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.
De Libero Arbitrio
The Bible itself does not univocally settle the question of free will — therefore we should hold the moderate position the Fathers and the Church have always held
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | De Libero Arbitrio (Late (the treatise that publicly broke the Erasmus-Luther alliance, written after seven years of pressure for Erasmus to declare his position)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-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 | Both |
| 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
De Libero Arbitrio
The historical moment of 1524 — seven years after the 95 Theses, two years after Luther's 1521 Diet of Worms appearance, with the Reformation now politically irreversible.
Space
De Libero Arbitrio
The Latin Christian commonwealth being broken into confessional fragments; Erasmus's position assumes its unity even as the unity is dissolving.
Matter
De Libero Arbitrio
The embodied human will whose freedom is the topic — its rational structure, its corruption by sin, its renewal by grace.
Observer
De Libero Arbitrio
The morally serious Christian whose practical condition (the call to repentance, the experience of moral struggle) the treatise treats as evidence.
Energy
De Libero Arbitrio
Grace as the activating energy of salvation; free will as the residual capacity that cooperates with grace.
Information
De Libero Arbitrio
The scriptural and patristic evidence as the discrete information against which any doctrine of free will must be tested.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Luther's De Servo Arbitrio (1525) — which Luther considered his best book — utterly rejected Erasmus's methodology as well as his conclusions. The treatise's consequences were historical, not just theological: it ended the possibility of an Erasmus-Luther alliance for moderate Catholic reform and made the Reformation's rupture irreversible. Modern Catholic theology (Trent, Vatican II) substantially endorses Erasmus's position; modern Reformed theology (Calvin, Edwards, Barth) endorses Luther's. The exchange remains the classical statement of the divide.