Plantinga - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of Plantinga’s book provided a very interesting perspective on the difference between sin and evil. “Evil is what’s wrong with the world,” “Sin is culpable evil.” According to this distinction, evil is all that “spoils shalom.” Shalom is what God intended for the world. It is not only peace, but something more glorious and pure; it is what God had planned for the whole of his creation. After the fall, shalom not only introduced sin into the world, it also distorted God’s creation. God’s creation is not experiencing “shalom” because when sin entered the world it also affected God’s creation (i.e. natural disasters). While sin might have introduced evil to the world, all evil is not sin. On the other hand, all sin is evil.

Sin is a difficult concept to struggle with. Sin is what can be attributed to a human; I would say sin is a choice that deviates from God’s path. However I would argue that men are not necessarily always aware that they are making a choice when they sin because they have been blinded. You could argue that according to one person’s cultural values and beliefs, they have no sense of conviction that they are doing something wrong because they have been taught that their actions are right. However the question is not whether a person believes they are doing something right when measured by cultural standards; the question is whether the person is acting in step with the moral law which God has written on their hearts. As Lewis argued in his essays every man has God’s moral law written on his heart. Therefore every man has the opportunity to know when he is sinning and to know what God will one day judge him for.

The concept of sin is difficult in another way. Sin must be an action that is premeditated and that displeases God. Sin cannot be an unintentional occurrence. I think Plantinga’s example of the two year old that mistakenly kills someone with a gun is very ambiguous. I believe that the reason the two year old has not sinned is not based on the fact that he is a two year old, but it is based on the fact that the child mistakenly and unintentionally killed someone. We could use the same example with an adult. An adult who is “playing” with a gun and unintentionally fires a shot that kills someone does not commit a sin. But if the adult (or even a two year old, although it is impossible) premeditates the murder, then they have sinned. In my opinion Plantinga’s example of the two year old does not suggest that the two year old has not sinned because he is too young to understand that murder is a sin; he has not sinned because he mistakenly fired a shot. If this is what Plantinga is saying, I think this helps us understand why we cannot say that someone who “does not know” (culturally) that they are sinning is still held responsible for their sin.