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.
“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: ‘Repent ye’ … intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.”
Ninety-Five Theses 1, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §32 (1888), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
The Whole Life of Believers
SoteriologyArgument · power 76 · 100% accurateIn the gameThesis 1, and it is a translation argument. The Vulgate said DO PENANCE; the Greek says REPENT. One word, and either repentance is a sacrament you complete or it is a life you live.
Strong against
×2The Indulgence Stallan argument · why?
One word in the Latin, and the whole trade is standing on it.
“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 is certain, that, when the money rattles in the chest, avarice and gain may be increased, but the suffrage of the Church depends on the will of God alone.”
Ninety-Five Theses 28, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §32 (1888), public domain.public domain
Avarice and Gain
EthicsArgument · power 80 · 100% accurateIn the gameGrants the mechanism and follows the money anyway. Whatever the rattle does for the dead, here is what it certainly does for the living.
Strong against
×2.5The Indulgence Stallan argument · why?
Grants him the theology and follows the money, which is the one direction he cannot argue in.
×0.5The Leipzig Casean argument · why?
The money argument. He would rather you spent the whole day on it.
“The true treasure of the Church is the holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God.”
Ninety-Five Theses 62, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §32 (1888), public domain.public domain
The True Treasure
SoteriologyArgument · power 90 · 100% accurateIn the gameThesis 62: the true treasure of the church is the gospel of God’s glory and grace. It cannot be sold, because it never belonged to anyone to sell.
Strong against
×4The Indulgence Stallan argument · why?
It does not argue about the mechanism at all. It points at a different treasury, and there is nothing in the chest to answer with.
×3The Casuistan argument · why?
The indulgence-seller and the casuist run the same stall. Point at the real treasury and there is nothing in the drawer to answer with.
×2.5The Canons of Trenta book · why?
The gospel is the treasure, and the whole apparatus of merit is a way of talking about a different one.
×0.5Before Lutheran argument · why?
He agrees about the stall. He thinks that is the small question and he is not wrong about that.
×0.5The Cardinal’s Demandan argument · why?
He is not selling anything. Aim at the decretal, not at the chest.
×0.5The Leipzig Casean argument · why?
Indulgences. He has not mentioned indulgences since the first afternoon and he is not going to.
“…an appeal from Cajetan to the Pope, and ‘from the Pope ill informed to the Pope to be better informed’ (a papa male informato ad papam melius informandum).”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §35 (1888), public domain.public domain
To the Pope Better Informed
EcclesiologyArgument · power 78 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe most Catholic move Luther ever made, and he made it running. Appeal past the legate to the pope himself — not against the office, but from an office badly briefed to the same office briefed properly.
Strong against
×3The Cardinal’s Demandan argument · why?
Appealing past him to the man he is representing — which is a move he has no standing to refuse, and he knows it.
“…that a general council as well as a Pope may err, and had no right to impose any article of faith not founded in the Scriptures.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §37 (1888), public domain.public domain
A Council May Err
HistoryArgument · power 84 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe thing he had not meant to say and could not unsay. Cornered about Hus, he went further than he had planned — and a general council joined the pope on the list of things that can be wrong.
Strong against
×2The Leipzig Casean argument · why?
Said out loud, on purpose this time, instead of extracted under pressure.
“(3) Books against his popish opponents: in these he confessed to have been more violent than was proper, but even these he could not retract without giving aid and comfort to his enemies, who would triumph and make things worse.”
Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §54 (1888), public domain, summarising Luther’s speech of 18 April 1521.public domain
Three Classes of Books
RationalityArgument · power 78 · 100% accurateIn the gameLuther’s answer at Worms, which few remember. He sorted his books first: plain gospel that friend and foe both accept, books against abuses, and books where he had been ruder than he should have been. He could not take back even those.
Strong against
×2.5The Edict of Wormsa book · why?
Twenty-five books on a bench and not one of them read out. Sorting them is the answer nobody wanted.
×2The Cardinal’s Demandan argument · why?
Sorting the charge before answering it. He asked for one word and is being handed a distinction.
“I am sorry that the learned doctor only dips into the Scripture as the water-spider into the water—nay, that he seems to flee from it as the Devil from the Cross. I prefer, with all deference to the Fathers, the authority of the Scripture, which I herewith recommend to the arbiters of our cause.”
Luther at the Leipzig Disputation, July 1519, in Schaff, History of the Christian Church VII §37 (1888), public domain.public domain
The Water-Spider
HistoryArgument · power 86 · 95% accurateIn the gameHis closing, and it is not really about Eck. It is about a whole method: quote the fathers on the fathers on the Scripture, and touch the Scripture itself as lightly as an insect standing on a pond.
Strong against
×2.5The Leipzig Casean argument · why?
The best line Luther spoke in three weeks — and notice that it still did not win him the room.
