How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“For being Word of the Father, and above all, He alone of natural fitness was both able to recreate everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the Father.”
Athanasius, On the Incarnation 7.5 (trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
Only the Maker Remakes
ChristologyArgument · power 78 · 100% accurateIn the gameA creature cannot re-create a creation — it can only be part of one. So whoever remade the world was not made. Athanasius spent forty-five years and five exiles refusing to move off this.
Strong against
×2Changeable by Naturean argument · why?
A changeable creature could not remake creation; it would need saving itself. The Son who saves the world is its unchanging Maker.
×2Exalted Creaturean argument · why?
Only the one who made the world can remake it. If the Son remakes creation, he cannot be the first of the creatures. He is their Maker.
×2God by Gracean argument · why?
A title cannot remake the world. Only the Creator can do that, so the Son must be God by nature, not by courtesy.
×2The Thaliaan argument · why?
If the Son had a beginning, he is a creature, and a creature cannot remake creation. The one who saves the world must be the one who made it, so there was never a time when he was not.
“the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Father to have wrought its salvation in Him by Whose means He made it.”
Athanasius, On the Incarnation 1.4 (trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
Word Made Flesh
ChristologyArgument · power 70 · 100% accurateIn the gameFrom Athanasius: only the Creator can recreate.
Strong against
×4One Nature After the Unionan argument · why?
It holds the flesh in place — which is the one thing his union cannot do.
×4The Ugly Broad Ditchan argument · why?
Lessing’s ditch says history can never carry necessary truth. The claim on the table is that it did, once, on purpose — the Word made flesh, a fact about a Tuesday.
×3The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?
Hick says the faiths are level roads to one summit. Athanasius answers with a fact and not a view: God himself became a man. That cannot be one road among several, because it is not a road at all. It is an arrival.
×2Changeable by Naturean argument · why?
The Word who became flesh is the Word who made the world. He was truly tempted, but he was never a creature who might have gone the other way.
×2Devout Man Onlyan argument · why?
A devout man can teach, but he cannot remake the world. The Word who made creation became flesh to renew it, and that is why he is worshipped.
×2Exalted Creaturean argument · why?
Athanasius’ answer: only the one who made the world can remake it. A creature, however high, cannot save creation, because it is part of creation.
×2God by Gracean argument · why?
Athanasius says the Word who renews creation is the same Word who made it. That is who the Son is, not a title he was lent.
×2The Thaliaan argument · why?
The Word who became flesh is the Word through whom everything was made, time included. The one who made time did not begin within it.
×2The True Word: On the Godsan argument · why?
The Word who came down is the Word who made the world. Coming into his own creation does not change the Creator.
×2Thirty Aeonsan argument · why?
The thirty levels exist to keep God away from matter. John 1 answers that he came down all of them himself — the Word, made flesh.
“These are fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take ought from these.”
Athanasius, 39th Festal Letter (367), trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain.public domain
Fountains of Salvation
BibleArgument · power 92 · 100% accurateIn the gameEaster 367. The bishop of Alexandria lists the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, in the order the church still has them, and then draws the line around them out loud — the first surviving time anyone does.
Strong against
×4Another Testamentan argument · why?
Athanasius listed the books of the New Testament in 367 and drew the line around them himself: let no man add to these, neither let him take anything from these!
×4The Book of Mormona book · why?
Athanasius listed the books of the New Testament in 367 and drew the line around them himself: let no man add to these, neither let him take anything from these!
×2The Rochester Rappingsan argument · why?
If the dead could add to what God has said, the Bible would never be finished. Athanasius drew the line in 367, and nobody on the other side of the grave was consulted!
“Which is easier, to tell the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”
Mark 2:9–11 (WEB).
Authority to Forgive
ChristologyArgument · power 90 · 100% accurateIn the gameJefferson’s razor can cut Jesus’ claim off the page, but not out of the scene. Jesus proves his authority to forgive sins by telling a paralysed man to pick up his mat and walk home. The ethics and the claim come together.
Strong against
×3The Razored Biblean argument · why?
The razor cannot separate what it claims to: the very sentence that heals the paralytic is the sentence that claims the authority to forgive him. Cut one and the other goes with it.
“For it is impossible for them to exist together, because they are mutually destructive.”
Athanasius, Contra Gentes 6–7 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain) — on the dualists’ two contrary principles. He also presses the "third nature dividing them" horn.public domain
Two Gods Cancel Out
RationalityArgument · power 66 · 100% accurateIn the gameSet a good god and an evil god side by side as equals and each one’s existence defeats the other’s will. Neither ends up almighty, and the whole arrangement falls over.
Strong against
×2The Two Kingdomsan argument · why?
Athanasius’ logic: two equal gods, one good and one evil, would each block the other. Neither would be almighty, so neither would be God.
“For Christ’s enemies, being ignorant of this scope, have wandered from the way of truth, and have stumbled on a stone of stumbling, thinking otherwise than they should think.”
Athanasius, Against the Arians III.28 (trans. Newman & Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
The Scope of Scripture
ExegesisArgument · power 84 · 100% accurateIn the gameA verse quoted against you is being read without the thing the whole book is doing. Ask what the passage is FOR before arguing about what it says, and half the proof-texts stop working.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“it was His will that the Summary of our faith should have the same bearing, in bidding us be baptized, not into the name of Unoriginate and originate, nor into the name of Creator and creature, but into the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
Athanasius, Against the Arians I.34 (trans. Newman & Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
Not Into Creator and Creature
Theology ProperArgument · power 88 · 100% accurateIn the gameWhen the argument is about a word, ask what the church actually DOES. Nobody was ever baptised into the name of the Unoriginate and the originate; the rite settles the question the term was invented to blur.
“But see! you still do not believe and are seeking for arguments. We however make our proof ‘not in the persuasive words of Greek wisdom’ as our teacher has it, but we persuade by the faith which manifestly precedes argumentative proof.”
Athanasius, Life of Antony 80 (trans. Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
Not in Persuasive Words
FaithArgument · power 86 · 95% accurateIn the gameAntony to the philosophers who had come out to the desert for a debate: you want an argument, and I will give you a demonstration instead. Then he asked them to try their own on the men who had been brought to him.
“they were caught whispering to each other and winking with their eyes, that ‘like,’ and ‘always,’ and ‘power,’ and ‘in Him,’ were, as before, common to us and the Son, and that it was no difficulty to agree to these.”
Athanasius, De Decretis (Defence of the Nicene Definition) 20 (trans. Newman & Robertson, NPNF² 4, public domain).public domain
Whispering and Winking
PresuppositionArgument · power 96 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe Arians agreed to every phrase, because every phrase could also be said of an ordinary man. So the council looked for a word they could not sign. The words had stopped meaning anything.
