Theology Guide

The purpose of ontologies for systems of beliefs is naturally related to their intended practice and specific use. While the potential uses and the usefulness of TheOn and CalvOn will be further discussed in section 5.2., some issues regarding the general purpose and validity of developing of ontologies for systems of belief will be observed here.

There is a tendency to emphasize or perceive ontology as either formal representation of reality or as formalized conceptualization for mere information practice (Arp, Smith, & Spear, 2015, p. 7). These two basic views of the purpose of ontology; correspondence with reality or functionality in practice, correspond with two philosophical views related to ontology; realism and conceptualism. Arp, Sharp and Smith argue:

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“The goal of ontology for the realist is not to describe the concepts in people’s heads. Rather,ontology is an instrument of science, and the ontologist, like the scientist, is interested in terms or labels or codes ̶ all of which are seen as linguistic entities ̶ only insofar as they represent entities in reality. The goal of ontology is to describe and adequately represent those structures of reality that correspond to the general terms used by scientists.” (ibid. p. 7)

Øhrstrøm et. al also explain, “If ontology is seen as an information practice, ontologies may refer to multiple, possibly fragmented domain descriptions relative to some selected perspectives rather than to monolithic systems” (Øhrstrøm, Andersen, & Schärfe, 2005, p. 435). While historic ontologies of Lorhard, Wolff and Kraft were meant to categorize reality comprehensively in monolithic systems, the modern information science ontologies have departed significantly from the classical view of ontology and now they tend to be much more “subjective and changeable” than they used to be (Øhrstrøm, Andersen, & Schärfe, 2005, pp. 434-435). According to Sánchez et. al, “Computer Science does not give an answer about what is the essence (it is not its goal). It assumes thateverything that can be represented is “real”.” (Sánchez, Cavero, & Martínez, 2007, p. 7). This lastassumption stands in stark contrast with Arp, Sharp and Smith’s realist perception of ontology andthe ontologies developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Regardless of whether the ontologies for systems of beliefs present beliefs that correspond with reality, systems of beliefs do certainly exist as conceptual beliefs in writings, in confessions etc. that are believed by people. It is possible to represent conceptualization of such entities in doxastic or epistemic modalities such as “it is believed that ...” relative to different perspectives. This is what is done with TheOn and what is suggested in its potential merge with CalvOn, where the formalism ofCalvinism would be presented as a “perspective”.

However, abstracted and simplified “model theory” has been criticized in relation to biomedical formal ontologies by Obrst et al who state that “it has become clear that the whole detour via semantic models is in fact superfluous: the job of ontology is not the construction of simplified models; rather, a biomedical ontology should directly correspond to reality itself in a manner that maximizes descriptive adequacy within the constraints of formal rigour and computationalusefulness.” (Obrst, Janssen, & Ceusters, 2013, p. 218). In their view, “ontologies are based oncommon understanding of the real world, and try to avoid conceptualist pitfalls (...) andepistemological, belief-based, or evidential (...) observational knowledge.” (ibid. p. 220).

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If ontology must not be mere model theory and if it ought to represent reality in the way advocated by Obrst et al, then it is contentious whether it can describe specific religious beliefs as corresponding with reality. While ontologies for systems of beliefs might conceptualize valid religious knowledge, it would be an overstatement to call that knowledge factual, scientific, or common knowledge. Yet in the view of Obrst et al, this seems to be the kind of knowledge that is appropriate for ontology. But this perception of the purpose of ontology as representing common knowledge facts is very narrow. In contrast, others have perceived ontology as “a description of a world view”, that is, a particular way of looking at a domain (Bergman, 2010) or as a formalizedand shared “abstract, simplified view of the world that we wish to represent for some purpose.”(Guarino, Oberle, & Staab, 2009, p. 3). In such perception of ontology as representing world views, there seems to be much room for systems of beliefs to be presented. In relation to Obrst’s view of epistemological or belief-based knowledge as inappropriate subjects for ontology, Roberto Poli’scontrasting remark seems informing:

“The fact that there is a mutual or bilateral form of dependence between ontology andepistemology does not oblige us to conclude that we cannot represent their specific properties and characteristics separately. On the contrary, we should specify both what ontology can say about epistemology (a belief is a kind of object, it has parts and properties, etc.), and what epistemology can say about ontology (knowledge of the structure of objects is a kind of knowledge).” (Poli, 1999).

Although it is not in the intention of the ontologies developed in this thesis, it will be controversial when ontologies are designed to represent one system of belief deliberately as the actual true ones.24This was, however, exactly what was done in the historic ontologies by Lorhard and Kraft. From this realist point of view on the purpose and use of ontology, it has been suggested that ontology might improve society in relation to religious misunderstandings:

“(...) according to Kraft, as for the whole Wolffian tradition, ontology is not just a technique, but rather a framework of a number of true statements regarding the fundamental structure of reality. (...) to Jens Kraft and the ontologists of the 18th century, the understanding of reality is

24 While artificial intelligences such as Siri, Watson and others are designed with a neutrality in mind related to spiritual or religious questions, one could imagine future AIs designed to share the Christian gospel and fundamental doctrines or other religious messages. While such imaginations could be explicit and perhaps offensive to some in their presentation of worldview sensitive issues, present societies - online and offline - are full of messages, notifications, symbols, and persuasive triggers that are value biased presenting ethics, philosophies, or beliefs. There might even be a subtle tendency to promote a pluralism treating all religious ideas as subjective realities that are equally valid.

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also important when it comes to ethical and religious questions. They believed that dealing properly with ontology may help mankind to make a better society. According to Jens Kraft, many misunderstandings concerning social and religious improvements may in fact be avoided,if “the ontological truths” are taken properly into account.” (Øhrstrøm, Andersen, & Schärfe, 2005, p. 432)

To Kraft, ontology was “a useful foundation for any kind of scientific activity” and consequentlyuseful for ethics and religious (ibid. p. 432). Øhrstrøm et. al affirms both purposes of ontology as unified descriptions of reality and as conceptualization for information practice and they explainthat “this is not a dichotomy: in reality, these positions form a continuum, and specific efforts in ontology research may occur at any point between the extremes.” (ibid. p. 436).

Hence, the two perceptions of ontology can be understood together. Both purposes seem significant for the values of formal ontologies representing theology and system of beliefs. The benefits of these ontologies, certainly, relate to the degrees to which they are functional, and to which correspond to reality. A system that represents the religious and spiritual reality will be more beneficial than one representing belief that do not correspond to reality.

In discerning and including beliefs in ontologies it is helpful to refer to ontological commitment. This notion comes from the twentieth-century philosopher W. V. Quine (Ding, Kolari, Ding, & Avancha, 2007, p. 79). The ontological commitments represent the commitment to the entities that one regard as real. Such commitments are inevitable in the developments of formal ontologies, but the commitments might not all be equally valid, so ontology developers should be ready to defend their ontological commitments that that involved in the information systems. “It is an obvious obligation on the developer of an ontology to discuss and defend his choice of theory and the ontological commitments to which it gives rise.” (Øhrstrøm, Andersen, & Schärfe, 2005, p. 437).

5.2. Applications and utility of formal ontology

Ontologies are commonly designed with use-cases in mind. This is entirely appropriate. They should be designed to enable users achieve specific tasks effectively. For systems such as Logos Bible Software, the online Wittgenstein Nachlass and Siri, ontologies are designed to are developed to aid the users of the system in various ways. Likewise, the purpose for building ontologies

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representing theology and systems of beliefs, such as TheOn and CalvOn, is related to their application and use.

In general, there are different field of information science in which formal ontologies are developed and used effectively. Among the subdisciplines of information science using ontologies is information architecture. It has been argued that “Database Systems, Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence are the three most important fields where ontologies have been used to construct solutions to satisfy their needs.” (Sánchez, Cavero, & Martínez, 2007, p. 14).

More specifically the formal ontologies for systems of beliefs have different possible uses. In observing the potential utility of TheOn and CalvOn, three aspects of the usefulness of ontologies for faith and theology will be observed.

Firstly, the ontologies presented in the paper are useful for the education, pedagogy, and research in studies of humanities such as theology, history of thought and literary science. The humanistic fields of studies have not been a significant subject of ontology development compared to other areas where ontologies have been developed to a far greater extend. As seen in the ontologies for philosophy, for archiving, and for theology, formal ontology comprises a great potential for categorization and structuring information in humanities and for making that information accessible and usable. The value of the ontologies for the education, thus, comprise partly in the fact that there has not been developed formal ontologies for the domain of theology yet. Another part of this educational value is in the analytical presentation systems of belief by Ramist formalization and doxastic modalities. The developments in this thesis introduce further challenges and issues that would be appropriate topics for further studies. It might for instance be a fascinating undertaking to use the Ramist categorization in presenting a greater variety of systems of belief in a linked database clarifying ontological commitments in different traditions of thoughts.

Secondly, the ontologies related to system of beliefs and theology provide usefulness for knowledge sharing and semantic enrichment of content in the concrete information systems and applications in which they can be used. The ontologies provide useful interconnections between contents and is a powerful tool for linking data in information systems for theology and systems of belief. It has been argued and showed that the categorization formal ontology offers more complex liking and semantics than the traditional binary hyperlink structures. The semantic structures can increase the quality of user experience in web applications such as the Wittgenstein Nachlass and in desktop applications such as Logos Bible Software.

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There are multiple specific application opportunities of ontologies for systems of beliefs. Here, the thesis will observe a few possible applications. These opportunities might include websites similar to the Wittgenstein Nachlass into which the ontology can be imported and used through software like SwickyNotes and Philospace (see http://www.discovery-project.eu/technologies.html). By such means the ontologies could be made available and visualized online for browsing, studying, commenting, discussing, etc. In this way, one could imagine a website for theological research and shared data on the writings about Calvinism. Another website use-case could be a theological encyclopedia similar to www.plato.stanford.edu structured around the ontologies for theology. Applications could also include a chat bot which can relate a specific system of belief through ontology such as the Calvinism in CalvOn. This would be easy to do with a small scope developing a chat bot that could explain the basic categories of Calvinism by the means of free chatbot software like www.chatfuel.com, but with a fuller formal ontology and other more advanced software like voice recognition system, one could imagine a personal assistant artificial intelligence like SIRI for knowledge representation of systematic theology and biblical studies. Such a project could have immense theological significance and be an incredible pedagogical tool for mediation of theology, since there is so much written data, hundred-thousands of writings, and a vast amount of information in the domain of theology. Even as a knowledge base representing theological writings an ontology like TheOn could be an incredibly usable information system for theologians and students of theology. The ontologies, TheOn and CalvOn, could also be applied in existing software like Logos Bible Software providing deepened and semantically enriched categorization for its representation systematic theology.

Thirdly, the ontologies offer the usefulness in relation to the individual believer who might observe the information system in different applications. The introduction suggested some personal/spiritual value, some educational/research value, some commercial value, and some innovational value of the undertaking developing formal ontologies of theologies and systems of beliefs. These values are of course only extended to the believer when she uses the ontological structure of information in some application. A possible application for the use of the believer could be an app of linked datadesigned to explore, comment, and meditate on one’s belief or the belief confessed in one’s church.

In sum, the ontologies presented in this thesis comprise usefulness for innovative humanistic studies, for practical uses in possible applications from websites, to AI, and to databases, and finally the ontologies and their applications comprise usefulness for individual believers who might find

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conceptualization of their belief beneficial in contemplation, personal studies, or in spiritual growth with faith seeking understanding.

5.3. Perspectives and possibilities for further studies

The issue of knowledge representation of beliefs may be developed much further in the next decades as information science, theological technologies and artificial intelligence likely continue its growth.

Suggestions for further studies and possibilities for improving the ontologies have already been noted throughout the thesis. In bringing the comments together there seem to be two major paths going forward one concerning the improvements of the ontologies and the other concerning the development of specific applications for the ontologies. Regarding the internal improvements of the ontologies developed here, it was suggested that it would be beneficial to have future effort in conceptualizing the very text of the Westminster Confession through classes of its articles. A more substantial improvement consists in merging TheOn and CalvOn and in making them compatible with each other without compromising on the capability of the TheOn to present different perspectives and without limiting the comprehensiveness of the Calvinist categorization in CalvOn. Regarding the specific applications the ontologies, further studies could be made in development of semantically enriched information systems such as an online scholarly encyclopedia for theology, confessional applications for individual believers or faith communities, or perhaps even artificial intelligence understanding the semantics of faith.

However, there is also the future work beyond the scope of the thesis of describing and presenting other systems of beliefs and religious confessions in formal ontology and the semantic web. Other systems would include various other traditions within Christian theology, but also religious systems foreign to Christianity. It would be interesting to see ontologies developed describing the important persons, doctrines, events, places, and arguments for and against the various systems of belief.

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The text above corresponds to pages 67 to 73 of the thesis: 

https://projekter.aau.dk/projekter/files/281070062/Master_Thesis_of_Simon_Josias_Graf.pdf

I find that the ontology structure as proposed is highly useful as in the author's own words:

"... information architectures designed for the purpose of presenting systems of beliefs...  information architectures that aim at outlining and structuring belief systems with clarity to make the belief systems’ information findable, understandable, and usable."

Blessings.