1. Ecclesiology...The conflict of this [exclusionist] idea with the idea that salvation necessarily involves the believer's inclusion into the community of God.
Good thinking. I think something like this can be seen in Christ's teaching, really. He instructs the Apostles on safeguarding the life of the Church through discipline, ousting unfaithful members, etc., while not necessarily stopping those outside the Twelve from preaching in His name ("He who is not against Me is for Me," and all that). We can also see this in Christ's giving the Holy Spirit to...Cornelius, I think it was?...before he was brought into the Church. Now, yeah, in that instance, it was brought to the attention of the Church -- which happened to be the only confession around at the time -- and he was baptized ASAP, but it happened
outside the Church. If, for some reason, he had died before Peter et al arrived, it doesn't seem as though the Lord would hold it against him.
This just shows that God can, indeed move in a redemptive fashion outside the physical work of Mother Church...while all we need is undoubtedly within Her, that is not to say that God cannot receive the less that is required from those others who are living in a lesser revelation of God's truth.
2. Epistemology. The question of surety; how do we know that the OC will always be "led into all truth"...and then what is "all truth"?...It raises the question of "WHEN will the Spirit lead you into truth? Now or later?"
My quick answer to this? We don't know; trust God. In fact, that's all we're
all really doing when it comes down to it, isn't it? If the Roman Church is infallible, it is objectively infallible, yet the decision to join the Roman Church is made by each, individual, fallible human being, and ultimately, that's a leap of faith. It's the same with Orthodoxy, with Anglicanism, with any other confession of Christianity or any other faith at all! Now,
I can say that Orthodoxy is "obviously" the Truth, and I may have
my reasons for seeing this over and above other confessions, but ultimately
my reason for converting from the Southern Baptist Church to Holy Orthodoxy was because
I -- sinful, fallible person that I am -- saw a much,
much closer semblance to original Christianity in the Orthodox worship and doctrine than I did in my former confession, and that it thus seemed that Orthodoxy had been "kept from all error" in a way the other confessions weren't. Ultimately we just come to the conclusion that we can trust the Church. Subjective? Yeah. But that's faith -- "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Doesn't mean I have to personally give all other confessions and faiths the same reverence I give my own -- I certainly don't -- nor does it mean I don't need thought-out reasons for my belief -- I certainly have them -- but it does keep me from having delusions of an "obviousness" that, as long as there are people around who think differently, doesn't really exist.
Sorry if I'm rambling; hope the post helped some.
