Persona Classification Layer
Compare Personas
Pick two or more historical figures to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension evidence, and shared school influences side by side.
James Cone
God is Black — theology done from the underside of American racial history
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where personas disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid (32 attributes) is shown.
| Attribute | James Cone |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Finite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Revelation |
| Observer · Theological Method | Magisterial |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each persona's writings reveal about their stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
James Cone
Historical time read from the underside; God acts liberatively in the events of Black resistance.
Space
James Cone
Standard substantival; the segregated landscape of American racial geography is the site of God's action.
Matter
James Cone
Standard substantival matter; the lynched body and the gathered congregation are the theological loci.
Observer
James Cone
Plural observers; Black self-definition over against white categorization. Personal-divine cosmic agency: the God of the exodus and the cross.
Energy
James Cone
Standard physics.
Information
James Cone
Personal soul conserved; the cloud of witnesses includes the lynched and unnamed dead.
Internal Tensions
Where each persona's working synthesis strains against itself.
Cone's early identification of God with Blackness was attacked as racial reverse-theology by white critics and as too narrow by some womanist successors (Delores Williams, Katie Cannon) who pressed him to include Black women's experience more centrally. Cone publicly accepted the womanist correction. The relationship to King's nonviolent Personalism and Malcolm's Black nationalism was the unsettled tension Cone returned to throughout his career.