On the New Language of Theology
Quaeritur
Utrum nova lingua theologiae orta sit ex ipsa Incarnatione Verbi, qua Deus intravit humanam loquelam et eam in se assumpsit; et utrum haec lingua, Spiritu Sancto sustentata, sit finita forma veritatis infinitae, in qua sermo humanus efficitur instrumentum divinae communicationis.
Whether the new language of theology arises from the Incarnation of the Word itself, in which God entered human speech and assumed it into Himself; and whether this language, sustained by the Holy Spirit, is the finite form of infinite truth in which human discourse becomes the instrument of divine communication.
Thesis
Theology speaks in a nova lingua, a new language born from the Incarnation and animated by the Holy Spirit. This language is finite in form yet infinite in meaning, because divine truth now dwells within human words. The nova lingua is therefore the linguistic expression of the Incarnation itself: the Word made flesh becomes the Word made speech.
Locus Classicus
Καὶ ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ Πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” — John 1:14
The Evangelist here unites ontology and logos in a single mystery: the Logos that was “in the beginning with God” becomes flesh, entering the order of signification itself. The Incarnation is not only the assumption of human substance but of human speech: divine meaning takes up finite grammar. Through this descent, language is consecrated as the very site where God’s truth may dwell—fleshly words becoming the transparent vehicles of eternal grace.
“Quod non est assumptum, non est sanatum; quod autem unitum est Deo, salvetur.”
“What is not assumed is not healed; but whatever is united to God is saved.” — Gregorius Nazianzenus, Epistula 101, ad Cledonium
Gregory’s principle, though uttered in Christological controversy, extends naturally to language: if the Word truly assumes human nature, He also assumes the full expressive capacity of that nature—its speech, its reasoning, its communicative power. The healing of humanity includes the healing of its words. Language, once fractured by sin into dispersion and ambiguity, is gathered anew in the unity of the Incarnate Logos.
“Le Verbe incarné est la Parole humaine par excellence; il rétablit le sens là où le langage s’était vidé de vérité.”
“The Incarnate Word is the supreme human word; He restores meaning where language had been emptied of truth.” — Jean-Louis Chrétien, L’arche de la parole (1998)
Chrétien, speaking as a phenomenologist of revelation, sees in the Word made flesh the renewal of speech itself. The divine Logos does not abolish human discourse but redeems it from interior decay, giving words once again the power to reveal rather than conceal being. Every genuinely theological utterance participates in this restoration—it is a fragment of redeemed language, resonant with the Word that speaks in and through it.
From John through Gregory to Chrétien, a single theological trajectory unfolds: the Incarnation is an event of language. The eternal Word enters not only the history of flesh but the history of words, sanctifying human discourse as a vessel of divine presence. In Christ, being and meaning coincide—the reality of God is spoken into the syntax of creation. Thus the nova lingua theologiae, the new language of theology, is not a human invention but a participation in the Incarnate Logos Himself: language reborn through grace to bear the truth of God in the grammar of the world.
Explicatio
Theology’s language is not simply inherited from the old world but is reborn through the Word made flesh. In the old grammar of reason, contradiction signified error; in the new grammar of faith, contradiction becomes revelation. The nova lingua is thus a theological grammar where God is known sub contrario, under the sign of what appears its opposite.
Luther called this transformation a “new grammar” (nova grammatica), for one must learn to say that God is hidden in weakness, that death is life, that the cross is glory. This is not mere rhetoric but a new logic of being. In the nova lingua, the syntax of heaven passes into the phonemes of earth.
Formally, we can describe the change in this way: Let Tₒ denote the old language (the grammar of nature and reason) and Tₙ the new language (the grammar of faith). The transition Tₒ → Tₙ represents the Spirit’s act of translating finite speech into a vessel of divine meaning. This arrow does not mark replacement but transfiguration: what was merely human becomes theophanic through grace.
The nova lingua therefore bears within itself an inherent tension; it is simultaneously grammatical and miraculous. It possesses rules of form and order (syntax) yet overflows them through divine content (semantics). New wineskin is needed to hold new wine. To speak theologically is to live within this paradox of incarnation: finite speech filled with infinite truth.
Objectiones
Ob I. If theology requires a nova lingua, it implies that ordinary human language is inadequate to speak of God, making revelation unintelligible to natural reason.
Ob II. A “new grammar” seems to introduce irrationality into theology, reducing faith to paradox and contradiction.
Ob III. If God assumes human language, divine truth becomes bound to history and culture, losing universality.
Responsiones
Ad I. Ordinary language is not destroyed but assumed. The nova lingua transforms the old. The Incarnation does not render reason obsolete; it fulfills it, giving speech a deeper telos. The words of faith remain human, but their authorization comes from the Spirit, not from philosophical sufficiency.
Ad II. The new grammar is not irrational but hyper-rational. It is an order of meaning higher than human logic can generate. Paradox is not nonsense; it is sanctified tension, revealing the finite’s openness to the infinite. The “contradictions” of faith are signs that reason has touched mystery.
Ad III. The Word’s entry into history does not limit truth but universalizes it. By assuming particular speech, God redeems all speech. The universality of the gospel is secured precisely in its historical concreteness: the eternal speaks within the temporal.
Nota
The nova lingua of theology is not merely new vocabulary but new being-in-speech. It marks the union of divine causality and human language. To speak in this language is already to participate in God’s self-communication.
Its structure mirrors the Incarnation:
Finite form: human grammar, word order, syntax.
Infinite content: divine meaning, given by the Spirit.
Mediating act: the Spirit’s authorization (felicity) that makes the finite capable of bearing the infinite.
Thus, each true theological statement is a microcosm of the Word made flesh. The finite (word) does not contain the infinite (God), yet it truly conveys it, because the Spirit joins them without confusion or separation.
The nova lingua does not function as a metalanguage standing above the old order of speech but as a new object language born within it. Through the Spirit, the old grammar of reason is inverted into the new grammar of faith. What was formerly sign of absence becomes sign of presence; what once denoted defeat now names victory. The nova lingua thus transforms rather than transcends the old: it is human speech re-created in the form of divine contradiction.
This linguistic participation is not accidental to theology; it is its very essence. Theology exists only because divine communication has entered human speech.
Determinatio
From the foregoing it is determined that:
The nova lingua of theology arises from the Incarnation, where divine meaning assumes human form.
This new language is finite in grammar yet infinite in signification, sustained by the Spirit’s act of authorization.
The grammar of faith (Tₙ) both fulfills and transfigures the grammar of reason (Tₒ), producing a linguistic structure in which opposites become sites of revelation.
The Spirit functions as the mediating cause of this transformation, making theological language both truthful and efficacious.
Theology’s nova lingua is thus the ongoing miracle of Pentecost—the continual creation of meaning whereby human words, caught up in grace, speak the infinite Word.
Transitus ad Disputationem X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei
The new language of theology has shown that divine speech does not merely signify but brings forth what it declares. In it, words are not passive instruments of representation but active vehicles of communication; they are the finite forms through which infinite meaning becomes manifest. The verbum theologicum thus participates in the performative power of the Verbum divinum: it both reveals and effects, both declares and gives.
Yet this new mode of divine speech raises a deeper question concerning its reception. If the Word speaks through human language, how does the human intellect hear? If divine utterance is creative and efficacious, how does it become understanding in the one to whom it is spoken? The problem of theological language thus opens into the mystery of revelation and knowledge. The act that communicates truth must also illumine the mind that receives it, for revelation without cognition would be a light shining in darkness without being apprehended.
The Incarnate Word, who assumes human speech, also assumes the conditions of human knowing. Revelation, therefore, is not an external testimony appended to reason but the transformation of reason itself through participation in divine light. The same Spirit who causes right speech about God now causes right knowledge of God: the one who animates the tongue also illumines the intellect. In revelation, the utterance that creates understanding becomes the very act of divine self-communication, and knowledge becomes the creature’s participation in that self-manifesting act.
We therefore advance to Disputationem X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei, wherein it will be asked whether revelation imparts knowledge by external testimony or by internal participation; how the finite intellect, addressed by the infinite Word, can truly know the One who speaks; and whether divine self-disclosure is received as a message among others or as the very event by which human understanding is gathered into the eternal knowing of God.
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