"The main point of the parable is not the repetence of the son, but the greeting of the father. It didn't make any difference to the father what his son had done"
I think that's what I said way back in reply #10027.
"Notice the Greek conjunction "but" that limits what the son is doing and changes the emphasis of the parable to what the father is doing. He could care less what the son is saying or doing, just that "my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found". For that, there is joy in the house."
I agree that repentance is dying to self, for it is a turning away from the direction you are going, here self will, and changing direction.
"I think that's what I said way back in reply #10027."
Indeed you did. I shouldn't jump into the middle of things.
"I agree that repentance is dying to self, for it is a turning away from the direction you are going, here self will, and changing direction."
Its certainly part of it, probably the first part of dying to the self but not even close to all of it. Repentance, at least for us Orthodox, isn't something we do for God, we do it for ourselves, to start on the process of "metanoia" and that process and everything we do in that process, we do for ourselves and not "for" God. I am likely misinformed, but I interpret much of the Latin Church's theology surrounding repentance as being a sort of quid pro quo thing run with God. I understand it this way because of the plenary indulgences which often are attached to acts of repentance or other types of devotion. As I say, I may be misinformed and Orthodoxy doesn't have "indulgences" as such so they are rather outside my post Catholic elementary school experience.
I am wondering how Protestantism views what we Orthodox do in the way of repentance, prayer, devotions, fasting, etc. Do you see them as "works" in the sense that it appears to you that we do these things because they are in themselves salvific (salvation by works). Or do you see them as a means of, as I have said so often, dying to the self, consequently being able to "experience" the grace of God more fully and thus come into a union with God's uncreated energies, which is theosis? For that matter, do you see the distinction I am making? By the way, none of this even starts without responding in Faith to the grace God has given us.
I was not challenging the point of the parable, which is as you both say, but rather pointing out that the lost sheep are truly lost, but may be found.