Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 598 Slavic Textbook Reviewer
Seeing that she at least did not directly express resistance, Guo Kang continued speaking.

"If you want to become more capable and useful, you can't just learn martial arts. Of course, those things will improve, but at your level, the changes are very limited. That's why your brother asked you to come here to learn. If you pay attention, you will be worthy of them."

"He actually thought so much." Shi Huizhen was a little surprised: "I blamed him wrongly. I always thought that he was throwing me out because he couldn't stand the chaos at home to prevent any more trouble."

"You still know that you will cause trouble..." Guo Kang was speechless for a moment.

He estimated that the Shi family might have started arguing again because of these things. In the previous turmoil, Shi Huizhen had always stood on Guo Kang's side and was even wrongly accused of being the culprit, which also became an unavoidable topic. Now that the dust has settled, the family is even more embarrassed. So, it is not surprising that people really think so.

"Anyway, just read your books carefully." He thought for a moment and evaded the question, "I asked you to come here to study so that you can learn some basic knowledge."

"I'm not illiterate," Shi Huizhen protested, "I still understand basic common sense."

"Those are just enlightenment knowledge, so that you can recognize military laws and orders, and not be deceived by profiteers and corrupt officials on weekdays." Guo Kang said: "The knowledge you learn here is all for managing other people. If you ask me, at least those who support you to come here still respect you very much."

"Aren't you from the church?" Shi Huizhen asked doubtfully, "I thought you were just here to learn some theology."

"It is indeed theology." Guo Kang told her the content of the course he had prepared: "We must start with the basic theological knowledge. Once you have a concept of these, it will be much easier to learn other things in the future."

"What's the point of studying theology? Can this thing really manage people?" Shi Huizhen obviously didn't believe it.

"Of course. The main function of theology is to persuade and manage people." Guo Kang smiled and said, "Of course, it's not that we can't manage people other than people. For us in the God Worshipping Church, everyone below the Heavenly Father is actually a colleague. Although it can't be considered management, there are also various reports, notifications, transfers and other documents. Many of our religious ceremonies are also used to send and receive official letters to various angels, saints and the like. The entire church is also an administrative agency."

"However, just like the government, the church currently does not allow women to hold official positions, and I cannot change that myself. Otherwise, I can practice here for a while, which can be regarded as an internship in management skills."

"That said, when it comes to real battles, you still have to rely on yourself," said Shi Huizhen. "Everyone will pray to various saints, hoping to be blessed, but veterans all know that God probably won't take care of such details. The only ones you can really rely on are your comrades and the sword in your hand."

"I chat with those people from time to time. They are willing to follow me, not because I am more pious or have a better relationship with God, but simply because I can fight and they can get military merits by following me. So I think these words can only be used to comfort people on weekdays, but they are probably useless in critical moments."

"The actual fighting is only a small part of the war." Guo Kang shook his head and said, "The various tasks in peacetime, as well as the various organizations, preparations, and planning before the war, are much more important."

"I think that the battlefield is the time when there are the most uncertainties. In this situation, the number of trump cards each side has is already determined and cannot be changed temporarily. Therefore, this is the situation where you only need to kill the enemy in front of you and leave the rest to God."

"On the contrary, the other steps are prepared to increase the trump cards. What is tested are people's long-term efforts. Once the time is long and the scope is large, the randomness is not so strong. Just like Rome was able to destroy Carthage back then: no matter how bad the luck is, no matter how bad the battlefield performance is, we can still win in the end because our foundation is much stronger."

"Therefore, this is an occasion where people are completely in control. We need to use all kinds of knowledge and do as much as we can - this of course includes theological knowledge, and it is quite important."

"What are you talking about..." Shi Huizhen didn't seem to understand at all: "There are many accidents on the battlefield, I can understand. But why do we need theology in situations dominated by people?"

"Uh..." Guo Kang thought about it and felt that it would be difficult to explain it to her directly, so he could only evade the question: "This is a bit complicated. If you want to know, just start from the beginning. Once you learn to a certain level, you will naturally understand it."

"But I really don't understand what this is for." Shi Huizhen scratched her head and said, "You also said that most of the time, it depends purely on one's own performance. The Heavenly Father is not always responsive. If that's the case, why study this?"

"I have been wondering about this for a long time. Every time the priests explain it to me, it is not very clear. Anyway, I don't really believe their rhetoric. There must be many things that the Heavenly Father is powerless to do. Everyone says that He is omnipotent, and I guess it is just like congratulating someone, and we have to say some polite words when we meet."

"Don't say that..." Guo Kang hurriedly stopped him, "You were like a wild man before, so of course everyone was more casual with you. If you do anything serious in the future, you can't talk so casually, or you'll cause trouble."

"I'm telling the truth." Shi Huizhen said, "Think about it, their words don't make sense."

"They also keep saying that God is omnipotent, especially on the battlefield. But if that's the case, can God create a cannon that's so powerful that even he can't stop it?"

"Didn't the priests explain it to you?" Guo Kang asked puzzledly, "From which aspect do you want to answer?" "Are there many aspects?" Shi Huizhen didn't quite understand either.

"Yes, this question is very old." Guo Kang said: "For more than a thousand years, theologians have been explaining it from different perspectives, and many ideas have been derived. The analysis of this kind of problem is also a driving force for the development of theology, so there are still many solutions."

"First of all, it is difficult to define what this omnipotence means. According to the early saint Augustine, omnipotence means being able to act freely without being commanded or required by anyone else. Therefore, the Father can refuse to do things that would make him lose his omnipotence, and this is the manifestation of omnipotence. In simple terms, he can do it, but he does not want to do it, and he also has the power to say no."

"The second question is what logic is. Strictly speaking, human logic is just a man-made product. It is actually a tool used by humans to understand the world, rather than a natural principle. Like everything else in the world, it was created by Heavenly Father, so it is naturally impossible to surpass Heavenly Father himself. Of course, human logic cannot prove Heavenly Father's power."

"On a deeper level, human language is by no means perfect and has limited expressive power. We already know about the existence of many paradoxes, which show that the logical system we construct with language is inherently imperfect and will have contradictions and conflicts. But our world will not have all kinds of incredible errors, and then suddenly get stuck or collapse in chaos. Obviously, the world itself is much more perfect than our language. In this case, this question is meaningless - because it is more likely that there is a problem with our language, not with the Heavenly Father."

"If we want to go a step further, we can start to think about whether we humans can recognize the attribute of 'omnipotence'? It is difficult for people to imagine things they have not seen. The various monsters in paintings and literature are at most the interception, accumulation and exaggeration of the limbs of real creatures. In this case, can we really recognize omnipotence? The current level of human beings is too far away from this concept. When we cannot understand what omnipotence is and cannot describe what omnipotence is, it is naturally impossible to determine that the Heavenly Father is not omnipotent."

"I don't know how they explained it to you." Guo Kang finished speaking, and then added: "Because we, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, have also studied this kind of question, and it is also very easy to answer."

"According to the theories in ancient classics, a person with real virtue can be in a state of 'freedom'. When one's practice accumulates to a certain level, one can be promoted by Heavenly Father to become an immortal and be ranked in heaven. One is fully qualified for this. As the highest god, if Heavenly Father is described in terms of personality, he is naturally the freest one. Therefore, he can do whatever he wants without going beyond the laws of nature. We believe that this highest state of 'freedom' is the best description of omnipotence."

"On the other hand, the foundation of all laws in our world is the original Dao, which is the Heavenly Father himself. So he certainly will not transcend these laws, because the laws themselves flow naturally from him. This should be the principle of 'Xiaoyao'."

"So, if I have to give a clear answer, my answer is I don't know." Guo Kang concluded: "If the Heavenly Father wants to create it, then He can; if not, then He can't. As for what He wants, it is not for me to know."

"Ah..." Shi Huizhen seemed not to understand much and didn't know how to refute. She was a little confused for a moment.

"I didn't intend to talk about this directly, but you insisted on asking." Guo Kang had no choice but to say, "Just remember the conclusion. Don't think about arguing with others all day long. There are a lot of professional scholars who have studied this issue for thousands of years. They have already argued about every question you can think of countless times."

"I happen to have a few common sense manuals here." He remembered something and flipped through them, finding a few booklets: "Take them home and read them, and start learning from the beginning. Ask me if you don't understand anything, and if you start to completely understand a book, tell me about it. These are all basic social common sense and natural philosophy knowledge. They will definitely be useful after you learn them."

"Okay." Shi Huizhen nodded quickly, took it, opened it and flipped through it, then asked curiously, "Weren't you talking about theology just now? Why did you change to this?"

"They are all the same thing." Guo Kang said without hesitation: "Isn't our goal to get closer to this carefree state? The distance doesn't mean we can't work towards this direction."

"If we want more people to have more freedom, we can't just recite scriptures. We need to make good use of the laws of nature and create more ways to increase convenience for people, so as to provide a foundation for this kind of freedom. Therefore, our monastery has always been committed to the study of natural philosophy. These are all interrelated. Even if you are not a specialized researcher, you have to understand some of them."

"I see..." Shi Huizhen probably understood: "Yes, you even prepared teaching materials. It seems that it is indeed very important."

"Yes, I wrote it specifically for the Slavs." Guo Kang nodded: "You can also take a look. By the way, help me confirm whether the current set contains enough knowledge."

"It's for the Slavs, why did you ask me to come and see it..." Shi Huizhen was a little confused.

"Can you help me review it?" Guo Kang said quickly, "This thing needs to be shown to many people. It will be safest if everyone thinks it is okay."

"Oh……"

Shi Huizhen still seemed a little strange, but Guo Kang looked confident. She probably felt that she was not as knowledgeable as the other party, and she lost her momentum for a moment, so she agreed.

Seeing this, Guo Kang also breathed a sigh of relief - logically speaking, a priest who could preach to the Shi family would not be unable to explain such a simple truth. He was very suspicious. It was not that he could not explain it, but that Shi Huizhen's physical interference made it impossible to explain it...

Therefore, it was good enough to make her listen and willing to read books. Originally, Guo Kang thought that if she couldn't even read the Slavic textbooks, he would arrange for her to listen to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms with Nurhaci. The current situation was already a great success.

(End of this chapter)