By The Book: New Religions, Schisms and Bigotry

[Raven Crowking]

In 3rd Edition, anyway, clerics don't need the permission of their gods to steal...erm, use....divine magic, so a heretic still gets spells. The "simple check" is true in 1e and 2e, but not in 3e.

RC

 

[Corsair]

Eberron religion handles this nicely.

 

[pawsplay]

In 3rd Edition, anyway, clerics don't need the permission of their gods to steal...erm, use....divine magic, so a heretic still gets spells. The "simple check" is true in 1e and 2e, but not in 3e.

RC

Even in 1e or 2e, you would have to be at least 5th level to know.

 

[pawsplay]

If you truly don't need worshippers, the only reason you may be empowering them is to encourage them (and others) to believe exactly as you do (out of a need for compansionship, ego, whatever). In which case, every minor deviation may be significant, and at the very least is contrary to your goals.

That would really depend on your ideals. Ideals would be the proper word; if you have goals, we return to practical considerations. If you have simply ideals, as I said, minor deviations might not matter. For such a deity, I'm not sure if you could even discuss something like "dogma," as your doctrine would essentially be your portfolio.

A deity who insisted on extremely rigid adherence to some kind of handbook sounds like the individual preference of a peculier deity, and not at all common for reasons I've touched on above. If a deity wants any clerics at all casting spells, there will be numerous reasons to allow some wiggle room.

If a Sun deity exhorts their worshippers to "abhor darkness," they're not going to strip a rogue/cleric infiltrator of his powers just to be funny, just because he's been working nights lately. That would suppose the deity is both

a) very actively involved with his clerics, and
b) largely unconcerned with their welfare or success

 

[Celebrim]

That would really depend on your ideals. Ideals would be the proper word; if you have goals, we return to practical considerations. If you have simply ideals, as I said, minor deviations might not matter.

This is far to homocentric for my taste. What if you are ideas? What if you are literally made of some idea? What if you are the idealized embodiment of a particular idea? In this case, ideas that are contrary to your being might be literally painful and abhorent to you. You might not be able to abide in another idea any more than you are I could abide in anti-matter.

For such a deity, I'm not sure if you could even discuss something like "dogma," as your doctrine would essentially be your portfolio.

What I'm suggesting is something closer to the deity essentially being his doctrine, and that his portofolio arises because, Platonic like, the things of this world are reflections of the more substantial world of ideas.

A deity who insisted on extremely rigid adherence to some kind of handbook sounds like the individual preference of a peculier deity...

Or, it might be fundamental to the nature of being a diety.

...and not at all common for reasons I've touched on above. If a deity wants any clerics at all casting spells, there will be numerous reasons to allow some wiggle room.

Wiggle room, sure. Presumably no mere mortal (being composed of only ordinary matter) can possibly be as righteous (or unrighteous) as a diety who is literally made of the stuff ethics (or vice) is made of. But wiggle room does not necessarily imply theologically in error. As anyone that has ever painted a house knows, white actually encompasses a fairly broad selection of shades, but it never means red, black, green, blue, or whatever.

If a Sun deity exhorts their worshippers to "abhor darkness," they're not going to strip a rogue/cleric infiltrator of his powers just to be funny, just because he's been working nights lately. That would suppose the deity is both

a) very actively involved with his clerics, and
b) largely unconcerned with their welfare or success

It would suppose that 'success' means anything the same to the diety that it does to you.

 

[Piratecat]

And I'd be courious what the heck that particular diety was thinking. Are the gods normally that crazy in your campaign world?

Short version: It was part of a plot by the bad guys to distract the good guys while the bad guys did something worse. He was brought back as a feint by the Goddess of Undeath, and divinations about him were being rerouted to her instead. This obviously created huge ripples in the campaign world when the PCs discovered and revealed the truth. Not every PC can say that they sort of accidentally got a God killed.

Other methods for schisms are with racial churches for a deity - both dwarves and elves might worship the same god of the earth, with very different rituals and holy books, and each might declare the other heretics. Same thing across country lines.

 

[pawsplay]

Or, it might be fundamental to the nature of being a diety.

Which means very impersonal deities. If a deity's reaction to theology is not based on its personality, but on some set of cosmic principles... where do those come from? If they are specific to a particular deity and not imposed by some external rule, doesn't that amount to having personal interests again? If not, doesn't that imply some kind of universal power of thought which gives deities their divine laws?

I could see the argument that in a specific campaign, it might be fundamental to being a Lawful deity. I cannot see that sensibly applying to Chaotic deities, or for that matter, Neutral Good ones.

Divine law might be very firm, but it should be purposeful. If divine laws exist solely to be enforced, and particularly if you have your choice of deity, but the deity is not interested in the results of the laws being enforced, then you have created a situation where the deities of your campaign are fundamentally arbitrary.

If the deities act in a consistent but arbitrary fashion, what prevents them from acting in an inconsistent but arbitrary fashion?

 

[Celebrim]

Short version: It was part of a plot by the bad guys to distract the good guys while the bad guys did something worse. He was brought back as a feint by the Goddess of Undeath...

Ahh... good. I'm glad to see my instinctual rejection of that sort of nonsense was the theologically correct one.

Other methods for schisms are with racial churches for a deity - both dwarves and elves might worship the same god of the earth, with very different rituals and holy books, and each might declare the other heretics. Same thing across country lines.

We seem to be on the same page then.

 

[Celebrim]

Which means very impersonal deities...If the deities act in a consistent but arbitrary fashion, what prevents them from acting in an inconsistent but arbitrary fashion?

First of all, given that most stories about deities tend to portray them in relatively impersonal fashions and that the deities in those stories often seem to act in ways that seem arbitrary, I don't find either of those critiques particularly compelling. I would say that if deities are inscrutable, then I'm being truer to the source material than if they were presented as the contrary.

If a deity's reaction to theology is not based on its personality...

Or rather, I'm suggesting a dieties personality may rest on a set of cosmic principles. Assuming we accept dieties to begin with, that doesn't sound very far fetched. If a diety is made of love, that is a diety literally is Love (or even made of the stuff that love is made of), we expect the anthromorphic personification of that deity to express the personality we associate with people who are loving or who are expressing the sort of love that the diety represents/is.

but on some set of cosmic principles... where do those come from?

That is a very good question. It is unfortunately not one which most people these days are taught to ask, and if they were we'd have far less stupidity and maybe a great deal more empathy in this world. Alas, few students manage to encounter Descartes or Aquinas even in college (or well, much of anything that would be useful to them), and I'm afraid Enworld's guidelines prevent me from delving into the possible answers to that question in much depth. Suffice to say that neither the cosmic principle nor the diety need necessarily preexist the other one.

If they are specific to a particular deity and not imposed by some external rule, doesn't that amount to having personal interests again?

I'm not sure I understand the question. At least how you worded it, I don't see the logical mutual exclusion you seem to be arguing for.

If not, doesn't that imply some kind of universal power of thought which gives deities their divine laws?

Again, I'm not sure I understand the question.

I could see the argument that in a specific campaign...

I greatly beginning to feel that all arguments ought to be prefaced, 'In my specific campaign...' I've been involved in alot of discussion lately where the underlying assumption was, 'This is the way things work normally'. When you get to the level of cosmology, I'm not sure that there is any such thing as 'normal assumptions'.

it might be fundamental to being a Lawful deity. I cannot see that sensibly applying to Chaotic deities, or for that matter, Neutral Good ones.

I don't see why not. Chaos and Good are ideas as surely as Law is. Meaninglessness and meaningfulness, existence and non-existence are ideas. If they are ideas, and if we presume a universe where ideas can be embodied, then its reasonable to presume that the embodiments will display personalities in line with the ideas that they incarnate. Assuming that these ideas and incarnations can exist quite comfortably independent of our belief in them, there is no reason to believe that any diety except possibly an incarnation of deception would encourage followers to believe except as the diety themself believes/exists/embodies merely to further what are in all likelihood (to the diety) wholly spurious physical goals. Maybe they would, but I don't see how it can be taken for granted, especially since just off the top of my head, all the arguments for a diety encouraging/tolerating diversity of opinion boil down to 'the diety needs the worshipers for something'.

 

[Piratecat]

Ahh... good. I'm glad to see my instinctual rejection of that sort of nonsense was the theologically correct one.

Yup. The tricky thing was that despite his provenance, he was the saint, and he was acting in the interest of the church. It's tricky moral ground; do you act out against a rightful and properly ordained superior when you suspect that his very existence is anathema, but are unable to prove it?

In this case, the PC paladin rejected the Saint's temporal authority while reaffirming his own faith in the God they shared. They exiled the PC instead of imprisoning him for insubordination, which gave him the opportunity to research the truth.