I thought this was an interesting chapter because he talks about a lot of things that many people are familiar with, including the novel A Separate Peace, C.S. Lewis, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech in Washington, D.C. In the section about Lewis, I think Plantinga was spot on when he said that human longings are unfulfillable. He then quotes Lewis as saying, "It would seem that 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..." Because of the fall of man, we must carry that burden. It is something that every one of us much struggle with every second of every day, and there is nothing we can do about it. Sadly, the vast majority of us do not handle this well, be it because we do not hold ourselves accountable or because we lack to courage to try to set ourselves apart from sinful man and accept God's gift.
The focus turns to longing for satisfaction, or a sense of completion in one's life. Plantinga writes that "our final joy 'lies beyond the walls of the world." (6) I like the way he stated that because it eliminates the value of all superficial things. With that in mind, you can take a long, hard look at yourself and what you value in life.
On page 7 he gives some advice that I think needs to be considered by everyone who is a student. He says that we should not only try to study a few subjects in depth, but that we should try to find more subjects to get excited about. However, I think that is easier said than done. Too often, I think we simply fall into a routine and just accept the way things are.
The last thing that grabbed my interest from this section was when he wrote that "To hope for your future is to affirm the life God gave you and the range of possibilities that it generates." (11) I'd never really thought of it like that before. I think that most people just think of hope of something that it good to have, something that gives you a greater outlook on life. But I think that this is how we need to think about it. Hope is really something that we need to have in order to have a healthy relationship with God.
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This piece truly resounded in my mind "Sadly, the vast majority of us do not handle this well, be it because we do not hold ourselves accountable or because we lack to courage to try to set ourselves apart from sinful man and accept God's gift." It speaks to the cynic in me who sees the stubbornness in people. People will hold onto what they have and not take up the mountain of responsibility. As Robert Jordan stated "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather." The same can be said of living a spiritually dead life. it holds no weight, no substance and is blown about by the slightest breeze. Yet people still cling to it because it's easy. I hope that I can shoulder my section of the mountain and not simply grab the feather lying at the roadside.
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