William Paley (1794)
William Paley — Archdeacon of Carlisle, better known for the watch in Natural Theology
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.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
High. This is separate from Paley’s Natural Theology: that book argues from design, and this one argues from testimony and what it cost the witnesses.
The historical case: witnesses who chose labour, danger and death rather than recant what they claimed to have seen.
Paley tests Hume’s own rule against a plain case, the way a mathematician tests a theorem against the simplest instance he can construct.
Assigned reading at Cambridge for a century after it was written.
William Paley argued from the apostles’ suffering. Many witnesses chose to be beaten or killed rather than take back what they said they had seen. People do not usually die for a story they know is false. Paley also tested Hume’s rule on simple cases and showed that no skeptic actually lives by it.
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 |
| 18 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 30 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 40 | Mr. Hume’s Rule | Rationality | Argument | 80 | 95% | 8 |
| 44 | Voluntarily Undergone | History | Argument | 96 | 95% | 10 |
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 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.
“If twelve men... should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes... if I myself saw them, one after another, consenting to be racked, burnt, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account; — still, if Mr. Hume’s rule be my guide, I am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say, that there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not believe them.”
William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), public domain.public domain
In the gamePaley tests Hume’s own theorem against a simple case, the way a mathematician tests a proof — and finds that nobody, including a sceptic, actually lives by the rule Hume says reason requires.
“That there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts.”
William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), Proposition I, public domain.public domain
In the gameNot "his word for it" — many witnesses, hostile and friendly, choosing labour, danger, and suffering they could have walked away from at any point, for a claim Paley says none of them ever recanted.
Paine says a report cannot bind a reader who was not there. Paley answers with what these particular reporters paid to keep repeating it — labour, danger, and in the end their own lives, for a claim none of them ever recanted.
Paine says a report cannot bind a reader who was not there. Paley answers with what these particular reporters paid to keep repeating it — labour, danger, and in the end their own lives, for a claim none of them ever recanted.
Paley points to witnesses who chose danger and suffering for their testimony and never took it back. Hume’s rule has to call every one of them a liar or a fool.
Paley points to witnesses who chose danger and suffering for their testimony and never took it back. Hume’s rule has to call every one of them a liar or a fool.
Paley: the first witnesses suffered for what they said they saw. A myth does not get men killed for telling it.
The specific move or chapter of Scripture that cuts through this one, and why. The number is how much harder it hits than usual — ×4 is four times the normal force.
Paley uses this very passage. Irenaeus says there can be neither more nor fewer than four Gospels, and Paley takes that as proof that these four, and only these, were read in the churches by AD 180.
Paley rests his case for the New Testament on Eusebius’s Church History, which records which books the early churches received.
Paley quotes Ignatius’s letter to the Smyrnaeans as an early witness that the apostles saw and touched the risen Christ.
Paley’s first proposition is that the apostles suffered for what they reported. He cites Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp as witnesses.