Disputatio III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis

On the Holy Spirit and the Boundary of Felicity

Quaeritur

Utrum Spiritus Sanctus sit ille divinus actus qui verbum et esse in vita credentis coniungit, ita ut veritas theologica, quae in Disputatione II ut correspondentia constituta est, perficiatur per participationem et communionem, et sic ipsa finita intelligentia fiat locus felicitatis divinae.

Whether the Holy Spirit is that divine act which unites word and being within the life of the believer, such that theological truth, constituted in Disputation II as correspondence, is brought to completion through participation and communion, and finite understanding thereby becomes the site of divine blessedness.

Thesis

The Holy Spirit is both the formal and causal condition of theological felicity. He is the divine source by which expressions are included or excluded from the language of faith T. The Spirit’s presence sets both the possibility and the limit of theological discourse. He authorizes what may be spoken rightly and, by the same act, defines what cannot.

Locus classicus

1. Psalm 115(116):11 LXX

Ὁ Θεὸς ἀληθής ἐστιν· πᾶν δὲ ἄνθρωπος ψεύστης.
"God is true, but every human being a liar."

Truth is predicated first of God Himself. Human speech attains truth only by participation in the divine reality.

2. John 14:6

Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή.
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

Truth is not a property Christ possesses but His very identity. In Him the correspondence of mind and reality becomes personal and incarnate.

3. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II

Ἀλήθεια Θεοῦ ἐστιν ἡ ἐνέργεια τῆς σοφίας αὐτοῦ.
"The truth of God is the energy of His wisdom."

Truth is the active self-manifestation of divine being, not static equivalence.

Across these witnesses, truth appears as theophany. What philosophy calls correspondence, theology understands as participation: finite knowing becomes true by being drawn into the life of the Logos.

Explicatio

The first disputation established theology as a coherent language T. The second argued that this language becomes truth-bearing only when interpreted within models that relate it to the order of being God has constituted. Yet grammar and reference do not suffice. A further condition is required, for theological speech must be not only coherent and correspondent but authorized.

Authorization is not merely ecclesial or rational. It is pneumatic. The Spirit is the living rule of theological speech, determining which expressions belong within T and which fall outside it. To speak felicitously is to speak in the Spirit, under His ordering and enlivening act. These felicity conditions, denoted FT, include logical coherence, scriptural consonance, and communal reception, yet their ultimate source is the Spirit who bestows life upon doctrine.

The Spirit thus functions as the boundary condition of theology. He grants form and sets limit. He makes theology possible and protects it from presumption. The finitude of felicity does not signify defect but the determinate mode in which the infinite communicates Himself to the finite. No utterance exhausts divine truth, yet the Spirit renders human speech capable of bearing truth without containing it.

Objectiones

Ob I. Barth holds that divine revelation is an undivided act of God. To speak of a finite felicity of the Spirit’s operation introduces limitation into the divine act and makes revelation dependent on creaturely measure.

Ob II. Kant argues that any claim of union with the divine exceeds the bounds of possible knowledge. Felicity, if it refers to participation in divine truth, cannot be known or described; it is at most a moral postulate.

Ob III. Wittgenstein maintains that felicity is simply the successful performance of language within a form of life. To appeal to the Spirit adds nothing beyond communal practice. Finitude and infinitude are grammatical, not metaphysical.

Ob IV. Hegel identifies Spirit (Geist) with infinite self-realization. If Spirit is infinite, He must overcome finitude rather than inhabit it. To speak of finitude of felicity arrests the dialectic and misunderstands Spirit’s nature.

Responsiones

Ad I. Revelation is indeed infinite in source, yet its reception occurs in creaturely form. The Spirit’s act is infinite in essence but finite in mode, for divine generosity adapts truth to the measure of the creature. Finitude here is not imposed upon God but granted by Him for our sake; it is the medium of grace.

Ad II. Kant’s limits pertain to speculative cognition. Theology seeks not theoretical knowledge but participation in divine communication. Felicity is an event of the Spirit, not a cognitive achievement. The limits of reason remain, yet within those limits the Spirit communicates divine truth in a manner proportionate to the creature.

Ad III. Wittgenstein discerns rightly the communal dimension of felicity but overlooks its ontological ground. The Church’s grammar is not self-originating. It is constituted by the Spirit, whose authorization exceeds communal convention. A sentence is felicitous because the Spirit speaks through it, not because a community employs it.

Ad IV. The Holy Spirit is not Geist realized through historical self-consciousness. He is the eternal Love who indwells the finite without dissolving it. The Spirit does not abolish finitude but sanctifies it. The finitude of felicity is not a failure of dialectic but the perfection proper to creaturely participation.

Nota

Let T_in designate expressions included within the Spirit-ordered language of faith, and T_out those excluded. This symbolic division formalizes the discernment practiced throughout the Church’s history. T_in consists of expressions rendered felicitous through the Spirit’s ordering—coherent, scriptural, ecclesially received. T_out consists of expressions incoherent, contrary to revelation, or unfit for confession.

The Spirit is both grammar and breath: grammar, because He orders theological speech; breath, because He animates it. In His presence, theology becomes a living language. The finitude of felicity confesses that even Spirit-filled speech does not exhaust divine truth. The Spirit authorizes speech and guards it from overreach, ensuring that theology speaks truthfully yet humbly.

Determinatio

1. The Holy Spirit is the divine ground of theological felicity.

2. The Spirit authorizes expressions within T through both internal (coherence, entailment) and external (Scripture, confession, ecclesial life) criteria.

3. The boundary of felicity is grace, not limitation: the finite form in which divine truth becomes communicable.

4. Theology’s felicity is finite because its subject is infinite; yet within finitude, truth becomes living and participatory.

5. The Spirit renders theology a living language, finite in utterance, limitless in source.

Transitus ad Disputationem IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex

Disputatio III has shown that theological truth becomes complete only in the event of the Spirit, who unites word and being within the believer. The truth described by models must become truth lived, and the correspondence between language and reality must be transformed into communion. In the Spirit, truth ceases to be static adequation and becomes the participation of the finite in the infinite.

Yet such a pneumatic conception of truth raises a further question concerning its nature and distinction. For theology must speak not only of truth internalized in the believer but also of the outward truth of doctrine, publicly confessed and taught. The Spirit internalizes what the Word declares, yet the Church must articulate both the inward veracity of grace and the outward content of confession.

Thus theology must learn to speak of truth doubly without dividing it: as lived truth and as spoken truth, as inward participation and outward articulation. In the convergence of these two modes lies the unity of theological truth in the Logos, who is both reality and form.

We therefore proceed to Disputatio IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex.