Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Summa Theologiae
Faith and reason in concord — Aristotle baptised, Augustine systematised, the act of being made foundational
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Summa Theologiae |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Both |
| 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 | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| 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 work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Summa Theologiae
Aquinas distinguishes God's eternity (the simultaneous, complete possession of unending life, q.10, a.1, citing Boethius) from aeviternity (the changeless duration of angels) and time (the measure of change in corporeal substances). Time begins with creation; God knows future contingents eternally without thereby making them necessary (q.14, a.13 — one of the most subtle medieval discussions of foreknowledge and freedom).
Space
Summa Theologiae
The Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmos is presupposed: a finite, spherical, hierarchical universe. Place (locus) is the inner surface of the containing body, exactly as in Aristotle. God's omnipresence is treated carefully: God is in all places by essence, presence, and power (q.8) without himself being a spatial substance.
Matter
Summa Theologiae
Hylomorphic matter receives substantial form; prime matter (materia prima) is pure potentiality, taking on actuality only when informed. Matter is created by God ex nihilo, conserved by his continuing causality, and locally interactive. The whole Aristotelian apparatus of substantial and accidental change is taken over and integrated.
Observer
Summa Theologiae
The Thomist observer is the rational animal — a body-soul composite whose intellect can abstract universals from sense experience (q.84–88) and whose will pursues the good. Knowledge is immediate in origin (it begins from the senses, against innatism) but completed by the beatific vision in patria. Agency is active under God's primary causality (the doctrine of secondary causation, q.105). Observer Number is plural — human beings are genuinely individuated substances.
Energy
Summa Theologiae
Esse — the act of being — is the energetic core of the Thomist metaphysics. Every creature has its essence and exists by participating in being; the act-of-being is the deepest metaphysical actuality, given continuously by God. Energy in the physical sense is conserved within creation and locally dissipative in the manner of medieval physics.
Information
Summa Theologiae
God's knowledge of creatures is their archetype (q.14–15); creaturely intellects participate in divine knowledge. Personal information is conserved: the soul is incorruptible (q.75, a.6), survives the body, and at the resurrection is reunited with a glorified body. The whole creation participates in the divine ideas — substantival informational realism at the cosmic scale.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Summa's integration of faith and reason has been disputed in two directions ever since: the Augustinian-Reformed wing thinks it gives too much to philosophical reason, the modern philosophical wing thinks it gives too much to revealed theology. The treatment of grace and free will (q.83 and Prima Secundae q.109–14) is the point at which all the later Catholic controversies — Molina, Bañez, Jansenism — divide. Aquinas's text supports more than one reading.