Disputatio XIII: On Intension and Intention in Theological Discourse

Thesis

The distinction between intension and intention expresses two inseparable dimensions of theological meaning: intension as the Spirit-formed content of signification, and intention as the personal directedness of intellect and will toward God. The two converge when divine intentionality becomes the ground of all human understanding.

Explicatio

“Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy.”
— Psalm 16:11

Having treated the structure of theological intension, we must now distinguish it from intention, for the two are often confused.  Intension names the inner sense or form of an expression, that is, the way in which it signifies what it signifies. Intention, by contrast, names the directedness of a mind or will toward something; it thus concerns the personal act of meaning.

In analytic terms, intension is a property of expressions, while intention is a property of agents. In theological terms, intension corresponds to the grammar of divine communication and intention to the teleology of communion. The former concerns the form of meaning; the latter, the movement of love and understanding toward the divine object.

Theological discourse unites the two because its subject matter is not inert. To speak of God is to be drawn by God. The same Spirit who gives form to words (intension) also directs hearts and minds toward their referent (intention). In the nova lingua, linguistic form and spiritual motion are not separate phenomena but are rather two moments of one act: God both signifies and draws.

Philosophically, the tradition distinguishes these three dimensions in different ways.

• In Aristotle and the scholastics, intention (intentio animae) denotes the mind’s assimilation to its object, the inner form through which knowing occurs.

• In the phenomenology of Husserl, Heidegger and their school, intentionality signifies the structure of consciousness by which it as always “of” or "about" something.

• While both traditions assume that meaning involves directedness, theology adds that this directedness itself is caused and sustained by divine intentionality.

God is the first and final Intender. Human intention participates analogically in the divine act of knowing and loving. The Spirit, as causa principalis of both theological speech and the understanding, grounds this participation. Thus, every theological intention, every human directedness toward God, is enfolded within divine intention, that is, within God’s directedness toward humanity in revelation.  

Objectiones

Obiectio I. If intention is a property of agents and intension a property of words, their identification in theology confuses grammatical and psychological categories.

Obiectio II. To attribute intention to God anthropomorphizes the divine will; God’s being cannot involve directedness or striving.

Obiectio III. If human intention participates in divine intention, freedom collapses into determinism: human thought becomes mere echo.

Obiectio IV. The distinction between intension and intention is unnecessary; all meaning can be analyzed semantically without recourse to volition or teleology.

Responsiones

Ad I. The identification is analogical, not equivocal. Theological discourse unites both linguistic and personal meaning because its subject is personal communication. God’s Word is both speech and will; the Spirit causes language and desire together.

Ad II. Divine intentionality is not temporal striving but eternal act. God’s knowledge and love are perfectly identical with His being. When theology speaks of divine intention, it names this eternal self-determination of God toward creation and redemption, not a changeable purpose.

Ad III. Participation in divine intention does not erase freedom but constitutes it. Human intention is free precisely because it is grounded in the divine act that makes freedom possible. To be drawn toward God is to be liberated into one’s true telos.

Ad IV. A purely semantic account of meaning leaves theology mute. For theology, meaning is not only cognitive but moral and affective. Intention adds the dimension of love to understanding — a dimension absent from purely formal semantics. Knowledge of God is inseparable from desire for God.

Nota

This distinction between intension and intention clarifies the dual structure of theological realism. Theology’s truth depends not only on the coherence of its intensions but also on the right orientation of its intentions. Felicity is achieved when both coincide: when language signifies rightly and the heart wills rightly — when the grammar of meaning and the movement of love align in the Spirit.

Here, the theological and philosophical traditions meet:

• From the scholastics, theology receives the notion of intentional assimilation — the intellect’s form corresponding to the form of the known.

• From phenomenology, it inherits the insight that consciousness is always directed beyond itself.

• From revelation, it learns that both form and directedness are gifts of the Spirit, who “searches all things, even the depths of God.”

The Spirit thus mediates between intension (form of signification) and intention (movement of the soul), binding truth and love, sense and desire, cognition and communion. The nova lingua is born precisely at this junction: it is language whose intensions are vivified by intention — speech that not only says but also seeks, confesses, and loves.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Intension designates the structured content of meaning; intention, the personal directedness toward what is meant.

2. The two coincide in theology because the object of knowledge (God) is also the source of knowing.

3. The Spirit is the causal mediator of this coincidence, forming the intensions of language and directing the intentions of persons.

4. Divine intentionality precedes and grounds human intentionality; the Word’s address constitutes the possibility of response.

5. Theological felicity arises when intension and intention converge — when the truth of words and the orientation of hearts are one in the Spirit.

6. This unity models the Incarnation itself: finite forms (intensions) filled with infinite purpose (intention).

7. Theology thereby becomes the exercise of intelligent love — the knowing that participates in the divine act of self-communication.

Therefore, the meaning of theology is double yet indivisible: its intensions are the grammar of truth, and its intentions are the movement of love — both caused and sustained by the Spirit who makes language and will participate in the divine Word.