The man's name was Tomas. He was a newcomer to Dili, his face still etched with the harrowed look of someone who had fled the Oracle's core territories. He had found his way to the courtyard garden, drawn by the same whispered rumors of resistance that had guided Enki. But his resistance was born of confusion, not conviction.
"I just don't understand," Tomas muttered, his hands clenching and unclenching as he watched Nina work. "The priests in the data-streams, the ones the Oracle still allows to broadcast… they speak in circles. They say God purchased the church, but… which god? The Primordial One? The Son? It's a locked box, and they've thrown away the key."
Enki watched from his usual shadow. This was the Finkelstein Paradox playing out in real-time—the desperate, intellectual grappling with the lock, ignoring the open door.
Nina paused, her trowel hovering over the soil near the newly planted barley seed. She didn't look up at first.
"They're using the wrong words, Tomas," she said, her voice calm. "They're using the language of systems and philosophy. You're trying to solve a spiritual problem with a political map."
Tomas shook his head, frustrated. "But the scripture… Acts 20:28. It says it right there! '...to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.' He purchased it with His own blood. How can a spirit, a primordial force, bleed? It doesn't make sense!"
Now, Nina looked up. Her eyes, those deep, calm pools, met his. There was no judgment in them, only a profound, gentle clarity.
"You're reading the words but missing the person, Tomas," she said. She stood, brushing the dirt from her knees. "You see 'God' as a single, distant idea. You're not seeing the relationship—the Father who sent, and the Son who obeyed."
She walked over to him, stopping beside a flowering jasmine plant that climbed the broken wall, its scent a sweet defiance against the dust.
"The verse doesn't say a distant, unknowable force purchased an institution. It says He purchased it with His own blood. Who is 'He'? It was Jesus. The man, the teacher, the Son. The Primordial God, the Father, sent him. But it was Jesus himself who walked the earth, who taught, who bled on the cross. The blood that was shed was his blood. The life that was given was his life."
Enki listened, the truth of it resonating. This was not a complex theological formula. It was a story of a Father's will and a Son's love.
"And because the Son acted with the full authority and love of the Father," Nina continued, her voice gaining a quiet, unshakable strength, "the purchase is credited to God. The Father willed it, the Son accomplished it. With his own life. So yes, it is the church of God—the church that belongs to the Primordial Father, purchased for Him by the perfect, willing sacrifice of His only begotten Son. It is the Church of Christ because He is the one who built it, who bought it, and who is its head."
Tomas stared at her, the theological knots he'd been wrestling with beginning to loosen. "So… Jesus is the intermediary. The agent."
"He is the Son," Nina corrected softly, with finality. "Not a mere agent. The beloved Son. The one in whom the Father was well pleased. The Father gave the command, and the Son, out of love for his Father and for us, obeyed unto death. The church is the fruit of that obedience."
She pointed a dirt-stained finger not at a building, not at a sky, but at the people around them—the volunteers tending the garden, the families sharing a meager lunch in the shade.
"This is what the Son purchased for the Father. Not bricks. Not titles. Us. Our souls. Our community. Our chance to be reconciled to the Primordial One through the Son's sacrifice. Jesus is the way, Tomas. The one path back to the Father. He is the light because the Father is light, and he reflects Him perfectly. The church is simply the people who follow that light, who are called by his name."
The clarity of it was staggering. It honored the supreme authority of the Primordial One while explaining the vital, central role of the Son. It cut through two thousand years of confusing doctrine.
Tomas was silent for a long time, looking from Nina's face to the humble garden. The frantic confusion in his eyes softened, replaced by a dawning, quiet wonder.
"It's… a family," he whispered. "A Father and a Son… and we're the children being brought home."
"The truth always is that simple," Nina said. "The systems make it complicated because simple truth is the one thing they can't control. You don't need to understand everything. You just need to know who sent the Son, what the Son did for you, and to whom you now belong."
She turned and went back to her work, leaving Tomas standing there, a man who had finally seen the door held open for him.
Enki did not write in his Scrapbook. He didn't need to. The scene was etched into his soul. This was the unassailable truth that the Ikannuna's cold logic could never process: a universe governed not by an impersonal force, but by a Father's love, demonstrated through a Son's sacrifice. It was the ultimate evidence for the defense.