It being Advent, I find myself moved once more to muse upon matters philosophical, examining the Eight Virtues of the Ultima series and comparing these against real-world philosophy and theology. This year, I’d like to focus on the Virtue of Justice, which I don’t think I’ve given much attention to in years past.

Listen to the Episode

I’ve been writing — and now recording — meditations on the Eight Virtues of Ultima lore for a few years now, and occasionally the question comes up: why do this?

It’s a good question. I’ve been running what amounts to a major online Ultima fan hub since 2008 or so, and I’ve been running Ultima-related websites since 2004. That’s a long time; not as long as some in the Ultima fandom have maintained sites, perhaps, but it amounts to a third of my life thus far; it’s significant. In that time, I’ve written about the comings and goings of former Origin Systems developers, and I’ve chronicled the developments, releases, and (sadly) cancellations of various Ultima fan projects.

But in the end, I’m just writing about computer games, am I not? So why am I rambling on about philosophy, and theology, and Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas, and all the rest?

I can’t really say that the Ultima games had a particularly profound impact on my moral formation; while I can talk at length about all the ways my catechesis as a young Catholic was fraught with error and shortcomings, I nevertheless emerged into adulthood steeped in the moral theology and teachings of that faith tradition, and to the best of my ability I try to live that faith in the world. And in some sense, what I do here on the Ultima Codex is a part of that; in some particular way, I hope that it’s a form of evangelization.

Yes, really.

I mean, okay, the idea of evangelization inspires a negative response; it is often thought of as being this sort of rigid and inflexible thing in which one person tries to convince another person that they, and then perhaps they alone, have the truth locked in, and that whatever falls outside of the confines of the group to which they belong is, by definition, against that truth.

And to be fair, that probably does happen. I’ve had to fend off that sort of thing myself. But that’s not genuine evangelization, either.

Because really, Truth is just that: Truth. And like as not, people outside of a church, or outside of a belief system, can still perceive Truth. And there is a lot of Truth to be found in the Eight Virtues. Indeed, it shouldn’t surprise us to hear that for some people, the Eight Virtues have been a significant part of their moral formation (sometimes at the cost of abandoning traditional religion, sometimes serving to lead them to traditional religion, and sometimes giving them exposure to a philosophical realm that an utterly secular upbringing had not even bothered to acknowledge or introduce them to).

Evangelization, really, is about sharing, about dialogue, about enrichment. It’s about emphasizing the real Truths of the world, in whatever form they are found, and in a language that people understand. I mean, okay, sure, I would love to hear that people come to embrace the Christian faith; of course I would, and that is obviously a goal and an intent in the discussions and debates that surround evangelization.

But it’s like learning to read. Those of us who have been reading for a long time almost don’t have to look at the individual letters or syllables of a word; we can look at the general shape of the word and know what it’s supposed to be. It’s called, I think, “whole word” reading. You may recognize that phrase, as “whole language” programs were all the rage in some education systems for a time. The thinking, as far as I can understand it, was that because adults used “whole word” reading to, well, read, we should just teach kids to use the same technique and VOILA!…amazing readers, better than those who were instructed using phonics-based programs.

Except that it didn’t work that way. At all. Indeed, in several places, literacy levels dropped. Why? Because “whole word” reading only works when the reader in question has already internalized and mastered the concepts of how letters sound, how letters combine to create new sounds and syllables, and how those sounds and syllables work together to make words.

It’s the same with evangelization. Hardly anybody is going to have a change of heart based on a single conversation, and even less so a conversation on the Internet. But we all desire Truth, desire to see it and understand it. And if in some way the Eight Virtues can serve to reveal Truth — and they do — then that is a thing that, I think, is well worth exploring. And if that little bit can happen, then hopefully those that hear will continue to search after Truth. And hopefully they find it more abundantly…somehow.

So in some sense, these Meditations are a special justice that I’m trying to share with all of you, to try and bring us all a little more into the light of Truth, to have a conversation about it, and to urge you to continue to explore it for yourself.