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.
City of God
Two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, intermingled through history — the city of God is the people whose love is God's
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | City of God (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | 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 | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Passive |
| 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
City of God
History runs from creation to eschaton — book XX develops the most sustained patristic theology of the last judgement. Time is linear, uni-directional, directional toward consummation. God's providence orders all events; secondary causation is real but subordinate.
Space
City of God
The two cities are interwoven in this world's geography. Rome, Jerusalem, Babylon are all real places; the heavenly city is real but not in this space. Substantival, finite, three-dimensional.
Matter
City of God
Created good and conserved; matter is not the source of evil (Augustine's anti-Manichean polemic carries into the City of God). The resurrection of the body is bodily; book XXII's closing image of the perfected body in the new creation is one of the most influential patristic statements.
Observer
City of God
The Augustinian observer is the divided self of fallen humanity — embodied, plural, passive at the level of salvation (the will is bound; election is unconditional), active at the level of civic life. Knowledge is immediate through Scripture, interior illumination, and the witness of creation. Moral authority is scripture magisterially. Metaphysical agency is unambiguously personal.
Energy
City of God
Standard Christian-medieval doctrine of God's continuous causal sustenance of creation.
Information
City of God
God's eternal foreknowledge is total; the inscribed record of every life is complete in God's knowledge. Personal information is conserved across death and into the resurrection.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The City of God's political theology has been read as both critical of empire (the early books on Rome's idolatries) and as legitimating Christian empire (later Carolingian and Ottonian readings). Augustine's strong predestinarianism (XXII.24, on the small number of the elect) is one of the principal sources of the later Catholic-Reformed controversies on grace and free will.