Disputatio II: De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum

On Theology as a System of Models

Quaeritur

Utrum theologia, ut veritatem habeat, interpretanda sit intra systema modelorum, quibus expressiones syntacticae linguae fidei referuntur ad statum rerum a Deo constitutum; ita ut veritas theologica non sit mera congruentia logicorum signorum, sed consonantia inter linguam divinitus datam et esse ab eodem Deo productum.

Whether theology, in order to bear truth, must be interpreted within a system of models through which the syntactical expressions of faith’s language are related to states of affairs constituted by God; such that theological truth is not mere congruence of logical signs but the harmony between divinely given language and divinely created being.

Thesis

Theology, once established as a formally consistent language T, becomes truth-bearing only when its expressions are interpreted within models, within structured descriptions of reality that specify what exists and how what exists relates to God. Accordingly, modeling connects theology’s syntactical order to ontological reference, showing how speech about God corresponds to being as given by God.

Locus Classicus

Ἐν λόγῳ Κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν, καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν.

— Ψαλμοί 32(33):6, LXX

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” — Psalm33:6 (ESV)

In this verse, divine speech and divine creation coincide. The logos by which God speaks is the same power (δύναμις) through which all things come to be. The cosmos is thus the articulation of divine language; creation is God’s Word made world.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.

— Ἰωάννης 1:1

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — John 1:1

Here the Word that creates is revealed as personal: not merely an instrument of divine power but the very subsistent relation of God to Himself and to creation. The speaking God is not mute beyond His speech; His Word is Himself.

Ἐκ τοῦ λόγου καὶ τῆς σοφίας ἡ σύστασις τῶν ὄντων ἐγένετο· ὁ γὰρ Λόγος ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐποίησεν τὰ πάντα.

— Ἀθανάσιος, Contra Gentes 40.2

“From the Word and the Wisdom came the constitution of beings; for it was the Word of God who made all things.” — Athanasius, Against the Heathen 40.2

Athanasius interprets creation as the manifestation of the eternal Logos: the rational structure of the world mirrors the intelligibility of the divine Word Himself. The world is not an arbitrary effect but a rational discourse proceeding from the eternal Reason.

“Quod enim est in Deo ratio omnium, hoc in rebus est veritas omnium.”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles II.24

“For what in God is the reason of all things, that in creatures is the truth of all things.” — Thomas Aquinas, SCG II.24

Aquinas extends the same logic: the divine ratio—God’s Word or inner intelligibility—constitutes the truth of all that exists. Creation thus bears the impress of the Word, and every act of knowing retraces, in part, the divine act of saying.

In these witnesses—Scripture, Athanasius, and Aquinas—the same truth resounds: Verbum et esse unum sunt in Deo. The Word is not subsequent to being but the very ground of it. Theology, therefore, rediscovers in its own modeling of truth the same coincidence of speech and creation. To speak truly of God is to participate analogically in that primal utterance by which the heavens were made and reality was first declared to be.

Explicatio

If Disputatio I taught that theology must first be syntactically consistent and coherent, Disputatio II teaches that coherence alone does not suffice for truth. A language of faith, no matter how precise, remains incomplete until it is interpreted, until it is “modeled” within an ontological environment. 

In the language of logic, a model is a way of assigning meaning to expressions so that sentences can be true or false. In theology, a model serves a similar role but in a more profound sense: it is a structured account of the world as it stands before God. To say that theology requires modeling is to say that the words of faith must point beyond grammar to existence.

Let T again represent the language of faith: its prayers, confessions, and doctrines. Let M stand for a model, a depiction of the real order of creation, redemption, and consummation. To “interpret T in M” means that theological expressions are linked to the realities specified in M.  For example, the statement “Christ is risen” in T is modeled in M by the ontological claim that the crucified Jesus truly lives, an event and state of affairs that obtains within God’s causally ordered creation.

Theological modeling, then, is not speculation added to faith but the faithful translation of what God has done into the structures of thought and being. It allows the Church’s language to be both confessional and truthful, to say not merely what is believed but what is.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Immanuel Kant maintains that theoretical knowledge is limited to phenomena structured by the categories of human understanding. Theology, if it is to remain rational, must confine itself to moral postulates and practical reason. To speak of “models” relating faith’s language to divine reality exceeds the bounds of possible knowledge and reintroduces metaphysics.

Obiectio II. Following Martin Heidegger, phenomenology exposes ontology itself as the history of metaphysical forgetfulness. To “model” God within any structure of being risks reducing the divine to a presence among beings, an onto-theological idol. Authentic theology should remain apophatic, letting Being speak rather than constructing models.

Obiectio III. Logical empiricism and early analytic philosophy (e.g., A.J. Ayer, the early Carnap) hold that statements are meaningful only if empirically verifiable or tautological. Theological models cannot be tested or falsified; they are, therefore, pseudo-propositions disguised as metaphors.

Obiectio IV. Cultural-linguistic theology (e.g., George Lindbeck) argues that religious language functions like grammar within a community’s form of life. To “model” theology implies an external reference to a shared reality, contrary to the communal coherence that actually gives theology meaning. Theology should interpret its grammar, not seek models beyond it.

Obiectio V. In Whitehead and Hartshorne’s process thought, God and world form a single dynamic continuum. To construct fixed “models” is to freeze divine becoming into static metaphysical forms. A truly relational theology must renounce models in favor of open-ended process description.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant rightly insists upon the limits of speculative reason, but theology operates within a different horizon. The limits Kant identifies are epistemic, not ontological. Revelation transcends those limits by grounding knowledge in divine communication rather than human intuition. Modeling theology does not transgress the Critique but extends it analogically: it interprets faith’s language within the structure of being already constituted by the divine Word. The Spirit mediates between language and ontology where pure reason cannot.

Ad II. Heidegger’s concern to avoid onto-theology guards a genuine danger, yet his alternative leaves God silent within the withdrawal of Being. Christian theology confesses not an abstract presence but a personal act—the Word made flesh. Modeling theology does not capture God within being but describes being as participation in God’s speaking. The model functions not as enclosure but as vessel, transparent to the mystery it bears.

Ad III. Empiricist verification collapses under its own criterion: its principle is itself unverifiable. Theological models, by contrast, are verifiable within the domain of faith’s ontology—through coherence with revelation, consistency with confession, and transformative efficacy in the believer. Their truth is pneumatic, not laboratory truth. Theology’s models are judged by whether the Spirit bears witness within them.

Ad IV. Post-liberal theology rightly recovers the communal and grammatical dimensions of faith, yet it risks self-enclosure. Modeling does not impose external realism upon the Church’s grammar but explicates its inherent referential capacity. Scripture and creed speak not merely about communal practice but about divine reality. Theological models make explicit the ontological assumptions that faith already lives by implicitly.

Ad V. Process thought perceives the dynamic relation between God and world but mistakes relationality for mutability. The theological model can express relation without surrendering divine immutability: it portrays creation’s participation in God’s eternal act. Models are not static mechanisms but formal patterns of dependence—diagrams of divine causality.

Nota

To model theology is to seek understanding within faith. It is to recognize that divine revelation, though sovereign and gracious, speaks into a world structured by God’s own rational order. Modeling translates theological language from the level of grammar into the level of ontology, from how we may speak to what there is to be spoken of.

Thus, if T represents the syntactical system of theology and FT its felicity conditions (the rules that make its speech rightly ordered), modeling is the process by which these expressions are joined to TC, their truth conditions. In short:

FT + Modeling = TC. In words: the Spirit’s authorization of language (felicity) combined with its right interpretation within reality (modeling) produces theological truth.

A model is not a cage for divine mystery but the space where divine truth becomes shareable. It lets theology speak with both rigor and reverence, preserving the realism of faith without collapsing it into mere symbol or sentiment.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theological language T, though divinely authorized, remains incomplete without ontological modeling.

2. Modeling interprets the syntax of faith in light of divine reality, ensuring that theology’s words correspond to what God has made and done.

3. The Holy Spirit is both the author of T and the mediator of its interpretation, guaranteeing that modeling remains participatory, not autonomous.

4. The plurality of models signifies the richness of divine truth as refracted through creation, not its fragmentation.

5. Theology’s formal coherence and ontological adequacy converge in modeling, where speech about God is joined to being before God.

Transitus ad Disputationem III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis

In the second disputation, theology was examined as a system of models through which the language of faith attains its truth by correspondence to the divine reality that grounds it. Yet such correspondence, while necessary, remains incomplete unless it is enlivened by the divine act that joins word and being within the life of the believer. For truth in theology is not merely structural or referential; it is participatory and pneumatic.

Theological models describe how divine meaning coheres with created reality, but they cannot of themselves confer that unity. The relation between divine language and creaturely being must itself be mediated by the Spirit, who constitutes the living correspondence between the sign and the thing signified. Without the Spirit, the model remains static; with the Spirit, it becomes an event of truth occurring in the midst of finitude.

Hence theology must now inquire into that divine activity by which finite understanding is made capable of participation in divine truth and, through such participation, of genuine blessedness. The Spirit is not an external supplement to theological structure but the inner actuality of its felicity: the one who brings correspondence to completion in communion.

We therefore advance to Disputatio III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis, wherein it will be asked how the Holy Spirit mediates between the finite and the infinite, transforming truth from static adequation into living participation, and how the limits of human understanding become the very site of divine joy.