The first chapter of this Plantinga book is about longing and yearning for self-satisfaction. This book talks about how there are two different kinds of yearning. You can yearn for temporary earthly satisfactions, or long-lasting spiritual satisfaction.
This longing for earthy satisfactions and earthly material things is unfulfillable. This is because once we get whatever we want, we will only want more. For example, if someone wants a certain kind of car and then by some chance gets it, that person will eventually look to a better car and long for the ownership of that one. This longing for material things is a cycle that never ends.
In this chapter, Plantinga also explains how all human beings want and long for God. I am going to have to disagree with this saying. First of all, man is totally depraved. We are all sinners who are only looking for personal satisfaction although none can fully satisfy. Romans 8:7 explains that the carnal mind is enmity against God and fallen man doesn’t really want God. Plantinga mentions John 17:21 to explain how all humans want to be with God. However, in John 17:9, Jesus prays not for every human being, but for those whom God gave unto him. Therefore, it is only by God’s grace that his elect children can long for God. However, this is not true for the whole human race.
Dear Brittany,
ReplyDeleteCould I advocate that deep down, maybe especially because of our ‘depravation’, we all really long for something as indefinable as Lewis’ “Island”? This being even though we do not know what it is supposed to mean? That longing for that interior ‘peace, harmony and prosperity’, that so many in the end try to forcefully overpower by a ‘worldly noise’ of activities such as sex, alcohol, drugs and even death? Could it be that without this desire, we would never realize how ‘filthy’ we really are?
A & P