Engaging God’s World by Cornelius Platinga deals with how a Christian education plays a vital role in both spiritual and intellectual development. The book goes through the core beliefs of Christianity and as the book goes through these core beliefs, it elaborates on them in a way that would allow the reader to be able to comprehend them in a clearer light. Chapter one is entitled longing and hope. Platinga opens up talking about every human being has experienced a form of longing at some point. Platinga notes that most of the things that we long for are only temporary things. “Much can make us content for a time, but nothing can fill us to the brim” (). Our end joy is not of this earth. The end joy is God and nothing on this earth
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One thing that he hits very early in this chapter is the idea of the trinity because many of the New Testament authors talk about how Jesus was present at creation. He talks about how God didn’t create because he was bored or needed to. He created because he is so full of love that his love overflowed into creation. Because God created everything in the natural world, we can see him revealed throughout the entire universe. Platinga spends time talking about the inherent goodness that was in creation when it was first created. The important thing to remember with this is that because creation is inherently good, every single person you meet has the possibility to be saved. There is goodness in everyone, even if it seems miniscule at the time. Another thing Platinga touches on is the uniqueness of every created thing. God specifically created everything with a purpose even if we can’t always see it. We don’t need all of the different kinds of food we have in order to survive. We don’t even need to be able to taste to survive, but God in his infinite mercy and goodness gifted us with these and many other things because it pleased God to do so. With all of this in mind we need to love the world with our worshipping it. God created human beings in his image so this means we have responsibilities to the rest of creation. We have dominion of the earth, but that doesn’t mean we get to completely trash it. We must be responsible stewards of
One thing that he hits very early in this chapter is the idea of the trinity because many of the New Testament authors talk about how Jesus was present at creation. He talks about how God didn’t create because he was bored or needed to. He created because he is so full of love that his love overflowed into creation. Because God created everything in the natural world, we can see him revealed throughout the entire universe. Platinga spends time talking about the inherent goodness that was in creation when it was first created. The important thing to remember with this is that because creation is inherently good, every single person you meet has the possibility to be saved. There is goodness in everyone, even if it seems miniscule at the time. Another thing Platinga touches on is the uniqueness of every created thing. God specifically created everything with a purpose even if we can’t always see it. We don’t need all of the different kinds of food we have in order to survive. We don’t even need to be able to taste to survive, but God in his infinite mercy and goodness gifted us with these and many other things because it pleased God to do so. With all of this in mind we need to love the world with our worshipping it. God created human beings in his image so this means we have responsibilities to the rest of creation. We have dominion of the earth, but that doesn’t mean we get to completely trash it. We must be responsible stewards of