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 Theology of Death
Rahner's 1958 theological essay on death as final-personal act
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | On the Theology of Death (Mid) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Finite |
| 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 | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Variable |
| 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 | Revelation |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| 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
On the Theology of Death
1958 publication; mid-Rahner; thirty years after Heidegger's Being and Time (1927), four years before Vatican II opens.
Space
On the Theology of Death
Innsbruck-and-Munich composition; subsequent transnational Catholic-theological readership through translations into the major theological-publishing languages.
Matter
On the Theology of Death
Death as personal-free act of self-disposition, the soul's 'final option' before God, Christ's death as transformation of all subsequent human death, the engagement with Heidegger's Being-toward-death.
Observer
On the Theology of Death
Mid-Rahner as transcendental-Thomist theologian engaged with both Catholic-systematic-tradition and modern philosophical-existential resources.
Energy
On the Theology of Death
Transcendental-Thomist, existential-engaged, eschatologically-soteriological, dialectical energies.
Information
On the Theology of Death
Short systematic-theological treatise; combines anthropological-analysis, soteriological-Christological argument, and explicit Heideggerian-philosophical engagement; aimed at theologically-educated readers.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
On the Theology of Death has shaped subsequent twentieth-century Catholic eschatology and remains a standard reference. Rahner's thesis about death as personal-final-act-of-self-disposition has been variously developed — Boros radicalised it into the 'final-option' theory (every person makes a free decision for or against God in the moment of death), while Ratzinger and Balthasar engaged it with more reserve. The work continues to be debated in contemporary Catholic theology of death and dying.