"Evil needs good to be evil." This seemed to come up alot within our discussion of this chapter of Plantinga's book. It is such a funny thing to think about, that evil is not its own but spoiled good. All evil stems from good, this is so difficult to wrap my mind around, yet it seems that it should be obvious. Because of the fall we have been destined to live our lives in sin. It is everywhere around us, and even though as Christians we try to avoid it, trouble has its way of finding us.
I was met with an example of evil as soon as I was out of the door this morning. I was on my way to work, when I noticed the vehicle in front of me had a bumper sticker that said "Hate Wins." My first thought was well have fun spending eternity with satan. Then I started to wonder what had happened to him in his lifetime that all he thought he had to resort to was hate. He had lost faith in "Love Wins" and turned toward evil. I sort of wanted to follow him so that I could ask him why he had this bumper sticker, and what caused him to believe it. I also began to realize that without even bothering to talk to this person, I had decided they were doomed to hell because they had hate on their vehicle, and bam there it is a sin right off the bat this morning. I was frightened at how easily it had happened without even thinking about it.
"The glory of God's good creation has not been obliterated by the tragedy of the fall, but it has been deeply shadowed by it." I know it seems odd to love this quote, but it presents this ray of hope for me. That even though the fall has compromised myself and all the others there is still good. There will not be sin forever, some day we will all be redeemed and live forever in a sinless eternity. I think this is so amazing. God's grace never seems to make me stand in awe of him. We as a human race have done everything we possible can to disappoint our father and then some, yet not only does he refuse to turn his back on us, he reaches out to us in love saying that we are forgiven and he will forget it ever happened.
"The world shall live with the lamb. the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them"
We can all relate to your story about judging someone. As Christians we tend to put on this holier then thou face and think that everyone else is worse than us. I think that this chapter is good at reminding us that we are just as bad as everyone else around us. We too, are shadowed by sin.
ReplyDeleteIt's sometimes hard to see how some evil is tainted from something that was good. Murder for example can't possible be seen as having some type of good that it fell from, but each individual case is from a flawed relationship etc. Just like hate is fallen from how God intended us to live in community.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your honesty. I feel like we don't confess our sins enough. We know we are sinners, yet rarely say exactly why. Ragardless, as you say, God refuses to turn his back to us. And it's so comforting to know that!
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