Character Responses to Divine Inconsistencies?

The thing is that the divine does not simply dupport all three faiths, it presents itself equally to all of them in their own terms. A saint protecting Jewish mage would simply present himself as a blessed ancestor, not as a saint (okay, clearly not his own ancestor, but you get the point) or perhaps claim that he has been elevated to an angelic position- whatever fits with the explanations of the Jewish faith (I have virtually zero expertise on this) so realistically your character, even as a holy magus, should not be in a position to confirm the existence of saints as a Jew.

@Red-Shadow-Claws Maybe, although this would entail also believing that God either can't or is for some reason unwilling to allow His holy casters to bypass that form of infernal deception specifically. Which, it does seem a bit odd that the lesson for very structured and rules-encoded religions would be "always treat information received from God with a healthy amount of suspicion," but I suppose He's always been big on testing people. This actually goes double for medieval Judaism, which doesn't even believe in an opposing supernatural faction against God; the Mythic European Jewish interpretation of the Infernal Realm is that they're very much Law-abiding angels acting on God's behalf, just with the mission of testing people's commitment to right behavior.

All of this comes back to the aforementioned fact that Ars Magica's as-written cosmology is predominantly Catholic, somewhat Muslim, and barely Jewish, but at the same time it would be profoundly awful in light of actual history to be like "yes, the Catholics were right about the Jews, they have no true connection to God and they'll all go to Hell when they die" so they ended up in the weird state of saying "Judaism has Divine backing too, despite the fact that the more tools your faith in Judaism gives you to understand God's Will and the nature of His Creation, the more you'll find Judaism contradicted at every turn."

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Because this too is a test...

Just wait till a Karaite Jew encounters another sect of Judaism that's also enjoying Divine favor...
Or for that matter, Catholics learning that Orthodox Christians enjoy Divine favor. "Didn't we destroy their churches? and cast down Byzantium?"

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And then there's that moment where I find myself wondering what a karate Jew is, and why having a brawl score of 9+ has anything to do with divine favor...

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That's a problem when you miss the i... Karaite, not Karate...

I caught that, just not right away...

I'm far from an expert theologian, but can you do something by focussing on covenants? God made a specific deal with the Jews, and as a Jew he's obligated to keep it. That doesn't mean that God can't have made other deals with other peoples, that it's proper for them to keep - and those deals don't necessarily have identical terms (indeed - they can't do, as only the Jews are God's chosen people).

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The thing is that there are a lot of contradictions that this approach manages to embrace both sides of. as an example Cathars believed that masturbation an homosexuality were preferable to married sex from a moral perspective because it did not bring new people into the world. Catholics had rather the opposite view, and if both of these are receiving divine support then it raises some very disturbing questions for those who have devoutly followed one path.

This actually makes a lot of sense! And also calls to mind an error in my own thought process regarding Jewish interpretation of the world (not that that's a monolithic thing). Perhaps the story from the Talmud of HaShem speaking from Heaven to say one rabbi in a debate is correct, only for the rabbis to tell HaShem to stay out of it because he already got to say his piece, is demonstrative.

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You could also decide that your character concludes that God's Truth was partially misinterpreted by all three religions, maybe slightly improved refined with each new iteration. And thus decide that the only logical thing to do if a true believer is to take all that these three religions have learned and build on it, creating a truer, fourth iteration. Seeing farther by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

This is, after all, what supposedly drove the creation of Christianism, and later on, Islam.

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I think for a Jewish character confronted with the reality of saints, they might conclude that such saints have been provided by God to aid the sinful Gentiles in their understanding and that accordingly reverence to saints is still sinful but less sinful than worshiping pagan gods.

The main problem of saints for a jew is not their existence, but Christians revering them with altars, candles and incense - which is or borders on idolatry.
If a saint with proven Divine appears, she should still be treated with respect, just like a prophet would.

I'm coming late to the discussion, and my view partially coincides with those of others. Still.

First, keep in mind that a character's view of God does not necessarily coincide with the player's understanding of the Divine, which is a game mechanic. A Divine-aligned character can certainly perceive another Divine-aligned character as an idolater, even if he has some means of detecting the idolater is aligned with the Divine.

In this sense, note that characters with True Faith can get a set of favoured abilities from at most one Divine Tradition -- so considering a particular "flavour" of the Divine to be the only "right" one seems very natural. And thus, what is sinful for one character may not be sinful for another, even though the rough general directions of good and evil are mostly aligned across the entire gamut of religions and heresies.

Now, can a character change his perspective on the Divine, converting from e.g. Judaism to Christianity, without ever falling into a state of sin? Probably, if roleplayed correctly. I think this is the perfect example of a Crisis of Faith, actually (RoP:D p.59). Note that embracing a religion that worships everything that is Divine according to ArM5, with no additional trappings ... is technically possible, but uncommon, in my view.

It is also worth noting that someone can be part of both a divine tradition and an infernal tradition- my typical example is crusaders who are divine mystics as well as being affected by the Mallus Islam and in their zealotry desecrating Muslim hold spaces (it is also highly effective in dealing with the Order of Seuleman since they have ablating and Djinn can be magic faerie or infernal but not divine)

Additionally you will have faeries latching onto stereotypes and portraying them because it is a good story thereby reinforcing the idea tha tht group over there is not divinely supported.