hence Essential Nature is really His plan, Forms are God's perfect conception of the nature of something. The Divine being treated as separate is hard to grasp from this perspective.
How much the Essential Nature is determined by the Divine is unclear- indeed, I donât think we have an explicit statement that the Divine created the world (though I may be wrong).
My personal view is it is as within âthe worldâ as any case of casuality for the most part- some stuff will be because the Divine appointed it, but others will happen independently even if the Divine knew it would happen. A man getting his hand cut off and that becoming part of his Essential Nature for example isnât neccessarily a divine act.
It also becomes hard not to see magic as "inherently sinful", mages acting as little gods trying their best to screw with His blueprints, practically heretical in nature in the same manner as Satan. It would be slightly less screwy if God himself were treated in a Deist manner but He definitely isn't, considering the relationship angels have to Him.
I donât see why altering things with magic would be any more sinful than say, altering things with mundane knowledge. Is a smith performing a sin of hubris for taking an ore and changing it into a horseshoe? Magi cannot touch or alter the Essential Nature itself, and so even if one says altering it is hubristic they donât do so.
What I'm really getting at is, why would anyone choose to mess with magic in a world like this? I'd take one look at the facts and drop my spellbooks in a heartbeat. I'd be convinced I was going straight to hell. I certainly couldn't be a pagan magi, or simply not care, more than "not caring" I'd expect loads of magi to be Satanists.
The idea âmagic is sinfulâ honestly if I recall correctly is not widespread in this period. That is something that pops up more later- historically speaking, most people either disbelieved most magic or saw it as something useful/dangerous but not inherently bad (to my knowledge anyway). Even if we were to go down the route magic is inherently evil- well, most magi are already varying degrees of heretics and thatâs theologically worst to my knowledge.
I also expect "magic is fading" to be pretty implicit, despite the game suggesting otherwise. As more of the world is covered in Dominion auras magi have fewer and fewer places to practice without interference...
Whilst Ars does touch on âmagic is fadingâ stuff, itâs always treated as a scenario the troupe can chase rather than the default.
My personal opinion is weâre already in the period where magic has faded- with the silencing of the oracles, the birth of Jesus Christ, the rise of Christianity, humanityâs continued growth and burgeoning knowledge the dominance of the Realms besides the Divine has lessened. Where once pagan gods were worshipped by the masses and enacted their will on whimsy, now theyâre mostly withdrawn (though not entirely gone). Where once Ireland was a battleground between two supernatural races, now humanity dwells as its rightful inhabitants. Kosmokrators that define concepts of realtiy are chained, the cult of mercury fell and the like.
If the world still seems wonderous and magical- good, that is because it is. However, I donât think it will lessen from here- it isnât some big cosmic phenomona that caused magic to slowly ebb away or even the Divine in my opinion, but the general rule of entropy and multiple coincidences. Now however it has hit an equilibrium in my opinion.
All in all- the idea magic is sinful is one that comes later, magic fading is not neccessarily true and magic fundamentally is likely a neutral force. I find it hard to argue a magus healing a peasant who got injured is comitting a sin, especially since the act would constitute a form of charity.