Everybody knows there is something about human life that is out of line or out of whack. We can be happy at times but not totally fulfilled. Even when we have happiness, we fear we'll lose it. Worse, every day brings us fresh news of old evils -- of nature ravaged, of God blasphemed, of people cheated, battered, terrorized. Every day brings us news of people whose misery is almost impossible to fathom.

For centuries, philosophers, theologians, novelists, and artists have described the human predicament and then prescribed a cure, or at least a salve. ... That is, they've offered a prognosis. Hope is the reach of our hearts for the cure. It's the reach of our hearts toward what we think will fulfill us, secure us, save us--and not just us, but also the whole world. To be a Christian is to participate in this very common human enterprise of diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis, but to do so from inside a Christian view of the world, a view that has been constructed from Scripture and that centers on Jesus Christ the Savior, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living