When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#648 - New Center of the Reformation

The oatmeal on the table gradually grew cold in the late autumn chill, but Moudier almost forgot it existed, still repeatedly reading the newspaper.

Recovering from the initial shock, Moudier began to seriously ponder the theological viewpoints behind it.

This wasn't simply a discussion about whether people could voluntarily enslave themselves, but a challenge to existing traditional theism.

In his view, to trace the issue back to its source, what the Hall of Truth needed to do was to clearly redefine "man" in theology.

In the Hall of Truth's new definition, "man" is the chief of all beings ordained by the Holy Father, which includes the right to freedom, the very reason for being human.

If a person doesn't even have the most basic right to freedom, then they are no different from animals, which is obviously contrary to the Holy Father's intention and a blasphemy against the Holy Trinity.

The church wants to maintain the Holy Father's omniscient control over humanity, but cannot explain why He grants humanity freedom, and this freedom often deviates from the Holy Father's will.

This contradiction isn't new, but has been covered up by the church using its transcendental hegemony until now.

Whenever a clergyman raised a question, he was immediately met with, "What is your purpose in questioning these things? Who is directing you? What are your motives?"

This question had been buried in the hearts of countless clerics for a long time, but a suitable answer had never been found.

However, the Saintly Path faction's explanation in the *Truth Daily* almost perfectly solved this problem.

Because according to the Saintly Path faction in the newspaper, people are born with the right to freedom granted by the Holy Father, and He also grants humanity wisdom and reason to choose freely.

So what you love is your life, there is no need to feel fear and unease, this is the will of the Holy Father.

Humanity has sufficient reason to pursue material life and worldly enjoyment.

But thinking to this point, Moudier immediately felt a chill, because he vaguely discovered the extraordinary meaning behind it.

If according to this statement, further extended, then is the church as a "faith intermediary" a bit redundant?

Since my actions are all the will of the Holy Father, then why is it necessary for the church to convey the Holy Father's will?

Terrible, terrible, Moudier quickly shook his head, shaking this topic that couldn't even be touched out of his mind.

Reading these contents over and over again, although outwardly calm, the scales in his heart gradually tilted towards the monks of the Saintly Path.

This was not only because their claims were more reasonable theologically, but also because Moudier had real-life experiences in this matter.

Relying on the exclusive right to interpret the Holy Father's will, the bishops were doing evil madly in the name of the Holy Father.

As a low-level monk, he had seen countless times ordinary monks being treated as serfs working in the fields, while bishops and abbots were able to sit in magnificent palaces eating steak and drinking wine.

Those nobles and villains could rise to the top through bribery and corruption, while truly talented and virtuous people could only waste their lives in a small clergy position.

The chaos that Huanno wrote about, seemingly absurd, was the daily life witnessed by low-level monks.

But they were powerless and could only watch the bishops desecrate.

So low-level monks and clerics like Moudier had an urgent desire for change, hoping to get rid of the internal corruption of the church through new ideological movements and restore the purity of faith.

The most typical representatives of these people were Huanno, Ludwick, and others, and then the theological thought of the Huanno faction was born.

Although Horne had flaws in the issue of the "Trinity," this newspaper's criticism of the church wrote to Moudier's heart.

Pushing away the cold porridge, Moudier tucked the newspaper under his arm and fell into contemplation: "The next few days will probably not be peaceful."

After all, this wasn't digging at the corner of the church's wall, but digging at the foundation of the church, if Horne was allowed to dig it casually, then the church would have no roots.

As Moudier expected, when he went out hungry in the morning, the streets and alleys were still chatting about the poems and jokes in the newspaper.

By the time he finished his day's classes and returned to the hostel in the evening, half the hostel was discussing the debate in the *Truth Daily*.

By the time it was the weekend, even the citizens began to talk about this part of the theological content.

Because after many monks explained it, the citizens began to realize that if the conclusion on freedom in the *Truth Daily* was established, then they could use their wealth with peace of mind, free from the predicament of faith.

When Moudier walked through the streets and alleys, he could hear shouts of "People are born free" and "Man is the chief of all beings" everywhere.

The number of people supporting the Saintly Path faction was increasing, and a large number of non-faction monks or past Huanno faction monks were gradually inclined to the Saintly Path's claims.

If this were in other regions, the Saintly Path's claims would probably have been suppressed by the church long ago, and might even have triggered large-scale purges and heresy trials, completely stifling the bud of this thought.

But in the Thousand River Valley region, Horne had swept away the upper echelons of the church through force.

Those who remained were either low-level monks, or Huanno faction clerics, or reformist monks who, although without factions, despised corruption.

They were naturally inclined to criticize the church, and after the *Truth Daily* opened this gap, their desire to confide was almost as difficult to restrain as a flood.

Various hand-copied pamphlets were spreading everywhere, especially since Rapidfall City was still a training ground for the Holy Father Association monks to gather.

With Catherine's acquiescence, the monks took to the streets waving the *Truth Daily* and began to preach to the citizens.

And traditionalist clerics and nobles who were exasperated would also stand up and constantly debate and refute.

In just two weeks, the number of治安 (zhì ān) cases in Rapidfall City had increased several times compared to before. As the治安官 (zhì ān guān), Karl worked around the clock for several days in a row, and the dungeon was full of prisoners.

Not only Rapidfall City, this trend began to slowly spread from Rapidfall City towards Shelley City, Smallpool City, and Evergreen City.

The originally quiet and peaceful winter was almost overturned by this wave of enthusiastic voices and trends.

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Some citizens and craftsmen who keenly sensed the instigator and meaning behind the scenes even took the initiative to fund copyists and even purchase letterpress printing presses to reprint the theological pages of the *Truth Daily* and make them into pamphlets.

In some radical areas, these pamphlets were even given away for free.

The topics of those one-page leaflets changed almost every day.

Monks were discussing, citizens were discussing, and even nobles were discussing.

When the nobles and traditionalist clerics discovered that they could not break the theory of freedom, they had to pinch their noses and continue to deduce from freedom.

The topic of debate gradually changed from the original "Can people be slaves" to "If people's actions are the will of the Holy Father, then is random killing also the will of the Holy Father?"

On this question, the November *Truth Daily* published a new article to explain.

This article was written by the Bicornus, who had not appeared for a long time, and was titled "Reflections on Blue Blood - How to Explain the Holy Father's Omnipotence and All-Goodness?"

This time, Moudier couldn't even buy the latest issue of the *Truth Daily* because it was snatched up by others.

He had to go to the Hundred Flower Cathedral for training and borrow the latest *Truth Daily* from a colleague to read.

Although the Hundred Flower Cathedral had lit the fireplace and was as warm as spring, Moudier's hands couldn't help but tremble as he read.

Based on the attack on "the price of freedom is sin" triggered by "freedom," he thought that the Bicornus would use "sin is God's test" or to explain suffering and sin.

But he never expected that the Bicornus would actively criticize this claim and propose a brand-new concept.

Sin itself is a betrayal of God's will, not a manifestation of God's will.

This seemed to violate the Holy Father's omniscience, but through the problem of theodicy of the blue blood orphans, the Bicornus proposed - omniscience does not equal total control, allowing sin does not equal supporting sin.

Through free will, humans have the ability to make real choices between sin and good, thereby demonstrating the divinity that humans are endowed with by God.

Although sin exists temporarily, the Holy Father's ultimate plan is to allow humanity to return to good through free will, and this is great good.

Instantly, all the attacks on "the contradiction between omniscience, omnipotence, and all-goodness," "freedom harms morality," and "freedom causes sin" were solved.

But this wasn't the reason why Moudier's hands were shaking. The real reason his hands were shaking was that "people are born free" was just a rebuttal to the church's theism, and the discussion on theodicy in the new issue of the *Truth Daily* was a solid argument—

It was reconstructing the worldview of the Messala religion!