D&D 5E Clerics and Wisdom

[mrpopstar]

It makes sense if you assume an animistic universe were everything has a spirit (or genius) which is its animating principle. A magical world is not a world of dead physical laws, but a world of aware spirits. Those spirits obey the law which governs them, but can be commanded to act in extraordinary ways by someone with the authority to do so.

Why would I assume such a thing if the game doesn't describe its universe in this way?

For that matter, I certainly don't think it was Einlanzer's intent to pose an argument by proxy either. I just think that Einlanzer, like pretty much everyone, didn't consider his own biases when posing the argument.

Perhaps Einlanzer0 also didn't consider the inclination of others to seek bias solely for the purpose of counterargument, leverage, and agenda.



I'm kidding, but this whole thing has veered into the realm of academia and justice for the "other." -- It's a game, kids. Let's enjoy it!

 

[Tectuktitlay]

You just did it right there, when you separated out the concept of religious faith and equated it with blind faith.

No, I quite purposefully clarified that it is sometimes also called blind faith. Generally by those without that form of faith. A statement that is true, as the use of that term is one that is used to separate religious faith from generic faith, just like preceding "theory" with "scientific" accomplishes.

No it doesn't. I personally believe in God for the same reason I believe in gravity.

Yeah, but the problem here is you don't understand it. You don't personally experience it; so you other it. No one with real Faith speaks of it as blind faith.

Yes, it actually does. You personally belief in God, that's wonderful. Really, rock on, I have zero problems with your beliefs. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Do you have verifiable, falsifiable, testable evidence for your God? Would you believe in gravity if all you had to go on was anecdote, or personal experiences? Not believing that you will fall to the ground if above it, a generic use of the term gravity, but the actual scientific theory of gravity? Because there is a difference between the two.

There is, in fact, a definitional difference between the generic term faith, and spiritual faith, and the latter explicitly is the "firm belief in something for which there is no proof", or "based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof". That's the actual definition, right out of Merriam's or Oxford, respectively.

And look, see, the thing is...it's ok to have spiritual faith, and I am in no way, shape, or form saying anyone with spiritual faith is wrong to have that form of faith.

Also, you're doing it again. Painting with broad strokes and assuming. Guess what? I was raised deeply religious, and had religious faith for much of the earlier part of my life. I grew into losing that faith, that doesn't mean I don't quite clearly remember exactly how it felt and what I thought regarding spiritual faith when I was younger. I do.

And yes, you're right people with spiritual faith don't generally refer to it as blind faith. So? People with a scientific background also don't generally refer to a theory as they mean it as a scientific theory, because it's understood what kind of theory they mean when speaking to other scientists. But to people outside that world, it is helpful to clarify by preceding it with "scientific". That isn't othering, either.

Sorry, this is not productive. I am done here, this is being pushed off-topic too much, and seeing straw men built up and knocked down, or equivocation of terms being continued when I am explicitly defining terms to avoid that exact occurrence, is overly prevalent.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

There is a profound difference between being convinced of the truth of a statement based on the past intellectual pursuits of others, versus believing it to be incontrovertibly true due to an authority laying it out.

Isn't that just a matter of deciding which authority you are choosing to accept.

You get religious scholars debating points of doctrine just as scientists debate theories. You won't tend to get an astrophysicist challenging the theory of Evolution without extraordinary evidence however: she has faith that the scientists in that field have acted according to scientific dogma and thus regards them as the authority on the subject.

 

[Celebrim]

Would you believe in gravity if all you had to go on was anecdote, or personal experiences?

Yes, actually I would; wouldn't you?

Not believing that you will fall to the ground if above it, a generic use of the term gravity, but the actual scientific theory of gravity? Because there is a difference between the two.

The difference between gravity and the scientific theory of gravity is that one is a description of the other. It's possible that without Isaac Newton's insights, I might not be able to describe all the particulars of gravity accurately; but that wouldn't stop me from believing in gravity.

In any event, as I said, this argument is pointless. I can read the dictionary just as well as you; and you have introduced things that the dictionary doesn't say, but there is no point in me pointing out the particulars of that because I'm kicking up against your dogmatic beliefs.

It's been clear to me from the very beginning what your religious beliefs were, because you made that conception of what religion is the proof that the designers of D&D got religion wrong. I'm not going to use this forum to try to persuade you out of those convictions, but I do object to claiming that the design of the D&D cleric is wrong because of your personal beliefs regarding religion. It would be as ridiculous as insisting that D&D cosmologies be monotheistic, or insisting that clerics perform miracles and not cast spells, and having as evidence your own beliefs about how the real world works. You are of course free to make your own fantasy cosmology conform to your own real world beliefs if that is the only thing you are comfortable with, but if you are going to claim you are doing that because of facts rather than opinions, I'm free to point out how the whole thing depends on a proxy argument regarding what is true about the real world.

 

[Azzy]

Yes, but the archetypal "holy person" is not really what the cleric class represents in D&D. They represent something more akin to crusader priests.

Going back to the original D&D, in which the cleric is one of the three initial classes, the cleric is the only class that was representative of the holy man. Moreover, the 1e AD&D PHB says only this, "This class of character bears a certain resemblance to religious orders of knighthood of medieval times." Note "resemblance"—not the be-all-end-all of the class. Especially given that miracles (spells) have been the purview of the mystic holy man (wise women, hermits, saints, prophets, etc), not religious knights.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Azzy]

Not only that, but the archetypal holy person is perceived as being wise, insightful, enlightened, and imbued with the understanding of divine workings, but not necessarily actually possessing any of those qualities.

I think you might be misunderstanding something, archetypes are the embodiment of an idea. An archetypal holy man IS possessing of those things because that's what the archetype entails. You may perceive an example of an archetype as not possessing those traits, but that's irrelevant to the actual archetype itself.

 

[Celebrim]

Why would I assume such a thing if the game doesn't describe its universe in this way?

Because you had studied magic and systems of magical belief and assumed that in a world were magic was real that the world conformed to the world described by people who really believed in magic.

But in point of fact, I don't think D&D has ever spent much time describing how magic actually works in detail. You are free to come up with your own details about how and why magic in D&D works the way it does. I was simply describing what I think the coherent reasoning behind Sorcerer's depending on Charisma possibly could be, based on my study of ancient belief. And for all I know, the designers of the Sorcerer had access to the same information and used the same logic to justify the design.

Perhaps Einlanzer0 also didn't consider the inclination of others to seek bias solely for the purpose of counterargument, leverage, and agenda.

Perhaps. I've been known to argue for the sake of argument, and I certainly do have an agenda in the argument. But first, everyone is biased, so it requires no special proof to assume bias. And second, I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what a person's biases are.

I'm kidding, but this whole thing has veered into the realm of academia and justice for the "other." -- It's a game, kids. Let's enjoy it!

In my opinion, the productive approach to this discussion would have been to not advance the idea that there was one right approach to fantasy religion, but instead exploring the implications of what it meant to define clerics primarily by wisdom or primarily by charisma actually were. For example, if you define clerics primarily by charisma, then it could mean that clerics can be and often are shysters, tricking and cajoling deities into doing their will, and who gain power by gaining control over others. And that would be fine and even interesting. Instead the OP wanted to make the argument that clerics should be defined primarily by charisma, because real world clerics can be and often are shysters, tricking and cajoling deities into doing their will, and who gain power by gaining control over others, and so forth.

And it should be immediately obvious that approaching the subject in that manner isn't particularly productive. In fact, when I found this thread and started reading through it, I was surprised by the end of the first page that it hadn't been moderated already. For example, consider the OP's assertion that he didn't bring real world religion into this, and then read post #19 where he explicitly asserts he is right because this is the way real world religion actually works (and piles on a few negative stereotypes for good measure).

tl;dr: It is a game. It doesn't have to follow your religious beliefs.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

False. You can easily infer that one's ability to effectively proselytize is the most likely factor in determining how much power a god is willing to entrust them with. This is exactly why Charisma (generally) makes more sense than Wisdom, though it's certainly possible there would be some exceptions.

You are choosing to infer something that you personally find self-evident, but many people do not. As has been pointed out a couple of times, there is no particular reason why a cleric should be proselytizing (that is what priests are for), or why their ability to bring in converts makes them more trusted to use divine power responsibly.

There are a few cases (such as where godly power is derived from number of worshippers) where ability to proselytize is important. That is a different case from the custody of a god's divine power however. You seem to have an issue with the relationship between a priest's popularity and position within a church, and the power of a cleric's spells.
Bear in mind that many priests within a D&D church aren't clerics. They aren't even spellcasters. It doesn't mean that the church and god doesn't value them - just that they don't have the mandate for channelling the god's power as spells.

Wisdom has just become a bucket that anything associated with clerics, druids, rangers or monks gets shoved in, which is why it has such an eclectic collection of skills. I am surprised they didn't chuck knowledge religion in there too. It does kind of seem like clerics shouldn't have a distinct casting stat, and maybe neither should other classes. Shouldn't an innate understanding of magic be high wisdom? I could see any variety of spellcaster using it. Similarly an encyclopedic knowledge of one's religion would be int, and I could see a cleric deriving power from that. Or from demagoguery. Or from a direct act of will.

Knowledge: Religion would be knowing a lot about the history, practices, enemies of many different faiths, with a bit of planar lore thrown in as well. Being good at knowing that seems like something Intelligence would determine. Being good at that doesn't strike me as something that would determine the power behind your god's spells that you channel though.

As to perceiving things, I generally look upon it as wisdom being not the ability to see something, but the ability to recognise something that you do see as amiss or worthy of notice and attention.

That was the same impression I got, a rather backhanded way of taking a jab at real-world religion, especially when we have given many examples of how your argument falls apart realistically. Your consistent use of opposing "dogmatic" with "wisdom" is evidence. You assume only the secularist negative connotations of the word, when many religious people see wisdom in dogma. (Cf. C.S. Lewis, Tolkein, Dorothy Sayers, etc.)

So, yeah, forgive me if we do get a bit defensive, because it was definitely in there.

There were a bunch of logical leaps and fallacies, that may be due to a misunderstanding of the popular view of RL religion compared to the D&D religions. However that doesn't mean that it was the OP's intention to start a debate regarding actual RL beliefs. Bear in mind that these are international boards, and so people might use emotionally-loaded terms without fully understanding their effect.
If nothing else, be charitable, and assume that the post was made in good faith, and treat it as such.

 

[Oofta]

I think in the last 40 years or so, we've gone well past the point where every cleric - PC or NPC - was simply Bishop Turpin with side orders of Van Helsing and Moses. Even the illustration of what it means to be a cleric in the 1e AD&D PH, hinted the class was meant to serve or coming to serve a broader idea than its original conception. It's no longer appropriate to limit the notion of cleric to just plate wearing, mace wielding, ecclesiastical warriors.

I agree that a cleric may or may not be a heavily armored dude swinging a mace. However, I still view them as warriors for their cause, not proselytizers.

A Cleric's job is to enforce/further the will of their deity, through force if necessary. As the PHB says "Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods' will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms."

A priest may not be a cleric, a cleric may never counsel parishioners and therefore may not have any need for a high charisma.

My only other point was that both clerics and paladins are holy warriors, it's just whether or not they focus on magic or might of arms to further their cause.