Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
"St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful. In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.’" -- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
All of us by nature are out of order, including our affections. We must mortify this malfunction through faith. We must receive instruction on what the proper order is. We must not only be wiling to be taught that there is a proper order, but we must be prepared to reorder our affections in order to conform ourselves to its proper order. In other words, we must mortify our inordinate affections by forcing them into their proper order. This will involve demoting some and promoting others.
Proverbs 14:12, 16:25
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death.
The fact that there is a proper order is revelation. We need to know that we don't know, because before we do, we think we do. It is not something we would have discovered on our own. It is outside of us and reveals itself to us. It comes to us from without and demands to be accepted by us within.
Proverbs 12:15
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes:
but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
Parents are called to nourish and discipline their children in the instruction of rightly ordered affections. We are to teach our children what is good, true and beautiful and cultivate a desire and affection for them. Our children need to be taught to identify the good, true and beautiful and they need to be taught to choose it over their base conceptions of what they imagine is best for themselves. It is training their hearts to align with reality as designed by God. It is urging them toward faith, to repent of their default disorderly desires and by faith to instruct their hearts towards what they ought to desire and in the proper order.
“A well-ordered life, regulated by God’s Word alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone, for God’s glory alone, is the only answer to our anxiety.” — John Calvin
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