This 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.
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and has served as a pastor in Webster, NY and supply preacher in Cliffwood Beach, NJ. Before joining the faculty at Calvin Theological Seminary, Cornelius Plantinga Jr. taught at Princeton Theological Seminary (1976 - 78), Fuller Theological Seminary (1985, 1987) and Regent College (1997). From 1996 to 2002 he served as the first ever Dean of the Chapel at Calvin College. He now serves as President of the seminary and teaches systematic theology.
Clear, foundational, and beautifully written— I admit, I anticipated learning and benefiting from this book, but not enjoying the writing. Plantinga does a marvelous job, explaining the nature of sin, the causes of sin, and the importance of a deeply formed understanding of sin. While it is not a pleasant doctrine, without it all the other doctrines become less beautiful and more meaningless.
This book was recommended to me three years ago after my 17 year old nephew was killed by a drunk driver. I bought the book then, but I had not read it until this week after my pastor referenced it in his sermon on Sunday. What an outstanding book on the very difficult topic of sin: what it is morally and theologically; the contexts, motives, and causes of sin; how we as Christians react and respond to sin, both our own sin and the sin of others. He discusses specific sins of pride and envy, as well as the relationship between sin and addiction. Plantiga's underlying premise is that sin is the vandalism of shalom. His definition of shalom is much broader than the concept of peace. "In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight - a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspire joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom He delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be." He continues, "For at its core, human sin is a violation of our human end, which is to build shalom and thus to glorify and enjoy God forever." The disruptions that occur in our shalom because of sin, whether it be our own sin or the sin of others, rocks us to our cores... or at least it should. Plantiga points out that sin is not an organism on its own but attaches to living organisms. Sin has no life on its own but operates as a parasite taking its life from us like a cancer. We must not "ignore, euphemize, or otherwise mute the lethal reality of sin which cuts the nerve of the Gospel." We must center our hope for shalom on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who is the only one who could pay the price for our sin.
One of the best books I've ever read. Truly. I recommend this for anyone who struggles with any sin that you can't seem to get away from; even sinful feelings that you can't seem to not feel. Plantinga presents a theology of sin that is both faithful to Scripture and consistent with the human experience.
Insightful, convicting, culturally relevant. Considers sin’s nature and breadth, while also being a cultural commentary. This was a book for class at Covenant Seminary. Definitely recommend
An incredible, in-depth look at sin: where it originates, how it grows (he describes it as a parasite), and how it destroys all that is good. He doesn’t just look at sin in the particular sense of the word, but sin in the broad sense of the word— that is, the fall of man, and why things aren’t “the way they’re supposed to be.”
While I expected to be sobered by this book (and I was), I didn’t expect a proper understanding of sin to be so clarifying, so dignifying of human beings, thus having an effect on me like C.S Lewis’s “clean sea breeze.” To require an account from human beings’ is to say that their lives are infinitely consequential, and that each life matters. The doctrine of sin is a diagnostic that is missing in many modern understandings of what ails us, including my field of psychotherapy. Being honest even about hard truths about ourselves and the world can bring sanity. But the diagnosis is not enough. I concluded this book with greater praise and thankfulness for the gospel that is greater than our sin, and for God’s grace that is willing to “suffer to win its way.”
After Hoekema's work on the doctrine of Man and its related hamartiology, Plantinga's more narrative-driven, whimsical writing was a nice break. Plantinga doesn't even exposit Scripture much in this book (if at all) - his goal here is simply to share some musings on sin, spanning across 10 chapters. Whereas I would have enjoyed to see him exposit some verses so as to better articulate how he comes to his conclusions, I still enjoyed his intentional let's-just-sit-back-in-our-armchairs-together-and-talk-this-whole-thing-out approach. Why is sin destructive? How does it function? In what ways does it control us? In what ways do we sin? These kinds of questions are discussed in a conversational tone, and overall, it's pretty good. There were some insights that I didn't fully agree with, but Plantinga himself occasionally makes it clear he doesn't even know if his insights have any real value or difference in the scheme of things, or if he's even able to come to a conclusion on this side of eternity... which makes it easy for a reader to just shrug and continue on with the armchair conversation.
If a brother is ensnared in sin and is looking for a good book to help him understand sin's danger and what it means to put their sin to death by the Spirit, I'll recommend John Owen's The Mortification of Sin in a heartbeat. If a brother just wants to think about the topic a little deeper than they currently do, I'll recommend this one.
Neal Plantinga draws heavily from the Augustinian and Calvinistic streams of the Christian tradition to help contemporary readers see in our own world what previous generations called "sin".
It becomes clear a few pages in that Plantinga is not out to simply point fingers or to condemn; rather, he is attempting to convey a way of thinking and feeling that has been almost entirely lost in modern (more 'therapeutic') forms of thought. Like his literary hero CS Lewis, Plantinga's attention to meanings embedded in colloquialisms allows him to demonstrate how foreign the concept of sin has become to many people - including many Christians. So this book is a sustained attempt to winsomely reinstate the content behind one single word: sin.
Plantinga's refusal to subvert the sense that something is wrong with me and the world brings to light a tender courage that is perhaps the virtuous corollary to a traditional harmatology. Amazingly, the book is not depressing to read nor does it engender an overly dark assessment of one's surroundings. In fact, the book climaxes with a lucid explanation of how our doctrine of sin qualifies what we say about grace. This book is not only robust theology but also masterful prose. The book itself performs a truth that Plantinga nowhere directly states - that the doctrine of sin increases our enjoyment of the world, God, and one another.
This is perhaps the definitive book on sin and how we should think about it (apart from John Owen, of course). Cornelius is the brother of Alvin Plantinga (one of the foremost Christian philosophers today), but leans more towards theology than philosophy. He defines sin as "the culpable vandalism of shalom." The Hebrew concept of shalom ("peace") is the idea of wholeness, harmony, and flourishing - how creation is supposed to be. Thus sin is ruining the harmony and peace that was originally intended by God for all of creation - it is vandalizing the created order and making chaos instead.
Throughout the book, Plantinga examines different aspects of sin and how it operates in our every day lives. He uses many broad pictures to help us understand sin fully - seeing sin as a parasite or corruption of what is good, etc. He definitely caused me to think of sin in ways that I have never done so before - which was very helpful. I will definitely have to come back and re-read this book in the future to glean more from Plantinga's insights.
A tad all over the place for me, but the central tenants were solid. “Good has its momentum. Corruption never wholly succeeds. Creation is stronger than sin and grace stronger still.”
“To speak of sin by itself, to speak of it apart from the realities of creation and grace, is to forget the resolve of God. But to speak of grace without sin is surely no better. To do this is to trivialize the cross of Jesus Christ and to cheapen the grace of God that always comes with blood on it.”
Sin is surely real, but it’s never normal. Interestingly enough, the only fascinating and appealing thing about sin is the glimpse of the goodness that is spoiled within it. If we can see this, and direct our gaze wholly to the goodness we sometimes seek through sinful ways, sin seems to lose its grip on us.
The author gets a tad snippy towards psychology at times but the book gives a thorough and thoughtful examination of sin that I would recommend most anyone read.
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin is a decent book that discusses the problem of sin.
The author provides a concise definition of sin, cataloging it as being a violation of the state shalom (peace), which is God's purpose for the world. Then, the author attempts to find the cause of sin, but I believe that he divagates from this topic, and for this reason, I think that the book could have been shorter, because many of the author's ideas do not shed light on the given topic.
The final part of the book is what piqued my interest. He proposes that grace must always be put in correlation with sin in order to truly understand the message of the Gospel and God's love through Christ's suffering at the cross.
A book designed to recover an awareness of sin, and to expand our vocabulary of the realities and complexities of sin.
Platinga states that 'for the Christian Church to ignore, euphemise, or otherwise mute the lethal reality of sin is to cut the nerve of the gospel.'
And he identifies several major problems in the ways we talk about sin as Christians. We sometimes simply state the word and assume that everyone knows exactly what we mean, allowing its meaning to slip and slide depending on the listener. We often fail to account for the fact that sin is multifaceted, speaking in shorthand like 'sin is rebellion against God' or 'sin is breaking God's law' without expanding adequately, or acknowledging that our definitions do not exhaust the reality of sin.
And so over ten chapters he attempts looks sin square in the face, using biblical images of sin like folly, vandalism of shalom, corruption, and also some of sins conceptual neighbours such as addiction in order to describe sin in all its multifaceted depth. The writing is witty and pithy, with many memorable lines and phrases that I stopped to ponder along the way.
Some chapters were more instructive than others, but overall I think the author succeeds in his aim - I feel more able to speak about sin using a breadth of images, rather than simply a favoured few. And the book has given me a greater awareness of my own sin, and of Satan's devices, for which I am grateful.
I did have quibbles with some of authors suggestions, particularly around human responsibility for sin, and original sin, but there was one major weakness of the book. Although the author uses many biblical images to describe sin, the amount of actual biblical exegesis, and even the amount of biblical examples of sin used is dissapointingly small. Although the many examples from culture, politics, and literature were largely helpful, I feel like the author largely ignored his most important resource (from 1 and 2 Kings alone you could demonstrate much of what the author discusses in the book).
A needed book, a good book, but without enough of the good book.
This was an accessible, soul-searching, and witty meditation on sin. Plantinga does not focus as much on rebellion against God (therefore limiting discussions on hell) or on subcategories of the doctrine of sin such as original sin or total depravity (at least he does not use the language). Instead, this is a helpful book on thinking about how sin vandalizes shalom, or the natural good in the created order and the imago dei. This was a helpful mirror for my own soul. I think it will also strengthen how I talk about sin when presenting the Gospel and in future talks.
This is a sobering look at the comprehensiveness of sin. I’d highly recommend the work.
My only qualms would be the way that Plantinga handles human responsibility to sin. And that I wish he would have written more on how sin is directly an offense to God’s character.
Other than those things this book is an excellent treatment on the doctrine of sin and a great place to start.
You know a book written by a guy named Cornelius with “breviary” in the title might be a little heady. It was. I actually started a list 3/4 of the way through of words I had to look up. (I’ll forever be grateful to have the phrase “sporting a coprophagous grin” in my arsenal.)
This isn’t a knock against the book, though. Plantinga is clearly wildly intelligent, but you know that because of his wit as much as his vocabulary. It made this book as fun to read as it was mentally stretching.
Content-wise, I was surprised by how directly I was impacted by an exposition of sin. He said in the epilogue, “… the sober truth is that without full disclosure on sin, the gospel of grace becomes impertinent, unnecessary, and finally uninteresting.” And sure enough, my gratitude for grace deepened as my careless abuse of it was brought to light.
He categorized sins into those of attack or of flight—i.e., action or neglect, and I found the chapters on the latter to be especially helpful. This will probably be a book I read again, but next time I’ll start keeping a vocabulary list from the beginning.
This book was TOUGH. Plantinga pulls no punches whatsoever, and I felt like I was drowning in bad news and horrifying stats at times, waiting for any sense of hope or redemption. But he makes some poignant calls to action and repentance, especially in the later chapters, that I found powerful today (30 years later). Had me in the first half, but I’m glad to have made it to the end! “Evil rolls across the ages, but so does good. Good has its own momentum” (199).
Helpful in some ways, particularly on self-deception, original sin, sins relationship to goodness, and envy.
The writing style wasn’t my favorite, with some language and anecdote choices that seemed unnecessary (although with a book on sin, the author may have thought that shocking language/stories are very necessary).
A must-read for anyone who desires to gain an introductory knowledge of the nature of Sin. Plantinga writes with ease and approachability on a subject that is easily side-stepped for its weight and condemnation. Highly rec.
Not for theologians only, but probably one of my favorite theological reads of all time. Plantinga is eloquent, witty and well-read. He provides fascinating illustrations of the various aspects of sin (I’d never thought about all the ins and outs of the “vandalism of shalom”). This was a re-read for me. I’ve pulled this book out again and again. So many favorite quotes. Here’s one from the epilogue (spoiler alert 😉): “Sinful life is a partly depressing, partly ludicrous, caricature of genuine human life.”
This book really broke down the mystery of sin and its affects in way that everyone, no matter your beliefs, can see how it plays it out in there own life. I highly recommend this, as it’s so important to better understand the world we live in right now and to be aware of issues within our own hearts and minds. While I may not agree with all of his theological points, overall this book is a great tool.
This books is illuminating, convicting, heart wrenching and mind expanding. Sin is common to man and this exposition of what it does and how it pervades, but will not prevail in the end... Is arresting and sobering.
I'm a Christian who might reasonably be described as anti-evangelical, so I picked up this book with some trepidation, but something about it struck me as intriguing. I'm glad that I strayed from my comfort zone to read it, because it's a solid piece of writing with wide-ranging appeal.
Plantinga approaches the subject of sin with a calm and sophisticated analytical mind, but the book doesn't read at all like typical academic theology. The author selects from a grab-bag of literature, film, psychology, true crime, current (at the time) events, and so on to illustrate his ideas. (Theological sources of authority given central billing are St. Augustine, early Protestant thinkers, and C.S. Lewis.) It can be a bit over-written, in that slightly anachronistic way that evangelical intellectuals seem to like, but it has a dynamism that keeps you reading along with a strong sense of compassionate decency.
Despite its goal of bringing sin back into focus as a moral concern, this is far from a fire-and-brimstone kind of book. It seems calculated not to offend the sensibilities of most readers, and there wasn't a lot that I found myself strongly disagreeing with. Some of it comes off strangely, which I think has less to do with the author's political and theological views and more with the fact that it was written in the '90s. (Plantinga throws in a weirdly spiteful barb about reader-response criticism, for instance, which in all honesty probably bothered me more than his offhand remarks about feminism.) At the risk of getting too political, this is a book that demonstrates so much concern with civic responsibility and disgust toward corruption that I wonder whether it would have gotten the same reception in the Trump era.
The point is, if you want to engage with a piece of evangelical thought that is humane and thought-provoking, that reaches out across denominational lines instead of preaching to the choir, this is a good one to check out. It calls for a discipline of self-examination and moral probity that I don't think should be allowed to disappear from any religious tradition.
It is not often that you hear about a book entirely devoted to the theology of sin. This is probably because if you were to think about what a book about sin might be like, you would probably imagine a book that would produce either depression, legalism or liberalism or some kind of a mixture of all three. Cornelius Plantinga Jr., however, treated the topic so well that it does not produce these results at all. Rather, his book is sobering, yet witty, convicting and inspiring. By the end of this brief theology (or "breviary") you will be humbled and convicted because of your own sinful condition, yet inspired to cling to the gospel because of the hope we have in Christ. For theologian and lay-person alike: take, and read!
I came across this title while reading Volf's "Exclusion and Embrace" several years ago and had picked it up for some research on the distinction that Volf noted (light from dark, etc.). While that was a very small portion of the book, the rest of the book was also truly a pleasure to read. To read a book on sin and call it a pleasure shows that the author is not only a great academic, but a truly gifted writer. Plantinga delivers a thorough look at sin (it's progression, it's parasitic nature , it's excuses, and it's tragedy) in a brutally honest, yet grace filled way. Particularly compelling is the overarching theme of sin as the "blamable vandalism of shalom." I highly recommend this book not only for particular research but also for general pastoral insight and ministry.
This book tackles an important but not popular topic. "Not the way it's supposed to be." is a cornerstone statement of the Christian World View. Human and natural evil in the world is not "normal", not the way it once was and not the way it one day will be again. Plantinga's study of sin is part definition, part description, part consequences of. Published in 1995, some of the cultural allusions are out of date but Plantinga's analysis of where the culture is going is on target (based on the benefit of 25 years of hind sight). The writing style is fancy with intricate sentences and sophisticated vocabulary. It sometimes feels a little like showing off - or perhaps just enjoying a cleverly turned phrase. The style does not take a way form the understandability of the text.