Co-citation Network Analysis of Religious Texts

Abstract

This paper introduces a method of representing in a network the thoughts of individual authors of dogmatic texts numerically and objectively by means of co-citation analysis and a method of distinguishing between the thoughts of various authors by clustering and analysis of clustered elements, generated by the clustering process. Using these methods, this paper creates and analyzes the co-citation networks for five authoritative Christian theologians through history (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Jean Calvin, Karl Barth, John Paul II). These analyses were able to extract the core element of Christian thought (Jn 1:14, Ph 2:6, Ph 2:7, Ph 2:8, Ga 4:4), as well as distinctions between the individual theologians in terms of their sect (Catholic or Protestant) and era (thinking about the importance of God's creation and the necessity of spreading the Gospel). By supplementing conventional literary methods in areas such as philosophy and theology, with these numerical and objective methods, it should be possible to compare the characteristics of various doctrines. The ability to numerically and objectively represent the characteristics of various thoughts opens up the possibilities of utilizing new information technology, such as web ontology and the Artificial Intelligence, in order to process information about ideological thoughts in the future.