The Fall

Generally speaking, Cornelius Plantinga did a good job in representing the fall of man into sin. The first part of the chapter refers to God's deeming of His creation as "very good" after He had finished His work. Man was perfect, obeying the law of God just as he was created to do so. The creation itself was lively and full of exuberance. I can only imagine the richness of the creation just after God had finished His work. But then we have a horrific event. Adam and Eve fell to the temptation of the Devil, and ate a fruit from a tree they were commanded not to eat of. From this event, we have the original sin of all the human race ("For if through the offence of one many be dead..." Romans 5:15) as well as the first step in an exponential growth of sin in the life of each individual, and the first drops poured into the cup of iniquity of the whole human race. Since the sin of Adam, sin has developed and increased. Man continues to find new ways to sin, so that the corruption seen in the world continues to increase. Plantinga poetically describes it this way: "Each generation, and each new person reaps what others have sown and then sows what others will reap."

Considering this state of the human race, that is a state of corruption in the sight of God, I cannot agree at all with the next point made by Plantinga. He begins to talk about a certain grace which the Holy Spirit places in all men, regardless of whether or not they receive saving grace, so that they can do real good. He also describes total depravity as incomplete, in the sense that every part but not all of every part of man is corrupted. Both of these ideas are unBiblical (I am ashamed to say that I lacked the courage to bring this up in class, I apologize for that). There is ample evidence in Scripture against the idea of a "common grace," but one of the most powerful passages is Psalm 73. In this Psalm, the psalmist Asaph wonders why God prospers the wicked, making them rich and powerful, when the godly who serve Him suffer affliction in this life. "Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches (verse 12)." The final conclusion of the psalmist is, however, that God gave them good gifts so that by those gifts they would condemn themselves. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction (verse 18)." That does not sound like any sort favor or grace to me.

Now you might wonder why I am spending so much time on this subject, but I believe it to be of quite crucial significance. You see, if God has favor on all men, it can only BE a saving favor, because God would not condemn that which He deems GOOD! If you say that God enables wicked men, by His Holy Spirit (which I remind you is the Spirit of Christ which can only be given to men as a direct result of the cross) men which He intends to condemn, to do good things, then you can only conclude that the sacrifice of Christ is flawed and incomplete. Plantinga himself refutes this idea when he says on page 63: "In the Christian religion God's holiness is strictly nonnegotiable." God's holiness would be flawed if He gave grace to a man which He condemned to Hell.

I make no apology for what I wrote, but I do want to make the point that I do not disagree with everything Plantinga says in the chapter. He makes some excellent points about the fallen nature of man, how we can obviously see this in the world to the extent that even the wicked have to acknowledge it. I also thought he did a good job showing how sin increases and multiplies as history moves on. But we must look at this as a complete desolation. "There is none that doeth good, no, not one (Psalm 14:3)." This is us, too, by nature! We have nothing good in us, just like the unbelievers, but Christ has done a complete and perfect work on the cross, in that He has given grace, particular to His people, so that they might have a pure heart. So we must look to the world, see that they can do no good, realize that we can by God's grace, and then give thanks to our Lord!