by rusmeister » October 17th, 2008, 2:34 am
I have a comment on "believing". It's REALLY important to make a distinction between profession of belief and actual belief. If we truly believe something, we act on it. If not, we don't. Like tha Apostle James said, "faith without works is dead". So it's kind of a red herring to talk about "God-believers" who actually do the opposite of what Christ commanded. They never really counted as believers in the first place.
FOJ: I would disagree that Lewis did not reveal at least some of his theology in his fiction (if that's what you're saying). But it is totally Orthodox to say that God saves whom He will. Paradoxically, though, while church membership does not save you, it is really important to seek out the actual Church that Christ really established.
The Gospel reference to the workers is right on!
On MM's earlier comment (on God's terms): I was a member of a secular men's group on the left coast that taught men how to be men (I was an indifferent and lazy agnostic at the time), and one of the principles (which wound up preparing me to accept Orthodoxy) was that your relationship with your father must be on your father's terms - that the son can't set the terms. I think this is a really profound truth you have hit on.
One of the things it impacts is the idea of "church-shopping", or searching for a faith that fits "what I like", or only accepting interpretations of Scripture that fit with how I think things ought to be... That's trying to have the relationship on our terms. In the true Church, there surely must be things that we don't like, and in accepting the authority of the Church (like the mother telling us what the father has to say), we are accepting it on God's terms, not our own.
"Eh? Two views? There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one."
Bill "The Blizzard" Hingest - That Hideous Strength