Compel Them to Come In

A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14:23 (1686–88)

Pierre Bayle, a Huguenot refugee at Rotterdam

An answer written from safety, about a cost the author had just finished paying.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 304
Stat total: 344

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina90

Contend92

Defend82

Popularity80

Total344

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 90

Four parts, taking Luke 14:23 apart clause by clause rather than answering the persecutors point for point.

Contend 92

The reductio is the whole weapon: if "compel" licenses force for the sake of truth, it licenses force for every sincere believer on every side, which is no rule at all.

Defend 82

Written from Rotterdam, out of reach — the one advantage a refugee has over the men he is answering.

Popularity 80

Published within a few years of the Revocation, while the wound was still fresh rather than safely historical.

Cited for this book

Pierre Bayle wrote this in exile in Rotterdam in 1686–88. His brother Jacob, a Reformed pastor, had been arrested in France in his place and died in prison. The book answers Augustine’s letter that first used compel them to come in as a policy. Bayle argued that no reading of a verse can be right if it makes God command injustice.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
22	Each Party’s Own Religion	Rationality	Argument	82	100%	15
23	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
30	Plunged Into a Greater Sin	Rationality	Argument	100	100%	10
50	Speak French	History	Status	—	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

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.

“It’s plain then, that Conscience wou’d apply the Command of God, for the establishing the Truth, to each Party’s own Religion.”
Pierre Bayle, A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14:23, Part I, Ch. VIII (trans. anonymous, London, 1708, public domain).public domain

Each Party’s Own Religion

RationalityArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameBayle’s key argument. If compel them to come in allows force for the sake of truth, it allows force for anyone sincerely sure they have the truth, and that is every persecutor on every side. So the verse cannot mean that.

“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.

Affirm

Status

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.

“...if they extort Subscriptions from them by a dread of Death, they constrain them to deny with their Mouth, what their Heart adores as Truth; which is plunging them into much a greater Sin than their Error.”
Pierre Bayle, A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14:23, Part III (trans. anonymous, London, 1708, public domain).public domain

Plunged Into a Greater Sin

RationalityArgument · power 100 · 100% accurate

In the gameBayle’s answer to compel them to come in, aimed at Augustine’s Letter 93. A forced signature does not save anyone. It teaches a person to lie about his own heart, on top of whatever error he started with.

Strong against

×4The Edict of Fontainebleaua book · why?

A forced signature is not a conversion. It is a lie the state has taught a whole kingdom to tell, on top of whatever it was trying to correct.

×2.5Baptised or Beheadedan argument · why?

Bayle answers the argument from compulsion a thousand years later: a signature taken under threat of death is not faith. It teaches a person to say with his mouth what his heart denies.