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August 29, 2004
Lewis on Friendship as Same Interests
In the "Friendship" chapter of (p. 63 of one edition I looked at) of Lewis's >The Four Loves he says,
"In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?--- Or at least, "Do you care about the same truth?" The man who agrees with us that some question little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer.
This is one reason I feel akin to a certain Mongolian Expert with whom I can
argue about consubstantiation versus transubstantiation and whether the Ten
Commandments encompass the entire moral law or not. It is a little sad that I
do not find the niceties of Lutheranism vs. Calvinism on faith vs. works as
interesting as he does. To my mind, the difference is vanishingly small, even
though the difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants is hugely
important, but the Mongolian Expert has devoted considerable care to getting
this exactly right. Maybe he is correct, and I am not, on the importance of this
topics. But you who are reading this probably think we both are silly to be
caring about such things more than about who wins medals in the Olympics or
whether the marginal tax rate should be 39% instead of 35%.
Note, by the way, the very interesting formatting of the Lewis passage. It
works well, even though it is inconsistent, putting the first first two
questions in italics and the third in quotes (with italics used for emphasis).
Posted by erasmuse at August 29, 2004 04:01 PM
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Comments
Eric,
I cannot accept the Lutheran argument that one is saved by faith alone in every instance. This seems to me to be clearly wrong as there is spoken throughout the OT the necessity of doing good works---taking care of widows and orphans. Further the epistle of James says `faith without good works' is unavailing.
I also cannot make sense of `consubstantiation.'
Transubstantiation is the better concept.
I do understand that the Almighty can save anyone absent good works but that appears to me to be an exceptional situation.
Posted by: Jim at August 30, 2004 11:19 AM