Intergalactic Summit

Mr Syagrius,

listen and learn: It is paramount to discuss the nature of God, since the questions of freewill and sin are intertwined with it. God is omnipotent; God is omniscient: Would God not be omniscient, he would not be omnipotent, and would he not be omnipotent he would not be God. Predestination we define in that way that God wills damnation for some people while others are saved by His Grace. It is God who decides to save and to damn and He alone acts with complete freedom. To claim that man can determine itself if he will be saved or not, is to deny the omnipotence of God.

The will of God is the chief and principal cause of all things. But it is not the only cause. While God is the principal cause of all, we, his creatures, are the inferior causes. We are all obliged to to strive for and to expect all things from His grace. It is also important to understand that not all are created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or to death.

Since the Fall of the EVE Gate man was corrupted. Man sins not forced or unwilling, but voluntarily, by a most forward bias of the mind; not by violent compulsion, or external force, but by the movement of his own passion; and yet such is the depravity of his nature, that he cannot move and act except in the direction of evil; we can thus affirm that the will is free, in the sense that the will is not coerced or drawn violently by some external motion, but acts of its own accord. As a consequence man is responsible for his actions. Sins are his and not those of God.

I advise you to fear the Lord and organise your affairs!
Odelya d’Hanguest

Odelya is a Sani Sabik.

Valerie is a moron.

It seems to me that having been ostracised by polite society because of her previous immoral activities, Odelya is now seeking acceptance from the enemies of that society.

It's possible that she believes the nonsense that she's spouting, but it's more likely that she's just trying to fit in with the "cool kids"

Well “Constantin” [1],

It softens my weak heart, to see what a good and caring pastor you are to your flock. May God help you prosper, my dear! But the question is not what our modernist and instrumentalist approach—which you utter which every single syllable your lips form—to utilise the Word of God might be, to therapeutically overcome the hardships of life (how very touching!), but how we can serve the Will of the Lord.

The Word of God is irreformable! Historical exegesis of the Scriptures is the surest road to perdition and serfdom. Yet you write:

If our greatest scholars would have been asked to define to most obscene heresy that is, they wouldn’t have been able to do it better.

All things have their purpose, but this purpose might be evil, wicked, and treacherous.

I advise you to fear the Lord, repent, and organise your affairs!
Odelya d’Hanguest

[1] Why do people believe they can unilaterally declare first name terms? I have the courtesy of calling this sectary of the rotten, dishonourable, and corrupt Theology Council a bishop and he returns the favour by addressing a Duchess of the Khanid Kingdom by her personal name! What is next, hugs and flowers? Stop this!

Actually... I suppose it's Lady Odelya? I prefer not to be addressed as Bishop or by my surname. My actual style is the Most Reverend Constantin Praetus Baracca III, Bishop of the Hinterlands. Most people outside of Amarrian nobility call me by my surname, I suppose out of perceived respect, but recall that nearly my entire family is involved in the Theology Council and church at one level or another. Therefore, while I don't tend to correct everyone's mistake when referring to me by my surname, the shortened style is always Bishop Constantin. There are hundreds of Father Baraccas and quite a few Bishop Baraccas. I'm far from the only one.

So I wouldn't take my address of you as an offense; I don't mean to be offensive. I simply thought that should I call you Lady d'Hanguest, that might refer to any number of people in your family who might hold a title. Members of long-lined families have a tendency towards the forename and I spend most of my time outside the Empire. Unfortunately, I am not so accustomed to the styles of the Khanid. I was not posted as a Bishop to the Kingdom.

So Constantin is perfectly fine. I like that the best of all. It cuts through the mess of titles and honors and recognizes that we are all people in the eyes of God. Even bishops and duchesses will be judged as the highest kings and lowest of servants. I like the spirit of kinship in the given name.

The idea of serving the Lord is actually fairly straightforward and has not changed since the founding of our Empire. God's eventual plan is to convert the entirety of the cluster to his teachings, forming a unitarian approach in which His perfect vision is realized. Anything that moves us along in that general direction generally qualifies. My ministry is meant to perform just that role: to convert nonbelievers to the Word. Thereafter, the rest of the program raises them to respectability and citizenship. It is an ongoing process that can only fail if we stop performing that service and rest on our laurels, thinking we have mastered the universe.

The Word of God and the Scriptures, by the time of the Council of Apostles, was certainly not being read in exegesis, nor being treated any better than now by the political powers that be (at the time the aformentioned Council). To say that we are always right in our first transcript of the Scriptures is simply not true and never has been. We have entire schools of science dedicated to finding new pieces of period material that can ever so slightly change the nature of what we know about the Scriptures. Nor are they truly being done written. In a thousand or two years, the Pax Amarria may be considered Scripture, as its wisdom seems most profound and timeless. There has never been a time when our culture has ever stopped and said, "Fair enough, we must know everything about the Scriptures now. Carry on this way forever." In fact, we're fairly certain we are still in a process of getting towards that state. We may not be even close yet.

To re-examine the Scriptures over and over, looking for new meaning and context, isn't a heresy. It is a work of faith in which all Amarrians, in their way, take part. It is a realization that we have barely scratched the surface of the universe's meanings and have not yet begun to understand what God has in store for us. It is necessary to always be learning and to always be searching for new messages hidden in our past. To do otherwise is somewhat lax and un-scholarly. We still, to this day, are finding new ways in which the Scripture can lead us to even greater understanding. Every mistake seems to have been predicted thousands of years ago, their cures prescribed therein. When we've glossed over them, it is usually because we've allowed our own imperfect certainties to become codified as law. The Scriptures are, for the most part, moral tales that proscribe a way of behavior instead of a way of government. As such, most of what we've been doing is trying to create a moral government for thousands and thousands of years. We're still trying to figure out how to make that work.

So if we are not finished learning, even now, then it goes to follow we were not a millenium and a half ago, when the pool of scholars was smaller and more cloistered. If God had meant for us to serve a wicked purpose, I don't see how the Theology Council would fit the bill any better than the Council of Apostles did. The Theology Council wasn't around to produce the Mad Emperor. Obviously, God saw this aberration and corrected it.

That said, the more eyes we have looking at the Scriptures, the better. Millions and billions of pieces of data, as writing, artifacts, or even recorded stories, are a puzzle so massive that we have absolutely no chance of deciphering it alone. It takes all of us. More than just the Tetrimonians, more than the Theology Council, and perhaps more than the Amarr Empire. The only chance we have of truly understanding the complete Word of God is when we are all looking at the puzzle and everything falls into place.

Until then, the best we can do is to always be praising the Word, spreading our doctrines and gospel, and to always be learning. We still have a long way to go in grasping the total message of God. His wisdom is simply too great and thorough for even our massive Empire to understand yet. Unlike him, we cannot see the whole picture yet.

It is always wise to remain humble. The best way to know how to serve God is to not know how much we understand, but how much we do not understand yet. God may be proud of the former, but commands that we focus on the latter.

Absolute? Yes.
Absolute? No.
Absolute again? Yes!
Absolute yet again still? No!
I fail to see how putting my "affairs" in order will do much good, as they seem to already been ordained God... or not.

It would seem to me in that line of logic, trying to "order my own affairs", might be considered an affront to His most perfect Will.

Forgive me my dear, but you can't have it both ways.

God is absolute or he is not.

It is a simple enough question.

So then there is free will.

Thank you, I appreciate your concise and definitive reply.

Dano Gheinok, our most sweet and gift-bestowing prophet, did not acknowledge the Theology Council, Amash Akura, may God exalt him, did not either, Kuria, the earliest host of our holy religion, St. Junip, St. Anoyia, St. Askura, St. Ageroth, St. Anam, and all the Holy Disciples of the Lord did not bow their heads to the Theology Council, and so does not His Royal Khanid Majesty, of whom you and I are subjects. So are they less Amarrian than you are? A Khanid serving the State who is longing for the Kingdom to become like a lookalike of Tash-Murkon? And I thought you are saying: “Render unto Khanid the things which are Khanid’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Bishop Constantin, I will come back to your point later, thank you.

Odelya

In the same vein as Cpt. Mintor, I'd ask whether you think that the institution of Kingship shouldn't be accepted, because Dano Gheinok didn't expressly acknowledge it? Or that an Khanid Kingdom shouldn't be accepted, because Amash-Akura didn't acknowledge any Khanid Kingdom?

Or to put it into your words: "Dano Gheinok, our most sweet and gift-bestowing prophet, did not acknowledge a Khanid Kingdom, Amash Akura, may God exalt him, did not either, Kuria, the earliest host of our holy religion, St. Junip, St. Anoyia, St. Askura, St. Ageroth, St. Anam, and all the Holy Disciples of the Lord did not bow their heads to a Khanid King."

So, by your very own logic, we should not only not accept the Theology Council, but - even less so - the Khanid Kingdom and it's King.

The argumentum ad antiquitatem was a fallacy since the times before Dano Gheinok, Ms. d'Hanguest.