Safehold Theology and the Reveal

How will the Writ and the archangels be discredited? This is the only way that Safehold's mores will shift to ones that support innovation. Absent the discrediting, a large portion of Safehold will not participate in the innovation necessary to defeat the Gbaba.

My preferred view is that Merlin and Nimue have a confrontation with a founding archangel or an digital personality of one. In that confrontation the truth is revealed and the archangel does not dispel the truth. Instead he creates profound doubts in the minds of Safeholdians of the divinity of the angels and archangels. Those doubts then release Safeholdians from the shackles of their creation myth to make their own decisions regarding God, the Writ and the archangels.

After the theological discussion in the Snippet #11 thread, perhaps there is another, better way. Let's assume the disillusionment Don noted takes hold. Safeholdians ask the question; is God omniscient and omnibenevolent if He created organizations so vile as the CoGA and Inquisition?

The answers are:
1)Yes, He is both and men failed him.
2)Yes, He is both and the archangels failed him in executing his direction.
3)Yes, He is and both the archangels and men failed Him.
4)NO, He is neither and made a mistake
5)No, He is omnibenevolent but not omniscient and made a mistake
6)No, He is omniscient but not omnibenevolent so He doesn't care about the suffering so long as His purpose is achieved.

If this question is asked within the Safeholdian paradigm of creation, which answer is more likely to resonate with Safeholdians? How does the CoC and the CoGA address these questions? If these questions and the discussions surrounding them are widespread when the Returner arrives/awakes, how will he respond if the conclusion reached is anything but #1?

A decade or two of these types of questions, the passionate arguments surrounding them and the wars stemming from those argument will present the Returner with quite the mess. How he moves to address those issues will speak loudly to his nature and by extension the God he purports to speak for. The mistakes he makes will influence the theological debates.

Do you all think theology will drive the defeat of the Writ and the CoGA or will it be something else entirely?

There are a couple of relevant quotes from RFC on this topic.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6161&p=158146&hilit=return+truth#p158146:

runsforcelery wrote:While he would love to get a look inside the Temple --- assuming that could be done without his own electronic gizzards setting off all sorts of alarms --- he isn't going to poke his nose into it until/unless he has to. Instead, he will continue his plan to so fundamentally change Safehold --- and the Church --- that even if an "archangel" wakes up, the "rot" will have spread so deeply that the archangel in question really would have to blast Safehold into the Stone Age to reset the clock. Indeed, he fully intends to push matters so far that the truth is revealed to all of Safehold before the deadline for the millennial return.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5254&p=129792&hilit=return+truth#p129792:

Eventually, however, the Group of Four will get its just desserts. At that point, there will be a hiatus (on Safehold) before the next book, which will deal with what happens when the truth is revealed while the prospective millennial return of the Archangels looms over everyone’s heads.

Both of these quotes are from the last year, while HFQ was in the works. It seems pretty clear to me that the Truth will be revealed before the Millennial Return.

SWM wrote:Both of these quotes are from the last year, while HFQ was in the works. It seems pretty clear to me that the Truth will be revealed before the Millennial Return.

It would almost surely end up as a unprecedent disaster.

Dilandu wrote:

SWM wrote:Both of these quotes are from the last year, while HFQ was in the works. It seems pretty clear to me that the Truth will be revealed before the Millennial Return.

It would almost surely end up as a unprecedent disaster.

If it's the plan Merlin and the Inner Circle have, they surely don't anticipate an unprecedented disaster out of it. And there's no reason to suppose that we're better informed than they are: they know how Safeholdians think and feel, and we're not in possession of some superior sociological understanding.

SWM wrote:Both of these quotes are from the last year, while HFQ was in the works. It seems pretty clear to me that the Truth will be revealed before the Millennial Return.

Which necessarily means within - probably well within - the next twenty years, based on Merlin's calculations. I'm wondering how he can do that without placing himself firmly into what will be perceived - quite likely even within the portion of the Church of Charis not privileged to be part of the Zherneauist "inner circle" - as opposition to G-d HimSelf.

Obviously, revelation of the testimonies (lowercase deliberate) of Knowles and Cody will have to be part of the Reveal - but how can those testimonies be inarguably authenticated?

JeffEngel wrote:If it's the plan Merlin and the Inner Circle have, they surely don't anticipate an unprecedented disaster out of it. And there's no reason to suppose that we're better informed than they are: they know how Safeholdians think and feel, and we're not in possession of some superior sociological understanding.

Simply speaking: how? The population of Safehold far more religious than average on Earth; actually, by the Earth standard, it almost a zealous religion community. And how do they reacted if someone would go to them and said "Hey, you know, all this is a lie"?

There is no way to do it quickly; you need to prepare the situation first, or the consequenses would be horrific. You need to made peoples accustomed to the very idea that their doctrine could be re-evaluated, could be intertpreted outside the mainstream. And it all take time.

Dilandu wrote:
Simply speaking: how? The population of Safehold far more religious than average on Earth; actually, by the Earth standard, it almost a zealous religion community. And how do they reacted if someone would go to them and said "Hey, you know, all this is a lie"?

There is no way to do it quickly; you need to prepare the situation first, or the consequenses would be horrific. You need to made peoples accustomed to the very idea that their doctrine could be re-evaluated, could be intertpreted outside the mainstream. And it all take time.

As has been stated in other posts, The Writ documents the fallibility of the archangels. They created the Writ. Does that not mean that the Writ is also potentially fallible? Pursuing that question in the context of the Writ itself is the sort of theological discussion that the deeply religious live for. That is assuming the Inquisition is not around to derail the discussions.

I would agree that it would be better to have that sort of discussion about specific elements of the Writ first. Like the supposed fallibility of the CoGA in the context of the Writ. After that appetizer, discussing the truthfulness of the Writ as described by the admittedly fallible archangels would be easier.

Dilandu wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:If it's the plan Merlin and the Inner Circle have, they surely don't anticipate an unprecedented disaster out of it. And there's no reason to suppose that we're better informed than they are: they know how Safeholdians think and feel, and we're not in possession of some superior sociological understanding.

Simply speaking: how? The population of Safehold far more religious than average on Earth; actually, by the Earth standard, it almost a zealous religion community. And how do they reacted if someone would go to them and said "Hey, you know, all this is a lie"?

There is no way to do it quickly; you need to prepare the situation first, or the consequenses would be horrific. You need to made peoples accustomed to the very idea that their doctrine could be re-evaluated, could be intertpreted outside the mainstream. And it all take time.

I don't know how. Showing up the inconsistencies between the Writ and Testimonies on the one hand and the documents from the Brotherhood and SSK would be one tack. Another is the simple, ongoing revelation of how much corruption "God's" Church has had, how it behaves as a secular tyranny, and that the Church of Charis is a viable alternative and its moral superior.

Starting with only that sort of thing and expecting to be able to make a full reveal in 20 years does look to me like something really, really difficult, and fraught with risk. I'm just saying that, all we know on which we base that judgment, is information available to these characters, that they know more than that, that they're in a better position to make the judgment, and if they're figuring on that revelation that soon with some confidence, either they're far too optimistic or they're making a better decision than we are.

They don't look like wild-eyed optimists, so I'm inclined to think that our inclinations to suppose it's a doomed project don't count for as much as their judgment that it is not.

PeterZ wrote:
As has been stated in other posts, The Writ documents the fallibility of the archangels. They created the Writ. Does that not mean that the Writ is also potentially fallible? Pursuing that question in the context of the Writ itself is the sort of theological discussion that the deeply religious live for. That is assuming the Inquisition is not around to derail the discussions.

I would agree that it would be better to have that sort of discussion about specific elements of the Writ first. Like the supposed fallibility of the CoGA in the context of the Writ. After that appetizer, discussing the truthfulness of the Writ as described by the admittedly fallible archangels would be easier.

I agree that it is POSSIBLE, and could be done, but it definitely couldn't be done quickly. Especially after a large-scale religious war, where both sides lean toward religious fervor.

Dilandu wrote:
I agree that it is POSSIBLE, and could be done, but it definitely couldn't be done quickly. Especially after a large-scale religious war, where both sides lean toward religious fervor.

Totally agree. Sort of suggests that there will be more massively bloody wars following such discussions, eh? Those sorts of wars are what David indicated would follow defeating the G4.