Thesis
Every act of modeling a theological language presupposes an intensional acquaintance with its terms, relations, and functions within a background (meta-)language; such acquaintance is the Spirit-enabled condition of theology’s meaningfulness.
Explicatio
“For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.”
— 1 Corinthians 2:10
Theology’s progress from language to truth requires an account of intension—that dimension of meaning by which expressions signify not only what they denote but how they denote it. Intension, in logic, refers to the rule or sense that determines an expression’s extension. In theology, it is the interior form of divine meaning through which words become capable of bearing truth about God.
Philosophically, extension concerns the class of things a term applies to; intension concerns the condition under which that application holds. But theology cannot treat these as neutral logical distinctions. For theological discourse, intension is not simply cognitive but ontological: the inner mode of reference constituted by divine communication itself. It is the structure by which the Word addresses creation and through which creation becomes meaningful.
In formal semantics, an object language T consists of expressions—predicates, functions, relations—whose truth-values depend on a model M. The meta-language is the interpretive framework in which these expressions receive meaning. Yet every act of modeling presupposes an intensional acquaintance: a prior grasp of what the symbols are meant to signify. Without such acquaintance, there can be no translation from syntax to semantics, no mapping from words to world.
Theologically, this prior acquaintance is not an empirical familiarity but a Spirit-enabled participation in divine meaning. The believer can interpret T only because the Spirit has already formed the conditions under which God may be signified at all. Thus, intensionality in theology is pneumatological: it is the indwelling form of divine communication that makes both language and modeling possible.
Objectiones
Obiectio I. Intensions belong only to mental or linguistic structures; to make them pneumatological confuses meaning with metaphysics.
Obiectio II. If intensional acquaintance is required for modeling, theological semantics becomes circular: one must already understand divine meaning to model it.
Obiectio III. To distinguish object-language and meta-language in theology imports artificial logical machinery into what is properly confessional discourse.
Obiectio IV. If intensions exist within both object- and meta-languages, meaning risks infinite regress: every interpretation presupposes another meta-level of interpretation.
Responsiones
Ad I. Intension, even in philosophy, is not merely psychological but structural: it names the form of reference. Theological reasoning merely radicalizes this insight. The Spirit is the ontological ground of that form—the cause of intelligibility by which meanings hold together in both God and creation. Thus, intensions are not reified entities but relations of participation sustained by divine causality.
Ad II. The circle of theological semantics is not vicious but participatory. Intensional acquaintance is the gift that makes modeling possible, not its product. The Spirit’s prior illumination grounds the intellect’s ability to interpret divine speech.
Ad III. The distinction between object and meta-language formalizes what the Church already practices: theologia and theologia secunda. The faithful speak in the object-language of confession; theology reflects in the meta-language of interpretation. Clarifying this relation serves fidelity, not abstraction.
Ad IV. Infinite regress is avoided because intensionality is not purely linguistic but causally founded. The Spirit terminates the chain of interpretations by constituting meaning itself. Beyond the meta-language there lies not another interpretation but the Word who is the ground of all signification.
Nota
The introduction of intension marks a new phase in the theological ordo. The earlier disputationes described creation and providence as divine speech-acts that make reality itself a meaningful text. Intension now reveals the internal grammar of that text—the Spirit’s form of intelligibility within words and worlds alike.
In analytic terms, every model of T requires:
a domain of discourse (extension),
an assignment function,
and a background semantics that defines intension.
Theologically, this background semantics is not an arbitrary framework but the Spirit’s prior act of signification—the divine knowledge of creatures that makes any human knowledge of God possible. The believer’s interpretive act thus mirrors the Trinitarian relation itself: the Word spoken, the Spirit interpreting, the Father signified.
This understanding also clarifies theological realism. For theology to speak truly, its expressions must correspond not only extensionally (to what exists) but also intensionally (to how the world is known and constituted in God). The Spirit secures this correspondence by forming the cognitive and linguistic structures through which divine meaning is received.
Determinatio
From the foregoing it is determined that:
Intension in theology designates the form of signification that unites linguistic sense and ontological participation.
Every modeling of T presupposes an intensional acquaintance with its terms—a pretheoretical knowledge given in the Spirit’s illumination.
The distinction between object language and meta-language in theology mirrors the distinction between confession and reflection, not between sacred and secular.
Intensions exist in both languages but under different aspects: within T as the Spirit-shaped sense of confession, and within the meta-language as the Spirit-guided interpretation of that sense.
The Spirit is the constitutive cause of all theological intensions—the ground of meaning that prevents semantic regress.
Theological realism thus requires both extension (real referents) and intension (divinely constituted forms of signification).
To know or model theological truth is to participate in the Spirit’s own act of understanding—an intensional communion of meaning between divine and human language.
Therefore, intensionality in theology is not a secondary cognitive feature but the sign of participation itself: the Spirit’s form of knowing within the grammar of divine speech.
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