Chapter 1095: Chapter 1034: Faith Composed of Reason and Experience
Complete silence.
No one spoke, as the sunlight moved across the ground, it was as if there were rustling sounds.
First, the Bolon Cathedral became quiet, followed by the outside of the church.
The supernatural power that Miseria Church is most proud of can provide infinite sanctity for the church.
But the opposing demons also possess supernatural powers, capable of deceiving people in scriptures, during angel descents, and in divine arts.
If demons can deceive human senses and reason, then the church’s proclaimed "divine revelation" might all be illusions fabricated by demons.
You can issue revelations, and I can fake revelations.
The Divine Essence Sect’s reliance on the "certainty of revelation" completely collapses in the face of demons’ universal skepticism.
People can no longer assert the authenticity of something just based on "this is divine revelation," because revelation itself could be a product of deception.
Looking around the Great Cathedral, at those faces that are either dazed, shocked, fainting, or pondering.
Horn knew that he had fiercely stabbed into the root of the church’s illness.
In fact, compared to the religion from Horn’s hometown, the religion in this world is escorted by extraordinary power, and its ideological armor is unusually thin.
Precisely because supernatural power truly exists, the church’s orthodoxy is absurdly high, and it has lost external pressure instead.
Several wars, a massive dispersion of books, and the nobles filling the church have allowed the church’s cultural level to achieve educational inflation over a millennium.
The Miseria Church, when faced with issues, often doesn’t adopt edits to ideas or internal reform to resolve them.
Rather, it forcibly suppresses issues through extraordinary means.
Behind the seemingly glamorous curtains, piles of filth like mountains have long accumulated.
When Horn cut that seemingly indestructible hemp rope that held up the curtain, they finally saw the filth behind the curtain.
Blue-blooded wine, two Thousand River Valley wars, three emperors aloft, two wars at the windmill grounds, the fall of Holy Seat City, the Pope’s suicide...
Countless events in the prelude, even older cases accumulated, eventually erupted in this Great Duke meeting.
Achieving effects even better than Horn’s expectations.
Just from Horn’s speech, a large number of monks with vested interests in the Divine Essence Sect experienced a wavering of faith.
Their posterior almost couldn’t control their brains, which speaks to the magnitude of this shock.
Is revelation really from the Holy Father? Why are various loopholes in the world unaddressed?
Is the witch really a witch? Why did the Holy Alliance represented by the witch crush the Leia represented by the church?
Is holy water truly holy water? Or is it, as some wizards say, divine art is actually just another form of magic?
Are everything before their eyes illusions or reality?
Even to say, if they can’t independently awaken from this illusion, then everything done within this illusion is futile?
If everything could be fake, then everything could be meaningless.
The horrifying aspect is, "am I real?" Or, "am I also just a part of the illusion fabricated by demons?"
The monks thought more and more, getting increasingly uneasy and terrified, yet they couldn’t stop thinking!
Now it seems, the fakeness of "Saint Rania’s Life" appears even more real.
Even disproving "Saint Rania’s Life" gives them a comforting sense of truth.
Enormous shock gives monks enormous impact.
"Oh my God." Leia’s lower lip trembled, taking a long time to speak a sentence that felt vague and uncertain.
Compared to Leia, Swenson was considerably calmer, as he looked at the young man standing in the center of the meeting hall, yet his hand was caressing the cross.
He suddenly recalled a dispute a month ago in the green house with Leia.
Leia considered it a feast to divide speaking rights, while Swenson thought they should unite externally before dividing speaking rights.
But their shared view was, perhaps Horn was no less in theological and philosophical levels, but the Holy Alliance’s theology debate was weak.
Yet today, even this first day of the Great Duke meeting already exploded beyond measure.
"Saint Rania’s Life" exploded; it’s fake.
Even "Revelation Theory" exploded; it’s unreliable.
A shovel dug out the roots of the church’s existence, a shovel dug out the roots of absolute faith.
Academia believed theology had developed to its extreme, already indestructible.
As a result, the Holy Alliance delivered a sweeping kick, didn’t even use much effort, and this lofty building collapsed lightly.
Grandiva kept swallowing, realizing he could produce so much saliva in such a short time.
Looking at Archbishop Cambert, seated motionless, eyes closed, brows furrowed, yet still unmoving.
Most shocking was Xie Li; could it be, Puliano truly committed suicide?
"Your Majesty Horn." Quivarin raised his head for the first time, directly facing this young man.
"Since you raised this question, there should be an answer, right?"
"Yes, of course, there is."
As Horn’s voice rang out, all monks, as if grasping a lifeline, looked up.
Despair and great confusion among monks hoped, even pleaded, looking at Horn.
He dismantled the crumbling building of Miseria Church, he should at least return a settlement house, right?
Horn glanced around: "If there truly is this demon, even if it can deceive all senses and thoughts..."
Standing at the center of the church, the young pope raised his index finger high.
"But there is one thing the demon cannot deceive!"
From a small piece of transparent glass in the very center of the mosaic window, a ray of sunlight happened to illuminate Horn’s fingertip.
"That is the very fact of ’I suspect I am being deceived’! It must be true!
To put it simply, what I realize may be false, but the activity of ’realization’ itself is real.
The devil can manipulate and alter the content of thoughts, but cannot manipulate or alter the activity of thinking itself."
It’s like a beam of light shining on an animal, casting a shadow on the wall.
To the animal, it doesn’t know what it looks like, because the shadow can take various forms depending on the angle and distance.
But it knows it exists because there’s a shadow on the wall.
Light is the devil’s deception, the animal is human, and the shadow itself is thought.
As if a thunderbolt sounded beside the ear, the dark clouds that enveloped Miseria’s head quickly dispersed.
Indeed, doubt exists in reality.
As long as they doubt their thoughts, they can prove their most fundamental existence.
Because no thoughts can exist independently of the thinker, the mere existence of a thinking subject is already moving enough.
Watching the gradually rising tide of the crowd, Roqueroix anxiously looked left and right, yelling at the remaining six debaters: "Are we just going to watch?"
"You have a mouth and legs, go over and argue with him."
"..."
"Ah!" Suddenly one of the debaters slapped his forehead, "So that’s it!"
Roqueroix immediately leaned over to him, grasping his wrist: "Do you have an idea?"
"Yes, you see, starting from doubt, ignoring authority and revelation, through logical deduction and inductive reasoning, it has been proven that ’Saint Rania’s Life’ is false.
It’s equivalent to proving that ’Saint Rania’s Life is false’ is true, and not the devil’s deceit.
Doubt is just the starting point!"
"..." Roqueroix stared at him in bewilderment, his anger rising but dissipating just as quickly.
At this point, the rhythm has completely been taken away by Horn, and no one can stop it.
Standing in the center of the oval debate arena, Horn’s voice mingled with the rustling sound of pages turning.
"Well, we know doubt is real, and starting from doubt, we can move toward reason, the intuitive and logical part of thinking.
Then, we use doubt and reason to deduce and infer the Holy Father.
When everything else is deception, only doubt and reason are real.
Then this truth must be attributed to the Holy Father, as it is a truth even the devil cannot deceive!"
Roqueroix’s vision went dark, which proved that selfhood exists within humans, and the previous argument no longer held.
"On the basis of this truth, we backtrack to prove the existence of the Holy Father.
If the Holy Father governs the world through non-sustained supernatural interventions, it would obviously fall prey to the devil, because it’s an area reason can’t reach.
Therefore, the Holy Father must govern the world through sustained natural laws, which is an area reachable by reason.
What does sustained mean? It means unchanged since ancient times, even since the creation, the whole world is a revelation.
When we use reason to continuously verify and understand natural rules, we are gaining faith and new doctrines.
The more we understand this world, the closer we get to the Holy Father.
Reason and experience shouldn’t yield to faith; rather, reason and experience should compose faith!"
Cambertelle tightened his grip on the chair’s armrest, his fingertips turning purple, which already explained the theory of "the Holy Father creates nature and lets it be."
It’s equivalent to proving limited epistemology.
So far, it has proven limited epistemology in worldview, the Holy Father doesn’t intervene, and selfhood exists in humans, thus priests should pursue worldly happiness in life-view.
Built on these two, value view has already emerged.
Everyone is a monk; therefore, everyone should pursue faith, but this time the pursuit of faith isn’t through donating to cathedrals or praying day and night.
Instead, it’s practicing the Holy Father’s natural rules, understanding the Holy Father’s natural rules.
Isn’t this Horn’s "Divine Work Theory"?
Labor is the process of practicing natural rules, research is the process of understanding natural rules.
Therefore, under the doctrines of the Holy Sect, the pursuit of efficient labor and reliable research... this is where human value lies.
Under this premise, suppressing labor and research, or lowering believers’ understanding of the Holy Father’s path, isn’t that the devil?
What should they do about these devils? The Holy Sect also has a doctrine—"Holy War" and "Judgment"!
It’s done, the theoretical loop is closed, everything is connected.
In these mere eight years, they’ve really managed to piece together this incoherent Holy Sect narrative.
The Holy Alliance not only completed the deconstruction of the Divine Essence Sect, but even built a preliminary structure on the ruins!
This will inevitably lead to a massive collapse of faith among priests, throwing themselves into the embrace of the Holy Sect.
Horn must be stopped; before he completes the construction, his preaching must be halted.
Honestly, Cambertelle thought of using force but didn’t expect it to be necessary to notify Clove Corridor for force on the first day of it.
But he has to think about how exactly to stop Horn’s preaching...
Before Cambertelle could make up his mind, he heard a "dong!" sound.
"Which monk fell?"
"No, it seems to be the Pope!"
"Which Pope?"
"His Majesty Grandiva!"
"Oh no, His Majesty Grandiva has fainted, quickly call a physician!"
