The Imperial Decree did not specify any limits to which obligations to God the slaves were released to. If you’re locked in a room, and I tell you that you can leave, I’m not telling you ‘you can leave but you have to stay in the house’, I’m telling you you can leave. Unless subsequent restrictions or qualifiers are presented, that’s a wide-reaching, blanket statement. And we have no evidence that any were.
Take a look at her wording again: “emancipated from their obligations to our nation and our Lord.” Not ‘some of their obligations’. Not ‘certain obligations’. Not ‘the obligations as a slave’. “emancipated from their obligations” with no further qualifiers except to whom they had been obligated. No limitation at all in which obligations to either authority they were being released from.
All in God’s Empire serve one higher, as given in Scripture:
None shall stand higher than you save the Sefrim, Who serve Me as others shall serve you, For all things under Me serve one higher; So Amarr shall rule the worlds of the Heavens. - The Scriptures, Book of Reclaiming
Everyone within the Empire exists within God’s Hierarchy and within that position are considered to have obligations to God to serve those higher. As one is advanced in God’s Hierarchy it is custom to recognize the annulment of obligations to God of a previous position as one takes up a new one with the use of the phrase, “You are released from your obligations to the Lord,” Because one cannot take on new obligations to God of a new position if they have lesser obligations of their previous.
For example, when I worked for the Ministry of Internal Order and was promoted from Ordinator Probate to Ordinator Ordinary, the Ordinator Commander spoke, “You are released from your obligations to the Lord as Ordinator Probate.” Prior to my taking of the oath where I spoke, “I accept my obligations to the Lord as Ordinator Ordinary.”
It remains equally common during any form of emancipation of slaves for a Holder to announce as form of custom to them, “You are released from your obligations to the Lord,” So as the slave may take on their new obligations to God as freemen, their previous obligations to God as slave having been annulled.
And yet, the Empress was the Voice of God incarnate, able to supercede prior Scripture with the (even tacit) approval of the Theology Council. Neither the Empress nor the Theology Council offered any qualifiers or limitations on her release of those (now former) slaves from their obligations (plural) to God.
Really? Got evidence to back up this amazingly convenient use of phrasing? We have a public record of the Empress’ declaration. It’s not like I’m making these words up. Can you show you aren’t?
As I have said, when the slaves were emancipated by the late Imperial Majesty Jamyl I as so decreed they were released from their obligations to God as slaves. Whereupon some took on new obligations to God as freemen and citizens of the Holy Empire or moved elsewhere, such as the Republic.
That sounds a lot like a ‘no, I don’t have any evidence to back up my amazingly convenient claim of phrasing’.
Nothing in her decree specifies that she only released them from their obligations ‘as slaves’. Nor is there any indication that the obligation to live in unity and submission to God is different from freeman to slave.
Is it? Are slaves more obligated to believe in, and be faithful to God? Less?
The decree of the late Imperial Majesty Jamyl I specified the release of slaves from their obligations to God of the ninth generation and those working in other fields as given by the decree. As a freeman so released they then had the choice, of their own volition as granted by the wisdom and magnanimity of the Holy Throne, to either submit to God and renew their obligations to Him through the Rite as citizen of the Empire – or not.
To answer your question: A freeman has the choice to either submit to God and the Rite, or not, and accept the consequences that follow therefrom.
A slave does not have a choice to submit to their obligations to God as they are granted to a Holder over them.
Nonsense. A slave obviously retains the ability to choose whether or not to submit, both to the Holder and to God. They can disobey, in which case, they’ll be punished. They may not be accorded the right to choose… but short of a TCMC being used, they always have the ability.
A slave whom so reneges belief in God but is still made to work the field as the property of a Holder under God is still fulfilling their obligation to God as a slave of the Holder under His Hierarchy of Creation.
That would mean a slave is under no obligation to believe in God, or to be faithful to God, which would seem to be a violation of one of the core tenets of your Faith: that everyone is obligated to do those things, many simply fail those obligations.
Also, believing in God isn’t the only thing a slave can choose to be disobedient in. Again: they may not be accorded the right, but they retain the ability.
The slave is obligated only to serve God and Amarr as the property of a Holder, just as any other beast of the earth, the sky, or sea serves Holder; it remains the duty of the Holder to instruct the slave in the Faith and inculcate in them belief in whatever manner they may see fit so long as it does not violate Holy Writ and Doctrine of the Church of Amarr.
The slave already lives in sin for they are descended from those who turned their back upon God and His Truth. They may recant of their inherent sins and so redeem themselves in the eyes of God under the instruction of the Holder, but it remains the discretion of the Holder to so judge whether such conviction on the part of the slave is sincere enough to absolve them of the affronts against God of their ancestors.
That continues to not address the question of whether or not the slave can actively commit the sin of denying God.
For clarity: Saying that the natural state of the slave is the state of sin is meaningless to the context of the question. If being in the state of sin for denial of God is a binary yes/no, then once one denies God, all other sins are simply conjunctions of the denial of God. Without God, there can be no sin, after all, and all sin, axiomatically, is the denial of God[1]. Thus—if this state is a binary one—once a slave is in the state of sin for denial of God, they have committed the only sin that is possible, because all others are simply ‘still continuing to deny God in a variety of ways’.
However, if being in the state of sin for denial of god is not a binary proposition, but the more classical ‘ledger’, then each denial is its own sin, and they are all tallied up in the final judgment, should the slave die without repentance and submission to God.
So: which is it? Can a slave actively commit the sin of denying God?
Thank you for the clarification on the question you asked. To answer:
The slave is taken from those heathen populations who have committed the initial sin of denial of God. From that initial sin the slave does have the choice to either perpetuate further sins by denying belief in God and for those further sins perpetuated from their initial sin of denying God thus perpetuate their time in fulfilling their obligations to their Holder. By accepting God they begin the process, and only the process, of abjuring themselves for the initial sin of denial. However, it remains the prerogative of the Holder as to whether such acceptance is sincere.
If the slave can commit a sin, then this indicates the slave has an obligation to believe in God, just like everyone else, yes? That the obligation to believe in God is not part of being a slave or being free, but simply by being.
There is a difference in choice and obligation. Both heathen and slave have the choice to believe in God once they are made aware of His Truths, it is however only the slave who has obligation to their Holders. If I might point a passage of Scripture to make this clear:
So the Lord sent forth the Chosen,
to bring forth the light of faith
And those who embrace his love
Shall be saved by his grace
For we are his shepherds in the darkness
His Angels of Mercy.
But those who turn away from his light,
And reject his true word
Shall be struck down by his wrath
For we are his retribution incarnate
His Angels of Vengeance" - The Scriptures, Book of Reclaiming 4:45
This must be considered in consideration to the Reclaiming to exist in two parts of which:
So the Lord sent forth the Chosen,
to bring forth the light of faith
And those who embrace his love
Shall be saved by his grace
For we are his shepherds in the darkness
His Angels of Mercy.
Is the First.
But those who turn away from his light,
And reject his true word
Shall be struck down by his wrath
For we are his retribution incarnate
His Angels of Vengeance
Is the second.
The Empire has always existed in two aspects; either Angels of Mercy or Angels of Vengeance as it concerns the act of Reclaiming Creation. At the discretion of the Holy Throne who is in direct communion with God, Amarr may be as Angels of Mercy to the heathen. We will seek to offer the truths of Gospel and God to the heathen so that they may be made aware of Him and seek to be brought into the Faith by choice.
Alternatively God may so instruct the Holy Throne that the heathen is to be subject to His retribution incarnate for rejecting His Truths and in this the Empire must become as the Angels of Vengeance and enslave the unbeliever. If we are to speak of slavery, and the slaves so taken due to Vengeance upon the heathen, then the unbeliever is to be afforded only the choice to accept God in enslavement and obligation to Holders or to further promulgate their sins in slavery for denying God.
It is not for men such as I to judge as to which aspect; either Mercy or Vengeance, God would so instruct the Holy Throne to incarnate of the Holy Empire, but the heathen is always afforded the choice of His Truth to accept.
The Matari were held to have been sinners because they did not believe in the Amarr God. The Matari had no knowledge of the Amarr God, or even the existence of the Amarr. This means that sin cannot stem from awareness of God, but must be possible without that awareness. Given the nature of sin (as already discussed), this means that in order to sin, there must be an overriding obligation to God, independent of any obligation to Holders.