After trying to clarify what Babylon is and why “it is written” can become the foundation of a false world, I realized something was still missing. I felt the thread had not yet been carried all the way through. Babylon had taken clearer shape not only as a city or an empire, but as a world in which writing, institution, and falsehood come to rule over man as though they were reality itself. And yet exactly at that point another question remained without an answer. Without it, everything risked hanging in the air.
If “it is written” is in fact the principle of Babylon, then what is its real opposite?
At first, the almost automatic reflex would have been to answer: freedom. But that word has been so emptied out, so distorted, so pushed toward libertinism and arbitrariness, that it no longer says much of anything. That was not what I was looking for. I did not want to oppose authoritative text with some vague “freedom” that can mean everything and nothing. I was looking for something more precise, heavier, and truer. And at one point the matter suddenly became very simple: the opposite of “it is written” is not freedom, but responsibility.
That is where everything came together.
Because the moment a man hides behind the formula “it is written,” he no longer answers with his own mind. He no longer judges. He no longer weighs. He no longer bears the burden of truth in his own conscience. He hands himself over to a form already fixed and lets himself be carried by it. If the text says it, if authority confirms it, if tradition approves it, then the case appears closed. That is where the center shifts. The man no longer carries responsibility; the text does. Conscience no longer judges; the quotation does. Truth is no longer sought; it is invoked. And that is precisely where Babylon truly begins.
It suddenly seemed to me that things were much simpler than imperial theology makes them sound. God gave man a mind. Not as an ornament. Not as a luxury. Not as a secondary instrument. But as the place of responsibility. If man does not judge for himself, then he is not responsible. If he is not responsible, then he can do anything in the name of any text. And that is exactly what history shows.
In fact, if you look more closely, almost all the great tragedies of mankind share this structure: someone raises above man a formula, a text, a doctrine, a program, a law, an official line, and man stops judging and starts submitting. Sometimes the text is religious. Other times it is political. Other times bureaucratic. Other times “scientific.” But the mechanism is the same: do not judge; execute. That is where you see how deep Babylon really goes.
At one point I realized that the formula “judge for yourselves” is not merely healthier than “it is written”; it stands in direct conflict with it. Because “judge for yourselves” means: do not delegate responsibility for truth to someone else. Do not hide behind the letter. Do not wash your hands by saying: that is what it said, that is how we received it, that is what we were told, that is what the system requires. Judge. And in judging, answer for yourselves.
That is where, for me, the figure of Jesus also began to separate much more clearly from everything later attached to Him. Because Jesus does not appear as the man who cancels the mind beneath the text. He does not appear as a religious functionary of “it is written.” On the contrary. He places man before truth and compels him to see, to hear, to discern. He passes through texts, traditions, formulas, authorities, and keeps striking the same point: where man has replaced living judgment with dead obedience. Where the letter has taken the place of truth. Where tradition has enthroned itself and presented itself as God.
That is why the idea that Jesus moved blindly on the line of “it is written” seems false to me. No. This is exactly where the rupture lies. The man of God does not swallow things like a pelican. The man of God judges. He may read a text, but he does not hand over his conscience to the text. He may hear a command, but he does not suspend his mind. He may receive a tradition, but he does not automatically treat it as truth simply because it comes from the past. That is responsibility.
And that is precisely why imperial theology cannot truly tolerate this axis. It may formally tolerate the idea of discernment, but only as long as discernment confirms what the apparatus has already decided. The moment man judges all the way through, the apparatus becomes nervous. Because the responsible man can no longer be governed merely with formulas. And Babylon lives precisely by the formula that shuts the mouth and abolishes responsibility: “it is written.”
When I began looking at history through this lens, many things that had seemed separate started gathering into a single image. Think of the religious wars, persecutions, inquisitions, excommunications, witch hunts, men and women tortured, burned, crushed, or cast out because a text, a doctrine, a formula, a scriptural authority, or a tradition was invoked. The problem there was not the absence of text. The problem was the absence of judgment. The absence of moral responsibility. People no longer answered as human beings, but as executors of an “truth” already delivered to them.
And the same mechanism does not belong to religion alone. This is one of the greatest illusions of the modern world: it thinks it has escaped Babylon simply because it changed its vocabulary. But Babylon does not die when sacred language disappears. It moves. In place of “it is written” in the canon, there comes “that is what the Party says,” “that is what the State says,” “that is what official science says,” “that is what the protocol says,” “that is the correct line,” “that is what the experts say,” “that is what public safety requires.” The form changes. The structure remains.
Nazism was not merely an explosion of hatred. It was also a massive capitulation of judgment before doctrine, order, official text, the state apparatus, the ideological line. People did not commit monstrous acts only because they were individually evil, but also because they stopped judging and hid behind slogans, regulations, orders, and formulas of legitimation. “I was following orders,” “the law required it,” “the State demanded it,” “that was the line” — all of these are secular versions of “it is written.”
The same with communism. It was not imposed only through brute terror, but also through ideological text elevated to absolute norm. Through the manual, through the Party, through mandatory discourse, through official doctrine, through truth imposed from above. There too, whoever judged for himself became a danger. The responsible man was suspect. The system needed the disciplined, aligned, textualized man. Not the man who answered with his own mind.
And perhaps one of the clearest recent lessons was the pandemic. Not because it was the first time something like this happened, but because it unfolded before our eyes, in real time, and showed how quickly man can surrender judgment if he is given a text, a protocol, an order, an official justification, and a sufficiently large fear. Suddenly, people who yesterday looked normal began demanding exclusions, constraints, humiliations, segregations, the cancellation of natural human bonds, all in the name of a higher formula: “that’s what the rules say,” “that’s what the authorities say,” “that’s what science says,” “that’s what the protocol says.” And whoever dared judge for himself immediately became suspect, demonized, silenced, or declared a public danger.
This is no longer just about public health policy. It is about something deeper: how quickly Babylon returns whenever man hands over his responsibility to an official form. And that is precisely why the pandemic seemed to me one of the strongest proofs that the problem is not only what text lies before you, but what place you give it. The moment the text, the protocol, the order, or the formula is placed above living judgment, man becomes capable of perfectly respectable atrocities. And that is exactly the most terrifying part: Babylon does not always require rage. Sometimes it requires only conformity.
That is where it became very clear to me why “judge for yourselves” is so important. Not because man is infallible. Not because his mind is absolute. But because without this personal judgment, there is no responsibility. And without responsibility, man can become the instrument of any apparatus that tells him what to do. At that point he is no longer a moral being, but an executor.
And that is exactly where imperial theology performs its great inversion. It presents itself as defender of order, truth, tradition, text, revelation. But in reality it demands something far more serious from man: that he hand over his judgment. And the moment he hands it over, he can no longer answer before God as a man. He can only say: I did nothing but follow what was written. And that is precisely the tragedy. Because God did not give man a mind so he would have something with which to quote, but so he would have something with which to answer.
That is where, for me, everything we had discussed about Babylon also came together more clearly. Babylon is not only empire, only idolatry, only corruption, or only violence. Babylon is the world in which final authority no longer rests in truth judged and assumed by man’s conscience, but in a form imposed above him. Whether that form is called canon, tradition, state, party, protocol, or official science, the mechanism is the same. Man is called to abdicate responsibility and submit.
So if I had to say it as simply as possible, I would say this:
“It is written” is the principle of Babylon.
“Judge for yourselves” is the principle of human responsibility.
The first takes from man the burden of truth and replaces it with conformity.
The second places man before God without excuse, without cover, without an apparatus behind him.
The first produces empires, inquisitions, totalitarianisms, conformisms, cruelties carried out in the name of a higher form.
The second produces men who can say “no” even when the whole system says “yes,” precisely because they answer with their own mind and conscience.
History is full of such people. People who refused to carry out unjust orders. People who hid the persecuted despite the law. People who refused to denounce, exclude, humiliate, discriminate, lie, sign, participate, precisely because they judged for themselves. Sometimes against the Party. Sometimes against the State. Sometimes against the Church. Sometimes against the majority. Not because they were rebels without cause, but because they remained responsible when everyone else hid behind the text.
That is also where you see what kind of man each principle produces.
“It is written” produces the obedient man.
“Judge for yourselves” produces the responsible man.
The first needs an apparatus.
The second needs truth.
The first demands submission.
The second demands discernment.
The first kills conscience.
The second awakens it.
And perhaps this is the hardest thing for imperial theology to accept: God does not seem interested in creating religious executors. He seems interested in having human beings who answer. And whoever answers must judge. He cannot do otherwise.
That is why, for me, the theme of Babylon can no longer be separated from this question: who has the last word in man? The text invoked above him, or the mind God gave him so that he might answer? If the last word belongs to “it is written,” then man has already been morally disarmed. If the last word belongs to responsible judgment, then no text, no authority, no doctrine, and no apparatus can any longer claim blind obedience.
This is where, in fact, everything gathers. The first article about Babylon. The discussion about “it is written.” The problem of captivity. The difference between imperial theology and what I understand God to want from man. Babylon begins where man stops judging and allows himself to be led by a form. Coming out of Babylon begins where man once again takes responsibility for judging.
It is not an exit into anarchy.
It is not an exit into chaos.
It is not an exit into whim.
It is the exit from the world in which man says, “I acted this way because that is what was written,” and the entry into the world in which man says, “I answered for what I understood to be true.”
And perhaps this is exactly why Babylon has remained so powerful for so long. Because man grows tired of being responsible. It is much easier to quote than to judge. Much easier to submit than to answer. Much easier to hide behind an authority than to stand alone before truth. Babylon offers man exactly this poisoned relief: escape the burden of judgment and let the text decide for you.
But God, if we take Him seriously, does not seem to call man to that relief. He calls him to responsibility. And responsibility begins where “it is written” can no longer shut the mouth of the mind.