A response to "An Open Letter To The Foreign Churches Of Good", containing thoughts on Good, Evil, and human nature.

I am Emmet Sophian, cleric of Gruhastha, god of truth, understanding, and wisdom.

I am responding to the letter written to "foreign churches of Good", so exactly for me (not counting the fact I am a sole person without a church, or any official position).
Maybe it was written as a response directly to me, and the pamphlet I sent to Cheliax, (dealing with non-rigidity of culture, the nature of Good, and the question of punishment and retribution). This doesn’t change my response, regardless.


The open letter speaks about the fundamental Evil of Chelish people. I disagree with the claims that Good priests would refuse such people, or that the people do not deserve to be helped. The nature of true Good, in its purest form, desires to help everybody. And with the claim Chelish people are unique in being consumed by wickedness, when it is true among many people across Golarion.

And yet it raises a very important point. It argues that not everyone has good within their heart, against the principle of the churches of Sarenrae and Shelyn, that all everyone is Good.
That is true. Not everyone is Good. But, I argue back, everyone can be Good.

Some say that the fundamental nature of men is virtuous, and only outside influences, of society, or of demons, or anything else, makes them cruel.
Some say that the fundamental nature of men Is Evil, and that society and laws exist to teach them Good, and to protect them from each other. Though such an approach seems to be to conflate Evil with Chaos.
Some say that men are born without any qualities, like a blank paper, and only the circumstances of their life shape their behavior and thought.

I consider all 3 of those to be false.
Everyone is born with a great amount of qualities and desires. Many of which are conflicting and opposed. It is the circumstances of life, and the choice of each person, that determine which of those desires and qualities they express, and how strongly.
Different people are born with slightly different collections of those desires and qualities. But the difference is small.
People of different humanoid races differ more in those traits. But still, all those traits are drawn from the same metaphorica; bag. So it is not impossible for a gnome or dwarf or human or elf to be born with identical collection of those innate traits,

Those differences are meaningful. But they are still small.
Any person could be Evil, or Good, and yet remain, in most senses, the same person.
The Church of Asmodeus did not plant any seeds in anyone. It only cultivated the seeds that already exist, but those seeds exist in almost anyone.

Returning to the point about being Good, any person can be Good because of the circumstances of their life, but in addition, more importantly, they can become Good even if the circumstances of their life already shaped them to be Evil! It is harder, but still possible.
Any thing you consider impossible is a thing you will never succeed at. A thing you try you might succeed at, even if that is not sure. Of course, the relative harm of failure is important. Attempting to fly is a bad idea because failure leads to death.

The writer of the open letter had two arguments, which I consider to be distinct. An argument about behavior, and an argument about desires and inner nature.

The writer says he harmed his servant with no good reason, and acted to bring ruins to others.
Those are, of course, Evil actions.
They are not unique to those corrupted by the Diabolism Cheliax. Those are common mortal manifestations of Evil.
Those are habits. Habits can be changed. There is no one sure way to do that, but ways exist. The Churches of Erastil, Shelyn and Sarenrae (or the less known Empyreal Lord Korada) put their efforts into teaching people to be Good, and not in harmful ways.
The church of Irori teaches discipline, which, while not inherently Good, helps prevent, for example, rash decisions made in anger, rather than for an intentional planned goal.
I have my own approach to those things. I believe it is possible, through Truth and Understanding, to, in a sense, convince your own soul in certain things, prove them to be right and true with such strength that your soul changes its behavior.
But that process requires someone who would truly understand the arguments, who could be convinced at all before their soul is convinced. And the process is too long and complicated for me to be able to describe it here. All I ever written might not be enough.
Though if someone sees those words and thinks "I agree with this cleric, the words I see have true wisdom, and I want to know more", I could try to help them copy all of my writings, if they would want it.

Then there is the second part, feelings and intentions.
Actions matter. Do thought and intentions matter? It would be wrong to say they do not.
(As I read the letter again and again, to truly understand it, it became confusing. Is the letter a plea for help, from a man who is Evil but doesn’t want to be? Or is it a show of power and pride, "look at us, we are Evil, there is nothing you can do to change it!"?
I think it is the first, for the letter does have assumptions of guilt, that being Evil makes him unworthy of help. And hope it is the first.
But if it is the second, then none of my advice would help a person who doesn’t want or intend to become Good in the first place, of course.)
Actions matter, and intentions matter only as much as they affect actions.
Cultivating a virtuous soul and desires will lead to taking Good actions. But if you will take those same Good actions regardless, then your soul or desires do not matter.

I will tell you a great secret. (it is not, in truth, a secret at all)
I am one of those who do not feel a call toward goodness. And yet I do Good. So much a god of Good chose me.
I too, once felt nothing but relief when a member of family died. Because I did not love him. Nor anyone else, in the whole world. Not even Gruhastha, or myself.
I feel no connection with anyone. I am not, unlike an average person, happy to see people I help. But I help nonetheless.

I do, probably, experience a different call. A call to do something useful, and meaningful. And, because I strongly care about truth, I could not abide doing something unless I know and proven that the one thing I am doing is the truly right thing to do.
(Some would say this is a call towards Lawfulness, the deep sense of duty. But I do not consider myself Lawful by most existing definitions, and know from experience that people who are neither Lawful nor Good can experience the desire to do something because it is right and correct, and a desire or justice that is not connected to their own lives).

And I found a certain form of Good to be that right thing. It does not require compassion. It does not even require a soul, I suppose, an intelligent enough construct can do it (and as far as I know, constructs have no souls. But my knowledge might be incomplete).
I took inspiration from Abadaran and Iomedaen theology. From counting value, counting Good, lives and numbers.
I imagine that each person has an imaginary number above them. When they are happy, the number increases. When they are suffering, the number decreases. And I strive to make all those numbers as high as possible. You do not need to care about people as people, only about their number. That is good enough.
And, as I said previously in the pamphlet addressed to Cheliax, that you might have read, people do not have duty to be Good rather than Neutral. So you are not obliged to increase the numbers of people other than yourself, the And as I said in the pamphlet, "happiness" means "life according to a person’s desires and goals", while "suffering" means "life that goes against a person’s desires and goals". So while you do not have to care about a person, you must still consider their goals and worldview, to help them, for help that is unwanted is not truly help.
I will not explain the principles behind increasing the numbers for one person without reducing them for others, because that is not relevant to most people, and because I do not yet have a complete answer myself, and because this response is long enough already.

Many did willfully choose Evil. But they can always choose to act differently. I hope they would.


Grow wiser, and seek the truth.
Emmet Sophian.