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.
“Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.”
Augustine, City of God 14.28 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain).public domain
Two Cities
HistoryArgument · power 76 · 95% accurateIn the gameTwo cities, built by two loves, running through the same history and not to be confused with each other. Rome was never the city of God, so Rome’s fall was never God’s.
Strong against
×2.5No Big Storyan argument · why?
“There is no big story” is itself a big story, told by the age about itself. Augustine wrote the biggest one, two cities with two loves, after Rome had fallen, and he wrote it to people who had just watched a grand story collapse. The difference is what the story does to the powerful. His king is the one they executed.
×2.5The Flotillaan argument · why?
The Flotilla is a very large raft. Augustine’s answer to a very large empire that thought itself eternal is that it stood on nothing, and the city that does stand has a different foundation.
×2"Your God Let Rome Fall"an argument · why?
Augustine answered with two cities. Rome was always a city of this world, and cities of this world rise and fall. The city of God does not fall with them.
×2The Church That Suffersan argument · why?
Augustine’s two cities, one built on love of self and one on love of God, cut across every church and empire. Suffering alone does not show which city a person belongs to.
×2You Are Still a Manicheean argument · why?
Augustine’s two cities are divided by two loves, not by two kinds of stuff. What went wrong in us is disordered love, not evil flesh.
“As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’”
Acts 17:28 (WEB), Paul before the Areopagus.
Their Own Poets
RationalityArgument · power 65 · 100% accurateIn the gamePaul on Mars Hill: quote their poets, then preach the risen Christ.
Strong against
×2Platoa book · why?
Paul did not argue the Athenians out of their poets. He quoted them, agreed with them, and then said the one thing the poets had never reached.
“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.
“He who pleads his cause first seems right; until another comes and questions him.”
Proverbs 18:17 (WEB).
Question the Premise
RationalityType shiftIn the gameChallenge the foundation of an argument before it can be pressed. Lowers the foe’s Contend.
“…The world itself, by its well-ordered changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has been created, and also that it could not have been created save by God.”
Augustine, City of God 11.4 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain).public domain
Argument from Design
Natural TheologyArgument · power 76 · 100% accurateIn the gameA made thing argues for its maker. The body stands upright with its senses set high like a garrison; the world goes on being worth looking at long after the workman has gone. Either one is evidence, and neither had to be that way.
Strong against
×2.5Nein!an argument · why?
Paul did not preach to Athens from the Word alone. He started with their altar and their poets. If Barth is right, Acts 17 should not have been written.
“Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be; even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church.”
Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 8.2 (trans. Lightfoot, public domain).public domain
The Universal Church
EcclesiologyType shiftIn the gameThe church is wherever Christ is — larger than the congregation currently arguing. Raises the user’s Defend. The earliest surviving use of the phrase “the catholic church.”
Strong against
×3The Church That Suffersan argument · why?
It answers with the one mark he cannot claim — but nobody wins this one cleanly.
×2The Conscience of the Giveran argument · why?
Ignatius wrote that where Jesus Christ is, there is the universal church. What cleanses is Christ’s presence, not the conscience of the man pouring the water.
“It is the decided opinion of all who use their brains, that all men desire to be happy… the happy life which all men desire cannot be reached by any who does not cleave with a pure and holy love to that one supreme good, the unchangeable God.”
Augustine, City of God 10.1 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain). The ellipsis skips his account of the philosophers falling out over what happiness is.public domain
Argument from Desire
Natural TheologyArgument · power 74 · 100% accurateIn the gameNobody has to be taught to want to be happy, and nothing on offer finishes the wanting. Augustine and Boethius, a century apart, both take the permanent hunger as evidence of where the food is.
Strong against
×4The Absurdan argument · why?
Camus grants the hunger and the silence, and calls their collision the absurd. Augustine and Lewis take the same hunger the other way. A hunger for something the world cannot supply is one of the ordinary signs that something else supplies it. Camus wrote his university thesis on Augustine.
×4Totem and Tabooan argument · why?
Freud explains where the longing came from. He never asks the other question — whether a longing this specific, appearing in every culture, is evidence that it has an object.
×2.5Platoa book · why?
Diotima’s ladder in the Symposium climbs from one beautiful body to all of them to beauty itself, because no particular thing ever finishes the wanting. Augustine makes that argument nearly eight centuries later and grants Plato every rung of it. What a Form cannot do is come looking for you.
×2Grace as Examplean argument · why?
Augustine found that nothing he chose could satisfy him until God changed what he loved. Grace did not only teach him. It changed his heart.
×2Penséesa book · why?
Pascal said that his account of man, wretched and great together, came from Augustine.
×2The Ethics of Beliefan argument · why?
A duty to believe only on proof is itself believed without proof — the rule cannot pass its own test!
“If we wished first to know and then to believe, we should not be able either to know or to believe.”
Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John — as quoted in Chatraw & Allen, Apologetics at the Cross. Fair use.in copyright · fair use
Faith Seeking Reason
RationalityArgument · power 66 · 100% accurateIn the gameReason is the faculty God gave us; refusing it insults the giver. Faith is not the alternative to understanding — it is the framework inside which understanding can work. May steady the reader’s own Defend.
Strong against
×2.5Proslogiona book · why?
Anselm opens the Proslogion with Augustine’s counsel: believe so that you may understand. His own words are “I believe in order to understand.”
“Nevertheless, if they do not even believe that those miracles were effected through Christ’s apostles… then this one overpowering miracle is enough for us — that the whole world has come to believe in it without any miracles at all!”
Augustine, City of God 22.5 (trans. Henry Bettenson, Penguin, 2003), 685–86 — one sentence, quoted under fair use, as cited in Chatraw & Allen, Apologetics at the Cross, 80.in copyright · fair use
Sarcasm
RationalityArgument · power 60 · 95% accurateIn the gameSay the argument back to it, straight-faced and in full, until the shape of it does the refuting. Often finds the telling stroke — and occasionally goes too far and misses.
“For if every sin were now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there is no divine providence at all.”
Augustine, City of God 1.8 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain).public domain
Neither Always Nor Never
Natural TheologyArgument · power 88 · 100% accurateIn the gameDiderot treats God’s silence as evidence against him. Augustine answers: if God punished every sin now, nothing would be left for the final judgment. If he punished none, people would think there was no providence at all. So he does some of each.
Strong against
×4Letter on the Blindan argument · why?
Diderot scores the silence as a verdict against God. Augustine answers that the silence has a measure to it — more would collapse the last judgment into the present, less would deny providence exists at all.
×2.5The Institutes (1559)a book · why?
Calvin quotes this very sentence of Augustine’s in the Institutes (1.5.10). If God punished every sin now, no judgment would be left to come. If he punished none, it would look as if he did not rule.
“…no nature at all is evil, and this is a name for nothing but the want of good.”
Augustine, City of God 11.22 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
No Nature At All Is Evil
Natural TheologyArgument · power 84 · 100% accurateIn the gameThe Manichees needed evil to be a thing: a substance, or a rival kingdom. Augustine said evil is not a thing at all. It is good missing from a nature that is still good.
Strong against
×2.5Candidea book · why?
Granting every word about the dead: the earth that moved is not a malevolent thing, and neither was the sea. There is no evil nature anywhere to carry the blame for Lisbon — only good ones with something gone missing out of them.
×2.5Summa Theologiaea book · why?
Aquinas takes from Augustine the teaching that evil is the lack of a good (Summa I, q.48).
×2.5The Lisbon Earthquakean argument · why?
Granting every word about the dead: the earth that moved is not a malevolent thing, and neither was the sea. There is no evil nature anywhere to carry the blame for Lisbon — only good ones with something gone missing out of them.
“Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil will; for it is not efficient, but deficient, as the will itself is not an effecting of something, but a defect.”
Augustine, City of God 12.7 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain).public domain
Deficient, Not Efficient
RationalityArgument · power 86 · 100% accurateIn the gameAsked what caused the first bad will, Augustine refuses to invent an answer. A cause makes something happen, but a bad will is something failing to happen. Looking for its cause is like trying to see darkness or hear silence.
Strong against
×3Candidea book · why?
The poem asks who authored the horror. Augustine answers that nothing did. An evil will has no cause that makes it, only a failure that leaves it — and hunting for the cause of a defect is, in his own comparison, trying to see darkness or hear silence.
×3The Lisbon Earthquakean argument · why?
The poem asks who authored the horror. Augustine answers that nothing did. An evil will has no cause that makes it, only a failure that leaves it — and hunting for the cause of a defect is, in his own comparison, trying to see darkness or hear silence.
×2Summa Theologiaea book · why?
Aquinas follows Augustine on this too: a bad will has a deficient cause (Summa I, q.49).
“…this so good and simple a reason of the world’s creation, that a good God made it good; and that the things created, being different from God, were inferior to Him, and yet were good, being created by none other than He.”
Augustine, City of God 11.23 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
A Good God Made It Good
Natural TheologyArgument · power 88 · 100% accurateIn the gameOrigen thought the world was built as a prison — bodies handed out to fallen souls by way of sentence, each one a punishment sized to its crime. Augustine answers that the reason for the world is simpler and better than that, and that Genesis says so every time it finishes a day.
Strong against
×4Candidea book · why?
Voltaire is right about the morning and wrong about what it proves. Augustine refuses to read the rubble back into the design: the world was made good, by a good God, for no reason except that he is good. A ruined thing is a good thing ruined.
×4The Lisbon Earthquakean argument · why?
Voltaire is right about the morning and wrong about what it proves. Augustine refuses to read the rubble back into the design: the world was made good, by a good God, for no reason except that he is good. A ruined thing is a good thing ruined.
“…the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and divert them from God, but rather aid them to endure…”
Augustine, City of God 19.17 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
Use As Pilgrims
HistoryArgument · power 90 · 100% accurateIn the gameBoth cities want the roads mended and bread on the table. The difference is how they hold these things: one treats them as the goal, the other as supplies for a journey. Augustine will not let the reader despise the city he lives in, or settle down in it.
Strong against
×2.5Historical Materialisman argument · why?
Marx says your creed is the position you are standing in. Augustine grants the first half — both cities want the same bread and walk the same roads — and denies that using a thing settles what you love. What the ledger cannot show is the grip, not the goods.
“…if any man uses this life with a reference to that other which he ardently loves and confidently hopes for, he may well be called even now blessed, though not in reality so much as in hope.”
Augustine, City of God 19.20 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
Blessed In Hope
EschatologyArgument · power 92 · 100% accurateIn the gameAugustine spends most of Book 19 showing how little this life can deliver. Then he says a person can be happy now, in hope, because a better life is coming. Someone who thinks this life is all there is has the misery without the hope.
Strong against
×2.5No Big Storyan argument · why?
Lyotard’s grief is honest. Augustine spends a book counting how little this life gives before he calls anyone blessed, and then calls him blessed in hope. A big story that admits the graveyard is not the kind Lyotard is suspicious of.
×2.5The Absurdan argument · why?
Camus tells us to imagine Sisyphus happy. Augustine says a person can be happy now, in hope of something to come. That is not a leap that destroys reason. It is what a person is when the story has an ending.
×2.5Why I Am Not a Christianan argument · why?
Russell files hope under fear. Augustine spends most of a book counting how little this life delivers before he says one word about hope — the miseries first, and at length. A man who has done that accounting and still calls himself blessed is not flinching from anything.
“…if we are to accept the definitions laid down by Scipio in Cicero’s De Republica, there never was a Roman republic; for he briefly defines a republic as the good of the people. And if this definition be true, there never was a Roman republic, for the people’s good was never attained among the Romans.”
Augustine, City of God 19.21 (trans. Marcus Dods, NPNF¹ 2, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain
There Never Was A Roman Republic
EthicsArgument · power 90 · 100% accurateIn the gameAugustine reaches for Cicero, whom Christians and pagans both respected. Cicero defined a commonwealth as a people bound together by a shared sense of justice. Judged by Rome’s own definition, Rome never was one.
