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.
The New Testament
The Word became flesh — the cross and resurrection of Jesus reorder time, matter, observer, and information at once
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The New Testament |
|---|---|
| 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 | Both |
| 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
The New Testament
The New Testament sharpens the Tanakh's temporal scheme into an "already / not yet" eschatology: the kingdom has broken into history with Jesus's ministry but awaits consummation. The resurrection is a real temporal event that reshapes the meaning of time itself. The Gospels are narrated as histories; Revelation projects a definitive future. Time is linear, unidirectional, and the medium of redemption.
Space
The New Testament
Christian cosmology presupposes a created, finite, substantival space. The incarnation is precisely God's entry into a particular spatial location (Bethlehem, Galilee, Jerusalem); the church spreads geographically in Acts. Heaven is real but not in this space.
Matter
The New Testament
Decisively affirmed against early Gnostic devaluations. The Word became flesh (John 1:14); the resurrection is bodily (1 Corinthians 15); the new creation includes a renewed material order. The Pauline doctrine of the spiritual body (sōma pneumatikon) is the linchpin: resurrection is not escape from matter but its transformation.
Observer
The New Testament
Embodied, plural, addressed personally by God in Christ. The observer's agency is both active (faith, repentance, works of love) and passive (grace, election, the Spirit's agency within). Knowledge of God comes through the incarnation in a way Hebrew Scripture's mediated revelation did not provide. The metaphysical agency is unambiguously personal — Father, Son, Spirit; one God, three persons.
Energy
The New Testament
Not theorised in modern terms; the framework treats God's sustaining word as the continuous source of created being. Energy is substantival within creation and irreversibly entropic until the renewal of all things.
Information
The New Testament
God's knowledge is total and personal (Matthew 10:30 — "the very hairs of your head are all numbered"). Personal information is unambiguously conserved: the resurrection is bodily, the saved are "with the Lord," the lost remain in perdition. Romans 8's catalogue of what cannot separate the believer from the love of God is the canonical statement of conserved personal information.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The classical interpretive tensions are too many to enumerate: Paul vs the Synoptics on the law, the historical Jesus vs the Christ of faith, the role of works in salvation (James 2 vs Romans 4), the chronology of the resurrection appearances, the relation of Israel and the church. Modern critical scholarship (since Reimarus, Strauss, Wrede) has added the question of how the texts relate to the historical events they purport to describe. The attribute fingerprint reflects a broadly classical-Christian reading; historical-critical and liberal readings would adjust the metaphysical-agency and personal-conservation coordinates.