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.
Sentences
The master framework of medieval theology — four books, four centuries of commentary, every scholastic mind compelled to engage
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Sentences |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | not engaged |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | not engaged |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| 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 | not engaged |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Sentences
The standard Augustinian temporal framework: created time, linear history from creation through fall and redemption to Last Judgement. God's eternity transcends time. Non-deterministic: human free will affirmed alongside divine predestination, following Augustine.
Space
Sentences
Finite, created, three-dimensional. The theological geography of heaven, hell, and purgatory matters more to Lombard than the physics of space. The standard medieval cosmos is assumed.
Matter
Sentences
Created from nothing, good, hylomorphic. The sacraments are material signs that convey spiritual grace — a doctrine that depends on the goodness and theological transparency of the material order.
Observer
Sentences
The human person is a rational soul united to a body, created in the image of God, fallen through original sin, redeemed through Christ. The ultimate metaphysical agent is a personal Trinitarian God. Lombard follows Augustine on the soul's Trinitarian image (memory, intellect, will).
Energy
Sentences
Not theorised independently. Finite, conserved, irreversible in the inherited patristic-Aristotelian framework.
Information
Sentences
The divine ideas are the eternal archetypes of all created things (Sentences I, d.35–36, following Augustine). Knowledge participates in divine illumination. Personal conservation guaranteed by bodily resurrection (Sentences IV, d.43–50).
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Lombard's refusal to resolve many disputed questions was his pedagogical genius and his theological vulnerability. His identification of charity with the Holy Spirit (Sentences I, d.17) was rejected by Aquinas and most later commentators. One of his Trinitarian opinions was condemned at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The question of whether the Sentences imposes a framework that distorts the patristic sources it compiles has been raised by modern scholars.