for non-Christians to exist after the fall into sin. In fact, this is seen in the next generation when Cain killed his brother Abel and left his family to build a new city. This new city, called Enoch, was filled with sin and was constantly learning and developing new ideas. We know this to be true by the account of Lamech’s sons in Genesis 4:20-22. His sons Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain were masters of cattle, music, brass, and iron, and none of their work was done to glorify God. God’s children would not be able to rest and remain uneducated while the wicked world around them was learning and developing at such a fast pace.

As a result of the Fall, all of humanity became dead to their own sin, unable to do anything to gain their own salvation. For this reason God sent His only begotten Son to come into the world as a lowly human and die on the cross so that His blood would cover our many wicked sins. We have done nothing to deserve this gracious act of God, and our only response can be to praise and glorify His holy name in everything that we do. In order to praise him better, we must learn more about Him and His creation, and we do that through our studies in school. While studying mathematics, we see God’s amazing orderliness throughout creation, and we know that only our God could create something so astonishing. Science teaches us the beauty of God’s creation and reemphasizes the order in it. In the study of an atom, we realize how complex and intricate the world is, and that it could never be created by chance as the world around us teaches. There is so much in science left to explore and discover that shows us how powerful our Creator is because He was able to design the entire universe in just six days. Lastly, English teaches and reemphasizes to us the importance of language in our lives. Without the gift of communication, there would be no way for us to fellowship with our heavenly Father and His other children. With these new understandings, we can praise our God better because we grasp more about Him and His creation.

Another reason for redeemed children to gain and education is so that we can fight against the knowledge of the wicked. C. S. Lewis brings up this exact point in his sermon, “Learning in War-Time” when he writes, “To be ignorant and simple now – not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground – would be to throw down our weapons, and then betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered” (Lewis 4) If we sit still and let the wicked develop new ideas without interference, we are not thanking God for everything that He has done for us. In his book, Plantinga constantly tells us to be agents of renewal, and in order to do so we must try to better the world. I believe that this world will be destroyed when Christ comes again, and a new heaven and earth will be created, but it is still important for us to be stewards of God’s creation because He has placed humans in charge of it. As stewards of the creation, we are called to fight against the wickedness of the world, and in order to do so we must learn so that we can fight against the bad philosophies that surround us. By learning we give praise and thankfulness to God for saving us from our sins.

Because we are redeemed creatures, we must discover what God’s vocation is for us. Vocation is God’s calling or will for His people in what they will do with their lives to best praise and glorify Him. Learning is an important part of our vocation because through our education we can better prepare ourselves for our future occupations. Not only is our career our vocation, but also wherever we are in our lives during a specific moment, whether it is at school, at home, or wherever God is calling us to be at the moment. Lewis addresses this idea in his sermon by saying, “We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation. A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation” (Lewis 3). God has given every man different talents; therefore, all men will have a different way to bring glory to His name. Plantinga tells us in his book that it is not so much important in what we do, but in how we do it. Education is a large portion of our vocation because God calls us to go to school and learn more about Him, and with our newly acquired knowledge we can better obtain a job in the future.

Education is very important in our lives. Human beings have a natural longing to be educated about the world, and this is one longing that we must seek after. When God created the world there was no need for learning because there were no unbelievers in the world to fight against, but after the Fall, man gained the knowledge of sin, and the first unbelieving child was born to Adam and Eve. Because we are dead in our sins, God sent Jesus Christ to redeem His people. In response to this work of God, we must constantly praise Him, and in order to do so to the best of our ability, we must be educated. We also need to gain an education to develop good philosophies so that we can fight against the bad ones of the world. Education is a large part of our vocation because God calls us to be students, and later we will need that knowledge in the workplace. Both Plantinga’s book and Lewis’s sermon helped me to see the importance of education in a Christian’s life.

Works Cited

KJV Student Bible. Iowa Falls, IA: World Bible Publishers, Inc, 1998. Print.

Lewis, C. S. "Learning in War-Time." Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford. Autumn. 1939. Address.

The Problem of Pain

C. S. Lewis’s book entitled The Problem of Pain is about the pain we experience on earth. In his life, Lewis had a lot of experience with pain because his mother died while he was a young boy, and later his wife died of cancer. Through all this pain, Lewis sees that his true treasure is waiting for him in heaven: “I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to posses my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ.” Our lives on earth will be filled with pain and suffering, but through all of it we must remember that our everlasting treasures are stored up for us in heaven.

It’s very easy for us to trust in God when we are going through difficult times in our lives, but the challenge comes when our lives are rolling smoothly. When are lives are easy and enjoyable, we don’t look towards the kingdom of God. Things are far different, however, when we encounter trials and difficulties. During these times “we regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.” An example of this happening was after 9/11. During this time of turmoil, our nation turned to God because it wanted the comfort of knowing that He is watching over it. After things went back to normal, the same people whom we praying to and confiding in God returned to their everyday lives and once again ignored the existence of God.

Lewis brings up this point in his book, “Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption.” During the “easy” times of our lives, it’s easy to turn from God because we feel as if we don’t need anything else to make us happy, but when we are suffering, God becomes our lifeline. In our lives, we must be careful not to let this become true of us, but we must know that we need God during all situations of our lives both good and bad.

Man or Rabbit

In his essay “Man or Rabbit”, C. S. Lewis says that the difference between man and animals is that man wants to know things. Because man wants this knowledge, he should try to find out about Christianity and the truth of the world. One quote relating to this that caught my interest is, “If Christianity is untrue, the no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.” There are many honest men that believe in Christianity so is Lewis trying to say that there are no honest unbelievers?

Lewis continues this thought later in his essay when he wonders if a person can lead a good life with being a Christian. A man who has never heard of Christianity wouldn’t ask this question, and the same is true of a man has heard of it, but decided that it was untrue. If someone asks if they can lead a good life without Christianity, he is simply too lazy to bother with it, and with this lack of care, he is no more than a rabbit.

I really enjoyed this point that Lewis made because almost everyone in the United States has heard of Christianity, but yet there is only a small portion of the people who truly believe in it. There are many people who don’t know what to believe or will believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves. Lewis says that people like this are animals because they don’t have a hunger for knowledge. Other people belong to a church, but they don’t know what they believe about God, and they don’t think that it matters. They are too lazy to search the scriptures and develop a deeper understanding of God. In this essay, Lewis points out the importance of gaining and having a thirst for knowledge of God.

Paradise Now

I went to see the movie Paradise Now for class. This movie was about two Palestinian men who are chosen to be suicide attackers. These men make videos saying goodbye to their families, and after being cleaned and having their heads shaved to look like Israelites, the men have bombs attached to them underneath their shirts. After crossing the Israelite border, the encounter guards and are forced to flee, but as they are running they get separated from one another. Khaled returns to the handlers and has his explosive belt removed, while Said is nowhere to be found.

The handlers want to abandon the mission, and they leave their hiding place. Khaled wants to search for Said because he thinks he will be able to find him because he knows him best. After rummaging through the whole town, Khaled discovers that Said ran into Suha, the women Said is in love with, but then Said had to run “an errand.” Upon hearing this information, Khaled rushes to the grave of Said’s father who was a collaborator executed for his actions. Said meanwhile, is about to pull the trigger on his bomb while lying on his father’s grave, but Khaled arrives before he is able to do so.

The two return to the handlers and travel to Tel Aviv to resume the attack. Shortly after arriving, Khaled cancels the attack and Said seems to agree with him. When the car pulls up to bring them back home, Khaled gets in the car, and Said slams the door on him and tells the driver to depart leaving Said alone to carry out the mission. The film ends with Said sitting on a bus filled with Israeli civilians and soldiers debating with himself whether or not he should detonate the bomb.

Although parts of this film were difficult to understand, I enjoyed being able to see the attackers point of view. They believed that if they sacrificed themselves while killing Jews, they would be brought straight to Heaven. This idea was very appealing to the men, but at times they doubted if this would really happen or not. The ending was not what I expected because it was left up to the viewer to decide if Said killed the people or not. I do not believe that Said detonated the bomb because earlier in the film he had a chance to blow up a different bus with Israeli on it, but he decided against it. Another reason for my unbelief is that Said didn’t truly believe that he would be sent straight to Heaven after killing the Israeli, and I don’t think he would risk his life for a cause he didn’t fully believe in.

Plantinga Chapter 5

During our class discussion of vocation, one phrase stood out in particular to me, and that is it doesn’t matter what your job is, it matters how you do it. For me, what I do has never been a problem, but how I do it is where I struggle. In two of the biggest decision in my life, where I should go to college and what I want to be, I have made “Christian” choices. God has called me to attend Calvin College which is one of the best Christian colleges, and He has also called me to study Special Education so that I can teach His children more about Him.

Outwardly it seems as if I’m living my life to glorify God, but today I was reminded that I needed to put more emphasis on how I live my life. Just because I attend a Christian college and plan to teach at a Christian school doesn’t mean that I am following God’s vocation for me. In my studies I must remember to work diligently for God’s glory not for my own or my parents. When I teach, Lord willing, I must not try to be the favorite teacher, but I must help the students better understand their Lord and Savior. No matter where God calls me in life, I must praise Him in all that I do.

Another point that was brought up in this chapter was the importance of going to a Christian college such as Calvin. A secular college does not approach topics religiously so in our studies it would be more difficult for us to see God’s greatness and the beauty of His creation. With this type of learning, there would be a great challenge applying what one learns in the classroom with one’s spiritual life. A Christian college can help us along our spiritual path, but we must put our own effort into it as well if we want to strengthen our relationship with God.

The Inner Ring

From my own personal experience, I know what it’s like to be inside of an inner ring. At high school, I hung out with a group of girls known as “The Volleyball Cult” because everyone in our group of friends was on the volleyball team. We had been friends for a while, but volleyball is what really brought us together. Not everyone on the volleyball team was part of this group, but we always invited the rest of the team when we did something together because we wanted our whole team to get along really well. We were a good group of girls and we always stayed out of trouble, but after discussing inner rings in class, I began to wonder if I did the right thing by being a part of this group. We never tried to exclude anybody from our group, but some our friends who were not on the team stopped hanging out with us. They were sick of us always talking about our volleyball matches or what we wanted to work on during practice, and finally they left. At the time I didn’t think we were excluding people, but now as I think back, I realize that although we let anybody join our group, it was difficult to stay unless you loved volleyball.

I also have a different experience of being a part of an inner ring, and this inner ring is my family. My family and I have someone special in our lives that decides almost everything that we do, and that special someone is my nine-year-old brother Travis who has Down syndrome. When Travis meets a new person he usually wants them to “go home”, and this makes it difficult for them to get close to our family. But when Travis gets used to them and goes special places with them, he gets excited to see them and sad when they leave. Travis doesn’t like change in his life so when he is used to seeing certain people everyday, he expects them to always be there for him. If someone wants to get close to my family, they better not be planning on leaving anytime soon. Unlike my volleyball click, this inner ring is very difficult to get into, and almost impossible to leave.

The Four Loves: Eros

I found many of C. S. Lewis’s views very interesting while listening to him speak about the type of love called Eros. One of these concepts is that love doesn’t always bring happiness. Lewis said that a couple in love would rather share unhappiness with each other rather than being happy anywhere else. After thinking about this idea, I realized that this is not only true for us with our relationships with our loved ones, but it is also true of our relationship with God. We are not always happy with what is going on in our lives, and sometimes this unhappiness can come from our spiritual life. But just because we’re going through difficulties doesn’t mean that we want to turn our back to God because we know that won’t help the situation. We could search for happiness in worldly things, but we still would have greater comfort in God’s love, and that’s where we would rather be. Without God we would have no joy in our lives so no matter what difficulties we are facing, we would rather be with Him just as a couple in live would prefer each other’s company over happiness from another source.

Another concept that Lewis spoke about is that falling in love is something that happens to you, but being in love is a choice. Although this is not exactly what happens in our relationship with God, it can still be applied. When God calls us to be His children, we can’t help but follow Him just as we can’t help falling in love. In order to have a strong relationship with God, we must work hard everyday to learn more about Him like we do with our loved ones. One difference however is that no matter what we do, God will always love us. We constantly cheat on Him with other worldly activities, but He still calls us to be His children. No relationship we can acquire on earth will be as wonderful as our relationship with God because only God can give us truly unconditional love.

Learning in War-Time

In his sermon, “Learning in War-Time”, C. S. Lewis addresses the fact that Christians are constantly at war. He wonders why we would want to waste any time learning about mathematics or science when we are constantly moving either towards heaven or hell. Before he became a Christian, Lewis didn’t understand why a Christian would want to learn these things, but after his conversion he came to a realization: “Before I became a Christian I do not think I fully realized that one’s life, after conversion, would inevitable consist in doing most of the same things one had been doing before: one hopes, in a new spirit, but still the same things.” After becoming a Christian, Lewis realized that his daily routine was somewhat similar, but his attitude towards life was different. I found it interesting to see Lewis’s perspective on a Christian life before he himself was a Christian because I have been a Christian my whole life so I never experienced life what life is like without the constant battle of sins that Christians face.

Lewis comes to the conclusion in this sermon that humans learn because they have a thirst for knowledge. God gives us this thirst because in our hunt for knowledge, we can grow closer to God ourselves, or we can help others to grow closer towards Him. Another reason that we should learn is because the ungodly are constantly learning. Lewis says that if the whole world were Christian, we would not have to be educated, but this is not the case. Because the wicked develop and study their philosophy, we must develop and study our philosophy as well so that we can be prepared for the attacks of the wicked. “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” In our studying though, we must be careful that when we learn, we do not come to love knowledge more than the thing that we are learning about.

Plantinga Chapter 4

Chapter four of Plantinga’s book Engaging in God’s World speaks of how we are redeemed through Christ after we fell into sin. One phrase that I really enjoyed in this chapter was also brought up in class, “Moses emerges with God’s Ten Commandments, a set of requirements that people have to fulfill no in order to get rescued by God from slavery, but because they have been rescued.” God didn’t give His people the Ten Commandments while they were slaves in Egypt, but He gave the commandments to them after they had been brought out of Egypt. If God had given the Israelites the Ten Commandments while they were in Egypt so that they could be freed from slavery by obeying them, the Israelites would not have made it out of Egypt. God gave the commandments to them at that specific point in time so that they could follow God’s law to praise and thank Him for all that He has done for them.

This concept can also be applied to us in our lives. God didn’t give us his commandments so that we would obey them and then come to Him, but He gave them to us because we are already freed from our sins. By giving us the Ten Commandments, God shows us that He loves us, and we return His love by doing our best to obey His law. This reinforces the idea that we love God because He loved us first.

Another part of this chapter that we discussed in class was that the Jews during Jesus’ time wanted an earthly king, and Jesus was not what they were expecting. This can also be applied to our own lives because we often have ideas of how we want our prayers to be answered, but God has a different plan than us. Because we are so preoccupied with our own idea of how it will happen, we sometimes miss God’s answer to our prayer because it was not what we expected. This was a good reminder to keep our eyes open at all times so that we can see God’s handiwork in our lives.

The Poison of Subjectivism

I found many of Lewis’s ideas in his essay “The Poison of Subjectivism” very interesting. The first part of this essay that stood out to me was how Lewis described what subjectivism is, “Now, his own reason has become the object: it is as if we took out our eyes to look at them.” Just as it’s impossible to take out our own eyes and look at them, it’s impossible to use our own logic to prove something. This quote helped me better understand subjectivism, and why it cannot be used.

Another part that struck my interest was when Lewis was describing progress with the example of the train. In order to have progress, there must be a fixed point so that we can get nearer to it. If there is no fixed point however, it is like a train following a terminus at the same speed. The train is making no progress towards the terminus when they both move at the same speed. The same is true of moral standards. If the standards keep changing, we cannot get any closer to them and our moral ideas won’t make any progress. In order for this progress to take place, there must be a fixed point that we can get nearer to.

Finally, I found the analogy with the cube in a two dimensional world very interesting. It is impossible for us to imagine a cube if we only have two dimensions. Try to imagine a four-dimensional object in our three-dimensional world; it’s not possible. If found this a good way to explain why we can’t fully understand the trinity. Just as we can’t wrap our human minds around another dimension, we can’t understand the relationship God has within Himself between the three persons of the trinity. We are able to see bits and pieces of it like in a two-dimensional world we could see the six squares that make up a cube, but we can’t see the full picture. In this essay Lewis gave me new ways to think about certain concepts.

Plantinga Chapter 3

The third chapter of Engaging in God’s World by Plantinga brought a lot of discussion to our class. This discussion came about over the two topics of total depravity and common grace. Total depravity means that man in dead in his sin, and he is not able to do any good on his own. This truth is taught very clearly in Romans 3:12b, “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Because we are completely depraved in our sins, we are entirely dependant upon God for our salvation.

In his book, Plantinga tries to tie this concept of total depravity with the idea of common grace, but in reality the two beliefs cannot exist together. Common grace is the idea that “the goodness of God is shown to all”, and an example of this is that even the most ungodly of people can do “good” works. Yes, a brain surgeon can save someone’s life, but that is not necessarily a good deed. A good deed is a deed in which the sole purpose of it was to glorify God. It’s a great thing for a surgeon to save someone’s life from our perspective, but we cannot see the man’s heart as God can. The surgeon may have other reasons for performing this act: to earn money, to feel good about himself, or to have others see how “good” of a person he is. Even doing something as wonderful as saving a person’s life is not considered a good deed unless it was done solely to glorify God.

While reading this chapter of the book, one quote stuck out in particular to me, “If you put together the doctrines of common grace and total depravity, you’ll be in a position to explain a remarkable fact: worldly people are often better than we expect, and church people are often worse.” I went back and read this sentence over because it didn’t make sense to me. If everyone is totally depraved in sin, how can one person be better than another? Worldly people may appear to be doing good acts, but that doesn’t show what is going on in their hearts, and the same goes for God’s children. The only thing that makes the two groups of people different is that God loves His people, and He hates the ungodly. Proof for this is found in Romans 9:13, “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” No one knows why God chose certain people to be His children and not others, but by faith we know that God loves us and has chosen us to be His elect. We can do nothing to earn our own salvation, but thanks be to God who has blessed us with this salvation through His son Jesus Christ.

Mere Christianity

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis defends different topics of Christianity. I found many of his ideas very interesting including the idea that there is none of our impulses can be defined as either good or bad. To better explain this, Lewis gave the example of playing the keys on a piano. A piano doesn’t have “right” and “wrong” notes, but at a specific time one note is right and the others are wrong. I found this concept to be true because there are instances in our lives where certain actions would be inappropriate and at other times they could be good. An example of this is debating. Debating just for the sake of causing a fight would not be a good action, but debating to show and prove your beliefs is a good thing. I thought Lewis’s analogy with the piano was very precise, and it helped me understand better what he was trying to say.

Another part of this book that I found compelling was how he defined the two different views of how the world came into being. The materialist view is that of the world being created by chance. The planets somehow came into being by chance, and certain chemicals came together at the right temperature to create life. The religious view, however, says that the universe was created by a higher being with a mind. Lewis says that these two ideas were present throughout all of time. I agree with Lewis on this point because the Bible clearly tells us that God created all things and that is why there is a religious view. The materialistic view exists because it is impossible for the reprobate to understand and believe what God teaches us about creation in His word so they turn to science for all of their answers. At the end of the chapter, Lewis also mentions another view of how the universe began. Some people believe that the world was started by a “Life-Force”, but then it continued to evolve from there. I found it interesting how Lewis described this belief and why it appeals to so many people. It gives them the comfort of a higher being watching over them, but they can still sin because this “Life-Force” has no mind or morals. With this idea people can have all the benefits of having a god without actually doing anything for it.

The Screwtape Letters

The selection of The Screwtape Letters we read for class today I found very interesting because it is from the point of view of a devil, which is the opposite of how we normally view things. By reading the story from this point of view, I was forced to see how the devil tries to deceive Christians. A main focus of the letter we read was making the Christian slowly separate himself from his beliefs and gradually turn away from God. One quote that I found very interesting was the last line of the letter, “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts”. This quote stood out to me so much because I know from experiences in my own life that it is true. It’s very easy to skip my devotions one day because I feel like there’s too much other stuff today. When the next day rolls around, it becomes easier to skip that day’s devotion, and the cycle continues. In the story, Screwtape is instructing his nephew Wormwood to slowly lead the patient away from God, and one way he does that is by showing him other things he could be doing rather than his devotions. The further the patient distances himself from God, the easier it will be for him to completely turn away from Him.

Another point mentioned in this letter is that the small sins are just as bad as the large ones. One small sin leads to lead may others, and this is so dangerous because it is sometimes hard for us to recognize the small sins that we commit. We can much more easily dismiss a small sin such as a little white lie rather than a larger sin such as adultery. The more and more small little sins we commit, the easier it will be for us to commit larger sins, and then, without realizing it, we are on the gradual road to hell. This story helped me see how the devil works at trying to turn Christians away from God, and it made me more cautious with the small sins that I commit.

The Weight of Glory

In my reading of “The Weight of Glory” by C. S. Lewis one phrase particularly struck my interest, “… Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” This quote means that we become so absorbed in the pleasures of this life that we don’t even stop and think about how great Heaven will be. Like all models, the example in this quote isn’t perfect, but it still proves the point.

During my Young Peoples meetings at church, we would often get on the topic of Heaven and what it will be like. We had so many questions: Will we recognize our friends?, “What will we look like?, What will we do there?, and the list continues. For most of the questions, we couldn’t come up with an answer because the Bible doesn’t tell us everything about Heaven. Part of the reason for this is because we wouldn’t be able to understand how wonderful Heaven is during our lives on earth. I remember my minister once told our class that God doesn’t tell us everything about Heaven because then we would be too excited to get there. What an amazing thought! God doesn’t tell us what our future home will be like because if we knew, that would be all that we would be able think about.

In my life it’s hard to imagine what Heaven will be like. One thing that seems so amazing is that there will be no more suffering or death, and that’s so hard for me to grasp. The most important factor is that Heaven means we will get to spend the rest of eternity in glorifying God our Creator. Even though it’s difficult for us to understand the greatness of Heaven, we must step away from the mud pies long enough to realize that God has something much greater planed for us in the future.

Chapter 2 of Plantinga

While discussing the second chapter of Engaging in God’s World by Plantinga, the idea that everyone has an equal ability or chance to be saved was brought up a few times, and I had a hard time agreeing with this statement. It sounded to me as if the argument was that everyone could be saved, but this is not what the Bible teaches. Many passages in the Bible clearly teach us that God chose before time began who would be His elect children and who would be the reprobate. An example of a passage is Ephesians 1: 4-5, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”. God chose us to be His children because He loves us, not because of anything that we have done. The idea that everyone has an equal chance to be saved goes against God’s Word because God has predestinated both whom His children would be and who would be reprobate.

The idea that was trying to be shown through this statement, I agree with however. We do not know whom God has chosen to be His people; we only know that we are chosen through faith. For this reason we must respect all other human beings because we do not know if they are God’s children, and God tells us in His word not to judge other people. We will not be able to convert others to Christianity because only God can soften a hard heart, but it is our responsibility to point them in the right direction, and it will be up to God’s will if they follow.

Our English Syllabus

In the essay “Our English Syllabus”, C. S. Lewis speaks of education and it’s importance in our lives. One idea in this piece of writing that I found very interesting is that we will never be able to learn everything. The universe is so large and filled with so many topics that it is impossible to cover and learn all of them throughout the span of our lifetime. This reminds us how great our God is. He created the entire world in six days out of nothing, and we will never be able to completely understand it in the 30,000 days that we live. We will never even be able to understand one topic because according to Lewis, “a prefect study of anything requires a knowledge of everything.” In studying one subject we must look to other subjects to help us understand the first subject because they relate to one another. Studying sound waves is a lot more complex than knowing what they do. In order to learn this topic fully, one needs to have knowledge about the structure of the human ear, the mediums through which the waves travel, why the waves reflect off certain objects and are absorbed into others, and so forth. All subjects are connected together, and a knowledge is needed of all of them in order to understand just one of them.

Because there is so much to learn, we must never stop learning. After we finish our college education, we will hardly have skimmed the surface of all there is to know. It’s important for us to continue studying after our formal education is finished because we can gain a better understanding of the things we learned and apply that to our occupation. God’s creation is so great and magnificent, and we will never be able to know everything about it because there is simply too much to learn.

Plantinga Chapter 1

In the first chapter of his book, Plantinga writes about longing. Because we are fallen in sin, many of our desires are wicked. Our sinful flesh longs for those things that bring us further away from God and lead us to spiritual destruction. Not all of our longings are bad, however. In this chapter, Plantinga, while speaking of St. Augustine and C. S. Lewis, says that humans want God in their lives. God is behind all the good things that we yearn for in life, so while longing for something that will give us peace or comfort, we are really yearning for God. I found this idea very interesting, and I agree with Augustine and Lewis on this. As creations of God, we have a need and a longing for blessings from God, but underneath all of that is our Creator Himself. Deep down we know that the things of the world will do nothing for us and the spiritual gifts from God are the only things that can truly give us joy.

Because this desire for God is so great, we can never achieve complete satisfaction during our earthly lives. We are not capable of understanding God’s greatness and love for us, and during our earthly lives we can’t fully receive all His blessings that He has showered upon us. Plantinga brings up this point of humans never having complete satisfaction in their lives. We can be content with our lives, but we know that there is more to come. Even during our happiest moments, we are on the lookout for when something bad will come and ruin it. Many of the things that we long for in our human lives cannot be fulfilled, and even if we do obtain them, we won’t be completely satisfied. Until we reach eternal glory with God in heaven, we will never be free of longing because our lives can’t be perfect while they are contaminated with sin.

We Have No Right To Happiness

In the essay, “We Have No Right To Happiness”, C. S. Lewis discusses, as the title states, if we have a right to happiness. The first example Lewis gives is of a man who wanted to divorce his wife and marry another women. With his first wife, the man was no longer happy, so he sought happiness in another women. Although God tells us in His word that divorce is wrong, this situation still brought up the question if man has a right to his own happiness. One thing that we discussed in class really stuck with me, and that was the point that we have no right to anything.

We are fallen creatures who can do nothing for ourselves, and we deserve nothing but the wrath of God. Because God loves us, however, He sent His son into the world to die on the cross so that we may be freed from our sins. Along with salvation, God has given us everything that we need and everything that we have. We did nothing to get these things, yet God gave them to us because He loves us. The same is true for happiness. Who are we to determine when we should be happy or how we get this happiness? We do not deserve happiness; it is a gift from God just as everything else in our lives.

Lewis compares happiness to height in his essay. If one says that he has the right to happiness, he may as well say that he has the right to be six foot tall. We know that we don’t determine our height, and the same is true of happiness. God will give us these things as he sees fit; we have no say in the matter. For this reason I believe that we have no right to happiness. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to find happiness in our lives, in fact we should find joy in everything that we do. After everything that God has done for us, how could we not be joyful? Instead of trying to seek out happiness for ourselves in our lives, we should strive to be grateful to God for the things he has given us because he gives everything that we need.

Bulverism

In his essay “Bulverism”, C. S. Lewis points to a huge struggle that we face in arguments and debates – bulverism. According to Lewis, bulverism is the practice of disagreeing with a person based on who they are rather than what they are saying. Because of a preconceived notion of a person, we disagree with them without even trying to understand their argument. I struggle with this sin in my own life. If I disagree with the point a person is trying to prove, I will ignore the rest of what that person is saying because I already judged the person, and I am not willing to see it from their point of view. By reading this essay, I realized that it is important to listen to what other people have to say even if we don’t get along with the person.

Lewis also brings up the point that our thoughts are “tainted at the source”. I strongly agree with Lewis on this point because almost everything I believe has come from the influence and ideas of others around me. My belief of a proper family life is based off of the family life that I grew up in, and other people will have a different view of family life because of the situations in which they grew up. I have only lived my life so it is hard for me to see things from other people’s perspectives. This goes along with the last essay we read by C. S. Lewis entitled “Meditation in a Toolshed”. Some situations I can only look “at” because I have never experienced them myself. Because I can’t see as well from other people’s point of views it is difficult for me to listen to their arguments, and I am quick to judge them just because of who they are. Bulverism is a sin that many people struggle with, and we must strive to fight against it.

Meditation in a Toolshed

I found C. S. Lewis’ essay “Meditation in a Toolshed” very fascinating. He took a very simple idea of looking at a beam of light from different perspectives and turned it into something extremely thought provoking. These two perspectives from which he viewed the beam were by looking "at" the beam and by looking "along" the beam. We can look at all situation in life from these two points of view, and it is important for us to use both different views in order to have a better understanding of the situations.

In this piece of writing Lewis struggles between which view is the correct view: should we look “at” or “along”? At the end he comes to the conclusion that both views are important, and instead of choosing between the two, we should use both. I agree with his conclusion. By studying a topic such as frustration or thirst we will know what happens to our bodies when these emotions occur and why they are occurring, but if we never experience the emotions, we will never truly understand what these emotions are. Likewise, if we only experience the emotions without knowing what is happening in our bodies to make us feel this way, we will not truly understand what these emotions are. In order to truly understand life, we must look both "along" and "at" everything.

An interesting topic that we discussed in class about this piece of writing is that in both views, the sun is present. The beam was still made by the same thing even though it looked completely different from the two different perspectives. This point was very intriguing to me because we can look at something one way, but when we see it from a different point of view, it’s hard to relate them even though it was the same thing. An example of this is sin in our lives. It is so easy for us to point out sin in other people’s lives and wonder why they committed that sin, but we hardly notice when we do the same thing. We may think the circumstances in our case were much different or our sin wasn’t as bad, but when it comes down to it, in both cases the same thing happened, and both are equally deserving of punishment. By seeing the situation through both perspectives, we can better understand the sin, and this is true in almost all aspects of life. This piece of writing really made me think, and it helped me realize how important different perspectives are in our lives.