Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be
A Breviary of Sin
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.
© 1995 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
All rights reserved
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505
P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB2 9PU U.K.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Plantinga, Cornelius, 1946–
Not the way it’s supposed to be: a breviary of sin / Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8028-4218-3
1. Sin. 2. Christian life—Reformed (Reformed Church) authors.
I. Title.
BT715.P58 1994
241′.3—dc20
94-23308
CIP
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations in this publication are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and used by permission.
Chapter 1 of this volume appeared in a different form in the pages of Theology Today. The author and publisher wish to thank the editors of that publication for permission to make use of this material.
reader, raconteur, family man, gamester, attorney,
Christian, amigo from youth—who has taught me
more about the topic of this book
than I can properly express.
You … have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
2. Spiritual Hygiene and Corruption
3. Perversion, Pollution, and Disintegration
In this book I am trying to retrieve an old awareness that has slipped and changed in recent decades. The awareness of sin used to be our shadow. Christians hated sin, feared it, fled from it, grieved over it. Some of our grandparents agonized over their sins. A man who lost his temper might wonder whether he could still go to Holy Communion. A woman who for years envied her more attractive and intelligent sister might worry that this sin threatened her very salvation.
But the shadow has dimmed. Nowadays, the accusation you have sinned is often said with a grin, and with a tone that signals an inside joke. At one time, this accusation still had the power to jolt people. Catholics lined up to confess their sins; Protestant preachers rose up to confess our sins. And they did it regularly. As a child growing up in the fifties among Western Michigan Calvinists, I think I heard as many sermons about sin as I did about grace. The assumption in those days seemed to be that you couldn’t understand either without understanding both.
Many American Christians recall sermons in which preachers got visibly angry over a congregation’s sin. When these preachers were in full cry, they would make red-faced, finger-pointing, second-person-plural accusations: “You are sinners—filthy, ...
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About Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of SinThis timely book retrieves an old awareness that has slipped and changed in recent decades. The awareness of sin used to be our shadow. Christians hated sin, feared it, fled from it—and grieved over it. But the shadow of sin has now dimmed in our consciousness. Even preachers, who once got visibly angry over a congregation’s sin, now speak of sin in a mumble. Cornelius Plantinga pulls the ancient doctrine of sin out of mothballs and presents it to contemporary readers in clear language, drawing from a wide range of books, films, and other cultural resources. In smoothly flowing prose Plantinga describes how sin corrupts what is good and how such corruption spreads. He discusses the parasitic quality of sin and the ironies and pretenses generated by this quality. He examines the relation of sin to folly and addiction. He describes two classic “postures” or movements of sin—attack and flight. And in an epilogue he reminds us that whatever we say about sin also sharpens our eye for the beauty of grace. |
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