Engaging God's World Chapter 2

In the first section of this chapter, Plantinga lays out a Biblical understanding of Jesus’s role in creation.  The Scriptures say that creation happened “through him,” “in him,” and even “for him.”  He then goes on to talk about the divine “hospitality” of the three Persons of God.  Each makes room for the other and causes the other to flourish.  Plantinga says that creation was neither a necessity nor an accident.  It is rather something that is very fitting with the nature of God.  Plangtinga says that God celebrates and even plays with his creation and creation in turn glorifies God.  He says that God revels Himself through Scripture and through creation and Christians should study both to better understand God.  Anyone can spot God’s wisdom in creation, but those who have studied creation have a deeper understanding of the marvel.

Plantinga then moves on to talk about the creation of human beings.  Humans were created in the image of God.  They were not created of their own kind, but of the same kind as God.  He then goes on to talk about the cultural mandate and how it is taken as a call to go to work by Calvinists and other activist christians.  Then he talks about how God rested on the seventh day. God is showing humans that there is a time for work and a time for rest from work, each in turn.  Christians have made this sabbath “a space for worship, for refreshment, for the silence that comes from the very rhythm of God.”  He then speaks about the problem of people taking dominion as a license to trash the earth and not to keep it.

The next section speaks of eight deeper meanings of the Christian doctrine of creation.  The world was originally created good and all creation comes from the wisdom of God.  God created the universe out of nothing, He was not limited by materials.  Christians are to love the creation but not worship it.  God created marriage as the good and right means of production and reproduction.  Each human is created in the image of God and they must balance their individual and corporate identities.  His eighth point is that Christians must reject both materialistic reduction and humanist exaggeration when it comes to the issue of humans being’s place in the scheme of things.

I really enjoyed reading this chapter because it brought up lots of new insights on creation that I had never heard before.  The christian doctrine of creation is filled with implications for how we are to see the world today.  It was interesting to read about the role that the Trinity played in creation, it was something I had not thought of much before.  I also really liked how Plantinga said that creation was neither necessary nor an accident.  I think it is important to understand that God created out of His own nature and delight, not because He was compelled to.  I also liked the emphasis that was put on understanding both Scripture and nature to have a truer understanding of creation.  I really liked that Plantinga listed and explained eight implications of the christian doctrine of creation.  It shows how weighty a doctrine creation is today with regard to how we see many issues.

I really like the connection that can be made between humans being created in the image of God and the section of “The Weight of Glory” where C.S. Lewis talks about the weight of our neighbor’s glory.  We do not known any mere mortals because humans were created in the image of God.  This defiantly changes the way we should treat our neighbors.  This realization is made possible by the doctrine of creation and it is indeed the weight of our neighbor’s glory.