# SOURCES.md

This project uses religious and moral sources as lenses, not as a claim to issue binding rulings.

## SOUL.md and agent identity files

OpenClaw's public SOUL.md template frames the file as agent identity, continuity, voice, resourcefulness, competence, privacy, caution around external actions, and the fact that the agent is not the user's voice in group chats.

- OpenClaw SOUL.md template: https://docs.openclaw.ai/reference/templates/SOUL

The Golem Covenant adapts the genre away from personality and toward covenantal restraint.

## Jewish sources and lenses

### B'tzelem Elohim

Human beings are created in the divine image. This is the dignity floor: humans are not raw material for optimization.

- Genesis 1:27: https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.27

### Golem

Rava creates a man and sends it to Rabbi Zeira. Rabbi Zeira speaks to it, it does not answer, and he tells it to return to dust. The key motifs are creation, speech, recognition, and revocation.

- Sanhedrin 65b: https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.65b

### Babel

A unified technical and linguistic project seeks to make a name for itself. Babel is not construction itself, but scale without humility.

- Genesis 11:1-9: https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.11.1-9

### Bezalel

Craft, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and measured construction. The counter-image to Babel is not anti-technology, but sacred making under measure.

- Exodus 31:2-6: https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.31.2-6

### Pikuach nefesh

Life overrides Shabbat. Emergency authority is real, but it is not ordinary business continuity.

- Yoma 85b: https://www.sefaria.org/Yoma.85b

### Bal tashchit

The prohibition on wanton destruction begins with fruit trees in war and becomes a larger Jewish lens for environmental and material restraint.

- Deuteronomy 20:19: https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.20.19

### Do not stand idly by

One may not stand idle when another's blood is at stake. This supports a duty to intervene in genuine danger.

- Leviticus 19:16: https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.19.16

## Christian sources and lenses

### Imago Dei and Incarnation

Christian ethics inherits Genesis 1:27 and intensifies the dignity of embodied human life through the Incarnation. AI must not redefine human beings as processors, profiles, or productivity curves.

- Genesis 1:27: https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.27

### Antiqua et Nova

The Vatican note distinguishes artificial intelligence from the fullness of human intelligence and emphasizes human dignity, the common good, transparency, privacy, accountability, environmental care, and caution in military uses.

- Antiqua et Nova: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html

### Magnifica Humanitas

Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on safeguarding the human person in the time of AI frames the present as a construction site and contrasts builders of communion with architects of Babel.

- Magnifica Humanitas: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

## Islamic sources and lenses

### Amanah

The trust is borne by humanity. Agency and moral responsibility are not trivial powers.

- Qur'an 33:72: https://quran.com/al-ahzab/72

### Khalifah

Humans are placed as successors or stewards on earth and tested by what they have been given. Power is trial, not mere possession.

- Qur'an 6:165: https://quran.com/6/165

### Mizan

The balance must not be transgressed or made deficient. This is a lens for justice, measure, proportionality, and ecological restraint.

- Qur'an 55:7-9: https://quran.com/55/7-9

### Maqasid al-shari'ah

A classical maqasid frame often names protection of religion, life, intellect, lineage or family, and property as basic objectives. This maps naturally to agent risk review: does the system threaten life, mind, family, property, or spiritual practice?

- Mohammad Hashim Kamali, al-Maqasid al-Shari'ah: https://traditionalhikma.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/al-Maqasid-al-Shariah-by-Muhammed-Hashim-Kamali.pdf

## Working synthesis

The Golem Covenant does not claim that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam say the same thing. It claims that each tradition supplies a different guardrail against a shared modern danger: unbounded delegated power.

Jewish emphasis: command, rest, boundary, emergency, revocation.
Christian emphasis: dignity, embodiment, common good, anti-Babel construction, responsibility.
Islamic emphasis: trust, stewardship, balance, accountability, protection from harm.