Plantinga Chapter 3

This chapter was all about evil and sin, but Plantinga also mentions Christ's saving grace. The main topic that was greatly argued in class was about total depravity. One side was saying that any nonbeliever who is doing what on the this earth we would consider a good act, but not glorifying God with that act is sinning. The other side was saying that God loves all humans and still sees the good in nonbelievers too. I have a few comments I want to make about this point that I did not mention in class. I thought it would just cause more problems and we would be there all night. I can see the point being made by both sides and do not wish to ultimately choose one or the other. My problem with saying that nonbelievers cannot do anything good is almost like saying that Christians are better than them or above them as people. This is simply not true as God created everyone equally. Secondly, I believe this very statement to be one of the reasons that some nonbelievers have a strong dislike for Christians. If someone told you during your entire life nothing you have ever done has been good, how would you respond to that? I understand that everything has come from God and therefore we should glorify all that he has given us. In the end, it should not matter what you believe about this statement because every human being can be saved, and it does not matter if they have sinned all there lives. Any Christian is still a sinner, there is no perfection, and whether something is being done for good or evil, in the end, is irrelevant.

Another point that we talked about was the difference between evil and sin. Plantinga used the reference of a two-year shooting and killing someone as being evil but not a sin, because he is not aware of what he has done or realized he has caused any harm. I would tend to agree with this statement. This is definitely a great evil but a two year old simply does not have the conscience to understand what he has done. Once he is older and knows the evil that he had committed of course that kid would repent. As soon as we are born we are born as sinners, so I am not saying there is a certain age where all of a sudden you become a sinner. There is however a difference between evil and sin.