Chapter 2 of Plantinga’s book focuses on creation and in a way reminds Christians how we are to treat the world which God created for us.
“In the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed, dominion is never ‘lording over’; it’s more like ‘lording under’ by way of support. In the kingdom of God, to have dominion is to care for the well-being of others.”
This seems to mean that instead of humans seeing the earth as their blank slate that they get to do whatever they want that it is indeed God’s world that humans were placed here to care for. We are here to care for the plants and animals and all living things. If we did not care for those things then they could, as many already have, become extinct. If humans continue to tear down forests and build what they want there will eventually be very little plants and trees left. Those plants and animals often serve as food and give us healthy nutrition. As we discussed in class yesterday, we need those plants and animals to live but if humans die off the plants and animals will live on. We need the plants and animals but they don’t really need us. However God does want us to be good stewards of his creation. It is a gift to us that God gave us so we should take care of it. If someone gave you a present wouldn’t you take great care of it? Creation is a gift not just from another human, but from our creator and Lord.
“The wind, water, or fire that harms such people in such places is not necessarily out of bounds. When such forces hurt us, it might be because we are out of bounds.”
This really just restates again that this world is not the humans but just a place for us to live until the second coming. We still have boundaries though and should abide by those boundaries. Many tragic natural disasters have occurred with people being caught in mountains, mud slides, and floods. Perhaps those people were out of their boundaries. What do you think? Should humans have free roam of tearing down anything they want on earth in order to make that place a mall or neighborhood? Should we instead restrict human building constructions to safer locations?
Those last questions makes me think of how humans are commuting and it makes me ask another question would the state of the earth be in a better state if we would all stick to our neighborhoods and not drive our gas guzzling cars all over the country. We all do it and see nothing wrong with it because that’s the life we live in. I wonder what it would be like if we all still drove horse drawn buggies? It would make life very different. Do you think it would make life better or worse?
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