Dilemma
What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize?
Religious traditions differ not only in what they believe, but in how authority is structured — and what counts as the right kind of argument.
Context
Religious traditions can be sorted by the structure of their theological authority: magisterial-institutional (Catholic, Orthodox, Baháʼí), confessional creedal-scriptural (Reformed, Lutheran, Evangelical, LDS, Zoroastrian), existential (Christian existentialism), conversionist (Pure Land tariki, Pentecostal), critical-historical (liberal theology, Deism), mystical (Sufism, Kabbalah, Advaita, Zen), process-relational (process theology), pragmatic-civic (Confucian ritual, civic Deism).
Why it matters
The kind of theological authority a tradition recognizes governs almost everything about its public face — what counts as a binding doctrinal claim, what role experience plays against tradition, who has the standing to settle disputes, and whether reform is restoration, progress, or apostasy.
The coordinates that split the schools
The stances
Institutional teaching tradition is the authority.
28 schoolsScripture, tradition, and the institutional magisterium together carry revealed truth.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 93% A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. on When does a person begin?
- 93% Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. on What is marriage?
- 93% Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. on What is money?
- 93% A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. on What is a nation?
- 93% Sex is a real biological kind with given content. on What makes someone male or female?
Creedal documents and Scripture-as-doctrine are the authority.
15 schoolsSola scriptura plus binding creedal confessions; the text is final.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 100% A soul continues into another mode of being. on What happens to "you" when you die?
- 100% Defer to credentialed traditions; experts are the modern analog. on Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it?
- 100% Revelation is the paradigm case of authoritative knowledge. on Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge?
- 100% An LLM has no soul to whom revelation could be addressed; the question doesn't apply. on Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces?
- 100% The dead are present through divine memory, communion of saints, or ancestor presence. on Are the dead morally present to the living?
Personal decision or conversion experience is the authority.
9 schoolsFaith is constituted in the moment of personal encounter or conversion.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 100% No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. on Is reality fundamentally digital?
- 100% No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness. on Are there indivisible units of experience?
- 100% Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed. on Is memory stored or reconstructed?
- 89% A soul continues into another mode of being. on What happens to "you" when you die?
- 89% A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. on When does a person begin?
Historical-critical method is the authority.
21 schoolsReligious claims are evaluated by the same critical-historical standards as any other claim.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 86% Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. on Is environmental damage ever truly permanent?
- 86% Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. on Can a civilization recover from collapse?
- 86% Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. on Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally?
- 81% Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. on Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
- 81% Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. on Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Direct experiential union is the authority.
33 schoolsThe mystic's immediate disclosure is the test; text and tradition are honored guides.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 70% The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. on Do you really choose?
- 70% The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. on Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
- 70% An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. on Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
- 70% Through direct contemplative union with reality. on How is knowledge of reality produced?
- 67% No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. on Is reality fundamentally digital?
Civic ritual or pragmatic moral function is the authority.
8 schoolsReligion's authority is its public-civic function, not its metaphysical claims.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 75% The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. on Do you really choose?
- 75% The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. on Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
- 75% An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. on Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
- 75% Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. on What is our place in nature?
- 75% Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. on Should we colonize space?
The category does not apply — the school is non-religious.
88 schoolsThere is no religious-theological authority structure to debate.
Where this stance leads ⓘ
- 88% Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. on Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
- 88% Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. on Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
- 88% The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. on Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
- 88% The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. on Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
- 85% Prayer changes the pray-er, not the prayed-for. on Can prayer for someone far away affect them?
Schools the coordinates don't place
These schools don't satisfy any stance's coordinate pattern strongly enough to be assigned — either because they decline to commit on the question (Confucianism is famously silent on what comes after; Pyrrhonian and pragmatist traditions suspend judgment), or because their attribute signature crosses categories in a way the five buckets don't capture.