For me, my longing is go and live in Japan. I do not know why I have this longing, I just know that if I can achieve this I will be extremely happy,which is like what Plantinga says "break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy". However, if I fulfill this, according to Plantinga says, I will have another longing. I think this idea also match C.S.Lewis's example in "We have no right to happiness".
In "We have no right to happiness", Lewis mentions an exmaple about Mr.A and Mrs.A get divorce. I know that many people whose longing is very simple : to get married. Perhaps Mr.A and Mrs. A also have the same longing. However, after they achieve this, they start to have another longing. This maybe the reason why they get divorce.
Plantinga also use Lewis's quotes in Weight of Glory:
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
I agree to what Lewis says. Our final longing should be the longing to the "infinite joy" which is provided by God. But people have longings which are easily to be achieved, and, we will seek another weak longing.
Plantinga then talks about hope. He thinks that longing is an ingredient of hope, which we can only hope for something that we want. He also thinks that although we should hope for ourselves, we should also hope of shalom. I also agree to this. Everyday we have a lot of hopes, small like to hope that we can have good food, or big like we hope our proposal is accepted, etc. However, Plantinga told us to hope for God, because God will give us the way he want us to be.
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