Skeletons are theologically controversial. Some clergy say that the
skeleton represents the enduring part of humanity, which will be brought
back to life on the day of judgment. After all, many relics are pieces
of bone. But other theologians claim that the skeleton, as the innermost
part of the body, hidden from all sight until death, represents
original sin itself.
– excerpt from Miserable Secrets, the upcoming bestiary supplement to Rose Bailey’s Castlevania-punk tabletop RPG The Shadow of Golgotha
(If you aren’t following Rose Bailey’s Pateron, you should be.)
Thought it was Catholicism reading the quote
Well, it’s not not Catholicism. The setting of Shadow of Golgotha proposes a future history in which the institutions of organised religion in Western Europe have been subverted by a vampire aristocracy, and all of the traditional vampiric weaknesses have been re-interpreted as signs of their holiness; for example, they’re repelled by the Cross because it symbolises the murder of Christ, poisoned by silver because it represents Judas’ betrayal, and so forth.
(The really fun part is that theological arguments like the one cited in the original post are reflected in the mechanics, in this case by the fact that whether skeletons are vulnerable to Holy damage depends on which side of the debate about the nature of skeletons the wielder falls on.)
Wait so faith only deals the damage you expect it to?
I’m not the game’s author, so I can’t speak to authorial intent, but if I was the one running it, I’d probably handle it like this:
In many denominations of Christianity – and particularly in Catholicism – there’s a theological notion called “honest intent”. A full discussion of what this concept entails is beyond the scope of this post, but in a nutshell, the idea is that a sacrament performed incorrectly, or by someone who doesn’t actually have the spiritual authority to administer it, may nonetheless be valid under certain circumstances, provided that the administering party honestly believes that they’re performing a valid sacrament and has no ill or self-serving intent in performing it. Similarly, a sacrament can be performed by a knowingly unqualified or duplicitous party and still be valid under certain circumstances, if the recipient honestly believes they’re receiving a valid sacrament and has no ill or self-serving intent in receiving it.
So in the case of our theological dubious skeleton, someone who believes that skeletons are holy – or at least, not unholy – creatures would be unable to invoke the wrath of God upon it, even if that belief is incorrect, because it prevents them from formulating the requisite honest intent.
(The concomitant question of whether one could successfully invoke the wrath of God upon a non-unholy creature in the honest-but-mistaken belief that it’s unholy is, of course, theologically fascinating – and, incidentally, heretical. Seriously, don’t wonder aloud about that sort of thing within earshot of a deacon; that’s a good way to get Inquisitioned.)
And, of course, if you count the skeleton as the recipient of the sacrament, you can wind up with all sorts of questions about what the skeleton believes.
Not to mention questions about whether getting blown up by divine wrath counts as receiving a sacrament!
Procrastination Station 