Disputatio VIII: De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis et Summarium

On the Eschatological Manifestation of Truth

Quaeritur

Utrum veritas theologica in hoc saeculo sit tantum participata et sub signo fidei, sed in consummatione saeculorum manifestetur in gloria; atque utrum haec manifestatio sit plena revelatio eius quod nunc in Spiritu dicitur et creditur, ubi verbum et res, fides et visio, felicitas et veritas perfecte coincident.

Whether theological truth in this age is only participatory and veiled under the sign of faith, but in the consummation of the ages will be revealed in glory; and whether this eschatological manifestation is the full unveiling of what is now spoken and believed in the Spirit, wherein word and reality, faith and vision, felicity and truth perfectly coincide.

Thesis

The truth of theology in the present age is real yet mediated—participated through faith in divine speech. Its perfection will occur eschatologically, when what is now felicitously and truly spoken in the Spirit will be manifested in glory. The eschaton is not the abolition of theology but its fulfillment: the moment when the grammar of faith becomes the language of sight.

Locus Classicus

1. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NA28)
   ἄρτι βλέπομεν δι’ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον.
   “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.”

   Paul articulates the difference between mediated and immediate knowing: truth under the form of faith, and truth under the form of glory. The object remains the same; the manner of apprehension is transfigured.

2. Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q.3, a.8
   Ultima et perfecta beatitudo non potest esse nisi in visione divinae essentiae.
   “Ultimate and perfect beatitude can consist only in the vision of the divine essence.”

   For Aquinas, the visio Dei is the terminus of all intellectual desire. Participation is not replaced but perfected when God sustains the finite intellect to see God in God’s own light.

3. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theologik III
   Die Schau Gottes ist die Erfüllung der Theologie, die endgültige Selbsttransparenz des Glaubens.
   “The vision of God is the fulfillment of theology—the final self-transparency of faith.”

   Balthasar emphasizes that faith already carries the form of glory within itself; eschatological vision is the unveiling of what faith has long borne in mystery.

From Paul through Aquinas to Balthasar, the same line is traced: faith and vision are not two different truths but two modes of one participation—first veiled, then manifest.

Explicatio

Every theological statement in this life belongs to the ordo fidei. Its truth is real, yet mediated through the grammar of faith T,  its interpretation within being (modeling, TC), and its participatio constitutiva in the Spirit. Thus, as our symbolic idiom has expressed:

• In statu viae: FT + Modeling = TC. Felicity plus interpretation yields truth conditions.

• In statu gloriae: FT = TC. The felicity of speech and the truth of being coincide, for the act of speaking and the reality spoken are unified in vision.

Mediation is not negated but transfigured. Signs do not vanish but become transparent to what they signify. Sacraments do not cease as mere objects; they are fulfilled as modes of presence. Finally, participation does not end; it reaches consummation.

In this sense, theologia eschatologica is not a speculative addendum but the formal horizon of the entire ordo theologiae: grammar → modeling → felicity → truth → causality → participation → manifestation.

The finite intellect does not become infinite; it becomes fully clarified, upheld by God to know God in God’s own light. The same Spirit who now mediates truth through participation will then manifest it without remainder.

Objectiones

Ob I. If one day truth will be seen rather than believed, theology ceases; discourse gives way to silence.

Ob II. If the eschaton reveals all, present theology is merely provisional and therefore unstable.

Ob III. “Manifestation” implies temporal unfolding and change, whereas divine truth is eternal and immutable.

Responsiones

Ad I. Theology does not cease but is transformed. The discursive form of faith yields to doxology. Faith becomes sight; doctrinal speech becomes praise. Theologia finds its end not in muteness but in worship.

Ad II. Present theology is reliable because it is already true in participation. The eschaton alters not the content but the mode of access. What was truthful under the sign of faith becomes transparent under the light of glory. The mirror is replaced by face-to-face vision, not by contradiction.

Ad III. God’s truth is indeed eternal and unchanging. Manifestation, however, pertains to the creature’s reception. In the eschaton, the same eternal truth shines without obscurity in the redeemed order. Time is not annihilated but gathered into divine clarity.

Nota

The eschatological manifestation of truth brings the movement of the first octad to its formal closure. In T, theology learns to speak under grace. In modeling, it interprets speech within being. In felicity, it discerns Spirit-given rightness. In truth, it articulates internal and external adequation. In causality, it acknowledges God as the ground of both being and saying. In participation, it receives divine life as constitutive being. Finally, in manifestation, it beholds what it has spoken and become.

A symbolic shorthand may again serve:  Tₑ → V, where Tₑ designates theology in the age of faith, and V the visio Dei in glory. The arrow does not mark replacement but transfiguration: the Spirit’s act of transforming mediated participation into direct presence.

Theology’s end is not the negation of knowledge but the perfection of knowledge in communion. Its final form is song.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theological truth in the present age is real yet participatory, grounded in faith’s share in divine speech.

2. The eschatological manifestation of truth is the unveiling of that same truth in glory, when mediation becomes luminous transparency.

3. The felicity of theological language and the truth of divine being converge perfectly in the eschaton; faith becomes sight, confession becomes communion.

4. The Holy Spirit, who now mediates truth through grace, will then reveal it without veil; the same causality persists, but its mode shifts from hidden to manifest.

5. Theology’s telos is doxological: in the eschatological manifestation of truth, the verbum fidei becomes the visio Dei.

Transitus ad Disputationem IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae

In the eighth disputation, theological truth reached its eschatological horizon: what is now spoken and believed in the Spirit will be revealed in glory, so that word and reality, faith and vision, felicity and truth perfectly coincide. There, the ordo theologiae appeared in its full arc—from grammar to manifestation, from the syntax of faith to the clarity of glory.

Yet this eschatological consummation does not lie only at the end of time; it has already entered history. The same Truth that will one day be seen facie ad faciem has already taken flesh and speech. The verbum incarnatum has inaugurated a new possibility for language itself: human words, assumed into the Word and breathed upon by the Spirit, become instruments of divine self-communication.

Thus theology is stretched between two advents of the same Logos:

• proleptically, toward the visio Dei in glory,

• historically, back toward the Incarnation in which divine truth has already entered human discourse.

In this tension, a nova lingua theologiae emerges. Theologians do not merely use inherited philosophical grammar; they speak under a language transfigured by Christ’s coming. Human words, called and claimed by the Logos, become more than signs: they become participations in God’s own eternal speaking.

We therefore advance to Disputationem IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae, wherein it will be asked how the Incarnation of the Word gives rise to a new theological language, by what logic divine truth inhabits finite words, and how this nova lingua stands in grateful yet irreducible relation to the older grammars of philosophy and culture.

Breve Summarium Primi Octavi

The first eight disputationes constitute a single formal unit: an ordered ascent from language to glory.

1. Disputatio I – De Expressionibus Theologicis ut Syntacticis. Theology begins as language (T): a Spirit-given grammar that orders Christian confession. Before theology can be true, it must be speakable rightly; felicity is its first condition.

1. Disputatio II – De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum. Rightly ordered speech must be interpreted within models of reality. Theology moves from grammar to ontology as T is inserted into the world created and ordered by God.

2. Disputatio III – De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis. The Holy Spirit is the boundary of discourse, distinguishing T_in from T_out. Finitude of felicity marks speech as truly authorized yet never exhaustive.

3. Disputatio IV – De Veritate Theologiae Duplex. Theology’s truth is twofold: the veritas interna (felicity within T), and the veritas externa (adequation to being). Their unity is Christ, who is both Word and Reality.

4. Disputatio V – De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam. Felicity and truth are distinct yet inseparable—form and fulfillment of the same pneumatological act. The felicitous word is ordered toward its eventual verification.

5. Disputatio VI – De Causalitate Divina et Loquela Theologica. Divine causality grounds both being and speaking. The Spirit is causa principalissima of theological utterance; theology becomes a theophysical event rather than mere representation.

6. Disputatio VII – De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos. Participation is defined as constitutive dependence: divine perfections D_G are communicated as participated correlates D. Theosis is the ontological depth of salvation—real sharing in divine life without confusion of essences.

7. Disputatio VIII – De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis. The entire ordo culminates in manifestation: what is now true in participation will be revealed in glory. Theologia is perfected as doxologia; the word of faith becomes the vision of God.

Taken together, the first octad shows that:

• Theology is scientia Spiritus: the Spirit gives its language, orders its truth, grounds its causality, enables its participation, and manifests its end.

• The movement from T → M → FT → TC → participatio → manifestatio is not a sequence of separate domains but one continuous act of divine communication embraced at different logical levels.

• The final form of theology is praise: the intellect’s assent and the soul’s joy coincide where truth and felicity are one in the sight of God.