Adding Virtue

Plantinga’s chapter on vocation explores what it means to be a Reformed Christian in God’s world. The chapter begins by talking about how our job here on earth is to further God’s kingdom. This kingdom has lots of smaller kingdoms within it. These kingdoms may take the form of a church or school, a family or a form of government. We need to pay attention to what kingdoms we belong to and how these kingdoms interact with one another. Next, Plantinga looks at what vocation is within the kingdom of God. Each of us has been given a calling and each of our callings are different. But, it is important to note that God furthers his kingdom through non-Christians as well as Christians. Our vocations will probably change throughout our lives and they include more than just our jobs. As such, we need to do everything to the best of our abilities. Pastors are not better than farmers because of their job. We are all called to do different things and should not be looked down on by others for it. Plantinga ends his chapter by talking about how our vocations tie into our educations and what this looks like at Calvin College.

                I really appreciated this last section. Plantinga does a really good job of laying out the important things that Calvin emphasizes. That the goals of the college were divided into three sections was also encouraging. Not only are we going to leave Calvin with knowledge, we will, hopefully, be leaving with the skills and virtues that will help us put our knowledge to work. This section also helped me realize the diversity of strengths that people have. That we all have different subject matters that we are good at is apparent, but we sometimes look over the different skills we have and almost never see the virtues. As I think about some of the people that I met at Calvin, I recognize that we all have different virtues that we are good at. Some people are good at listen, others at taking good care of the things they have been given. We often forget to look past the flaws that others have when it comes to virtues. This is sad because we are all flawed in this area and we are all working hard to develop the virtues that Calvin is trying to instill in us. Instead of criticizing, we need to encourage one another to develop our weak virtues and complement each other when we see a good virtue being put into practice.