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.
Letter to Demetrias
Human nature is good, free will is real, and sinlessness is possible — the anti-Augustinian case for moral optimism
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Letter to Demetrias |
|---|---|
| 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 | Active |
| 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
Letter to Demetrias
Time in Pelagius is the medium of moral progress — the human being can, through effort and grace (understood as law and example), grow in virtue across a lifetime. History shows moral exemplars before and after Christ.
Space
Letter to Demetrias
The spatial framework is the late Roman world — Pelagius writes from the milieu of Roman aristocratic Christianity. The letter addresses Demetrias in a specific social-spatial context.
Matter
Letter to Demetrias
The human body is part of God's good creation — not fallen or inherently corrupt. The capacity for virtue is embodied, not merely spiritual.
Observer
Letter to Demetrias
The moral observer is the free, embodied human agent — capable of knowing the good through natural conscience and choosing it through free will. Active, not passive.
Energy
Letter to Demetrias
Moral energy is the will's capacity to choose good — a real force that can be trained and strengthened. Pelagius insists on the will's genuine efficacy against Augustine's emphasis on its bondage.
Information
Letter to Demetrias
The natural law inscribed in conscience is the fundamental moral information — discrete, substantival, and conserved across all human beings as a gift of creation.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The central tension is theological: Pelagius's confidence in human nature was condemned as heretical by the church councils, largely under Augustine's influence. The question — how much can human beings achieve by their own moral effort, and how much requires divine grace? — remains one of the defining disputes of Western theology. A second tension is between Pelagius's text (moderate, pious, morally serious) and the caricature of "Pelagianism" (denial of grace, denial of sin) that Augustine created and the tradition inherited.