Plantinga Chapter 3

               In Plantinga’s chapter three it was interesting to see his view of the fall of Creation.  He talks about how evil is the “spoiling of Shalom”.  By this he means that the perfect goodness of shalom is broken.  He explains that any deviation from God’s plan is messing up the intended shalom.  He gives a moving analogy of the differences between sin and evil.  I never really thought about the difference between the two however he explains that all sin is evil but not all evil is sin.  Evil is any corruption of goodness and since God is the ultimate source of goodness, the presences of any evil is destructive to God’s perfect will. 

                Plantinga also talks about how evil needs goodness to be evil.  I thought this was a very interesting topic because I usually think of good and evil as two opposing forces.  Therefore the idea of evil being dependent on good makes then no longer equal.  It is as if evil is an illness and good is the host body. 

                Corruption is how evil pollutes our relationships with others as well as our relationship with God.  It pollutes our relationship with God because we make idols for ourselves and place other things in the place of God.  We can’t give our full worship to God because evil corrupts us.  It pollutes our relationship with others because we no longer think of people as eternal blessings.  It gives us the chance to think negatively about another person.  We become skeptical and selfish rather than trusting those around us.  When we think negatively of others we corrupt our own minds by allowing this evil to take root in our view of others and allowing it to influence how we see other people. This original corruption can also lead to affliction as well, which also causes corruption and sin within interpersonal relationships because any evil and corruption that we have within ourselves can spread to others, which Plantinga shows with an example of an abusive father who fosters abuse in his son because of the way that he treats his son and how he treats others. Plantinga states that victims tend to victimize, and this is often the case with how we sin. When we sin we often cause a pattern of sin in others who we have influence over.

                I also found Plantinga’s point that Satan does not deceive us but rather gives us enables the already self-deceived.  This means that we not only embrace our sinful nature but readily remain ignorant to a better way.  This begs the question where does evil come from.   We talked about this for a little bit in class and we didn’t really come up with a clear answer.  Professor Ribeiro noted that some people believe we weren’t created perfect.  Perhaps with the freedom of free will we are also cursed with the ability to be corrupted.  If free will is giving us the option to choose good than must there not also be an option to not do good.  I think this is still something we must think about.  Evil is no easy matter to talk about.  In spite of our inherent evil, the fall also will bring redemption and hope.