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.
On the Bondage of the Will
The human will is bound under sin; salvation is by grace alone, without contribution from the creature
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | On the Bondage of the Will |
|---|---|
| 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
On the Bondage of the Will
Time itself is the medium of creation, beginning with God's creative act and proceeding linearly toward eschatological consummation. Within this framework, Luther insists strongly on the necessity of all events under God's sovereign decree: "God foreknows nothing contingently" (opening). Time Freedom is Deterministic in the Reformed-Lutheran sense — every event is willed by God — though Luther distinguishes this from physical determinism.
Space
On the Bondage of the Will
Not thematised in De Servo Arbitrio; the Christian cosmological background of a created, finite, substantival space is presupposed without development.
Matter
On the Bondage of the Will
Briefly treated: matter is God's good creation, fallen but not evil. The polemic against Erasmus does not engage matter in detail; the material conditions of human life are the background against which the bondage of the will plays out.
Observer
On the Bondage of the Will
The Lutheran observer is embodied (the body is not the soul's prison; the resurrection is bodily), plural (each Christian is distinctly addressed), and at the deepest level passive in salvation: the will cannot of itself turn to God. Knowledge of the gospel is immediate when produced by the Spirit through preaching (Word and Sacrament). The metaphysical agency is unambiguously personal — God elects, addresses, justifies, condemns. Moral authority is sola scriptura: the Word of God against every human tradition.
Energy
On the Bondage of the Will
Not thematised. The framework presupposes the medieval-Christian doctrine of conservation by God's ongoing causality.
Information
On the Bondage of the Will
God's eternal decree is the substantival informational structure of history. Personal information is conserved across death: the saved are gathered with Christ, the lost remain in perdition. The doctrine of election is the most controversial thread; Luther's argument is that without it, grace is no longer grace.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Luther's rhetoric in De Servo Arbitrio is at times more emphatic than his theology requires. He insists that God's sovereignty is absolute *and* that human responsibility is genuine, but the reconciliation is left as mystery rather than worked out. Later Lutheran scholastics (Chemnitz, Gerhard) softened some of the work's strongest formulations. Luther in his later years did not repeat all the extremities of the 1525 text, though he never retracted it; in 1537 he named the Catechisms and the Bondage of the Will as the only writings of his he wanted preserved.