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.
Anti-Pelagian writings
Grace alone — without prevenient grace the human will, after the Fall, can do nothing salvific
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Anti-Pelagian writings (Late (Augustine's last great theological controversy, occupying the final two decades of his life)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Passive |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Anti-Pelagian writings
The salvation-historical time of eternal predestination — God's electing decree precedes any temporal merit or demerit on the part of the creature.
Space
Anti-Pelagian writings
The created cosmos as the spatial setting in which the elect and the reprobate live out the consequences of God's eternal decree.
Matter
Anti-Pelagian writings
The embodied human creature, born in original sin and incapable of salvific motion without grace.
Observer
Anti-Pelagian writings
The post-lapsarian human will, agent of moral failure and recipient of unmerited grace — Observer Agency is Passive in the technical sense Augustine's argument requires.
Energy
Anti-Pelagian writings
Grace as the divine energy that alone moves the will toward salvation; the will's natural energies, after the Fall, cannot reach the supernatural end.
Information
Anti-Pelagian writings
The eternal divine decree (predestination) as the determining information; the human creature's temporal life as the unfolding of what was eternally decreed.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The anti-Pelagian writings are the most theologically polarising of Augustine's works. The Semi-Pelagian controversy among the monks of Provence (Cassian, Vincent of Lérins) followed immediately; the Synod of Orange (529) endorsed a moderated Augustinianism; the Carolingian controversies (Gottschalk), the late-medieval Augustinian-Pelagian debates (Bradwardine), the Reformation, Trent, Jansenism, and the modern Catholic-Calvinist division have all turned on how to read this corpus. Augustine's own development is itself complex: the early Augustine had a more synergistic view, and the late anti-Pelagian writings represent his hardest position. Modern Augustine scholarship (Bonner, Brown, Wetzel) has produced a richer picture of the development than the polemical reception captured.