Longing and Hope

In the first chapter of his book Engaging God’s World, Cornelius Plantinga Jr. discusses the ideas of longing and of hope. He first expresses how all humans long for something. This longing can take many different forms, from longing for a season of the year, to longing for a favorite vacation spot, to the nostalgic longing of the days of the past. Plantinga goes on to say that all of these longings are unfulfillable. I find this very true in my own life. I often long for the days of my childhood, when everything was simple and full of wonderment and without stress. However, there is no way I can go back to this childhood, or even an adulthood which exhibits these characteristics. The same is true of other longings. Nothing we can ever do will completely fulfill what we long for. There will always be something that is missing, something that is less than ideal, something that leaves us still hungry. The only thing which we can long for that will leave us fulfilled is Jesus Christ. In fact, he will not only satisfy our longing, but will greatly surpass what our original desires. Another interesting aspect of longing is that humans have an innate sense of wanting something beyond what they see in this world. This sensus divinitatis, as Calvin called it, causes a longing for something more. For some of us, our sensus divinitatis, which God bestowed upon us, leads us to God Himself. It will cause others to look for other religions, search for a higher truth in themselves, or futilely try to find fulfillment in worldly things like drugs or sex.

Plantinga also addresses the idea of hope. One of the most important thoughts Plantinga conveys in this section is that real hope is not for oneself, but for others. It is easy to hope that your own life becomes better, that you do well at your new job, that your family loves you. However, this is selfishness, not real hope. Hope is much broader than that; it encourages us to reach out like the early church did. Hope also combats evil with action. Without action, hope can be merely meaningless words. Finally, hope requires imagination. If we confine ourselves to just what we know, we are only hoping for a fraction of what must be done in the world. We must hope for people on the other side of the globe, and we must hope for people that do not yet exist. We must imagine being in someone else shoes in order to properly hope for them.