Disputatio XX: De Theologia ut Actu Verbi et Spiritus

On Theology as the Act of the Word and the Spirit

Theologia non est sermo humanus superior aliis, sed ipsa actio Verbi et Spiritus, in qua et per quam omnis loquela theologica habet esse suum.

Theology is not a human discourse standing above others but the living act of the Word and the Spirit, within and through which all theological speech receives its being.

__________

Thesis

Theology is the continuing act of divine self-communication in language. The Word is its content and the Spirit its cause. Human discourse participates in this act finitely, not by nature but by grace. Thus, theology speaks truly only as it becomes the act of the Word through the causality of the Spirit, the infinite in the finite.

Locus classicus

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears.”
— John 16:13

This verse establishes the pneumatological condition of all theological truth. The Spirit’s speech is not autonomous but participatory. The Spirit speaks what it hears from the Word, mediating the eternal discourse of the Son within the languages of history. Theology thus lives as the finite echo of an infinite conversation between Word and Spirit.

Explicatio

In human sciences, language and meaning are related externally: propositions describe or directly denote states of affairs. In theology, language and being coincide in the divine act. The Word is the ratio essendi of both creation and signification. The Spirit, as the divine causal medium, renders finite discourse proportionate to infinite meaning, linking felicity (authorized saying) with truth (ontological correspondence).

Let us formalize the relation as an analogy between divine and human discourse:

• Let L∞ denote the eternal Word, the infinite language of divine self-communication.

• Let Lₜ denote finite theological discourse, the language of faith and confession.

• Let Auth(Lₜ) denote the authorization of Lₜ by the Spirit.

• Then, theological truth obtains only if Auth(Lₜ) → (Lₜ ⊂ L∞); that is, finite discourse is true insofar as the Spirit causes its participation in the divine Word.

This causality is non-competitive. Human language remains finite and historical, yet within it the Spirit effects ontological reference. The Word speaks through words. Accordingly, the infinite inhabits the finite without destroying it. Theology is precisely this indwelling speech; it is an act in which divine causality and human signification coincide.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Kantian Transcendentalism limits cognition to phenomena structured by the categories of understanding. Theology, as human reflection, can express moral faith but not divine causation within thought or speech. To say that theology is an act of Word and Spirit is to mistake moral symbolism for metaphysical participation, violating the autonomy of reason and the bounds of possible experience.

Obiectio II. Barthian Revelationism insists that revelation is the wholly other act of God, never a human process. Theology may witness to the Word but is not itself the Word’s act. To identify theology with the act of Word and Spirit is to blur the infinite qualitative distinction between Creator and creature, turning divine revelation into a form of human religiosity.

Obiectio III. Wittgensteinian linguistic conventionalism teaches that meaning arises from the use of language within forms of life (Lebensform). Theological felicity, then, is determined by ecclesial grammar, not metaphysical causation. To posit the Spirit as the cause of meaning introduces a category mistake,for causes belong to physics, not to language. The Spirit’s “authorization” adds nothing to grammatical propriety.

Obiectio IV. In Hegelian idealism, Spirit realizes itself through human consciousness and divine speech is the dialectical unfolding of Absolute knowing. Theology, therefore, is not a separate act of Word and Spirit but the self-comprehension of Spirit in finite reason. To posit transcendent divine causality within theology is to regress to pre-critical representationalism.

Obiectio V. Within post-liberal theology, theology’s truth is intralinguistic: it is coherence within the Church’s rule of faith. Divine causation is a superfluous hypothesis. Any claim that the Spirit determines what is in or out of T, or that the Word speaks through language, replaces theological humility with metaphysical presumption.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant’s boundaries define reason’s autonomy, not God’s. Revelation does not transgress the categories of understanding but fulfills them by constituting their very possibility. The Spirit does not add a second cause to human thought but founds its capacity to signify God. Theological cognition is thus not heteronomous but participatory: reason becomes itself when moved by the Spirit to speak truthfully of the Word.

Ad II. Barth’s distinction between revelation and theology guards divine freedom but misconceives the Spirit’s immanence. Theology is not revelation itself but its continuation within the economy of language. The Word once spoken in Christ continues to act in the Church through the Spirit. The Spirit’s causality ensures that theology’s human speech remains the site of divine self-communication, not its substitute.

Ad III. Wittgenstein is right that meaning depends on use, but theological use presupposes a deeper authorization. The Church’s grammar exists because the Spirit constitutes it. Felicity, in theology, is not mere conformity to rules but participation in divine life. The Spirit’s causality is not empirical but constitutive. He makes possible the very relation between finite sign and infinite referent.

Without the Spirit, theological grammar collapses into tautology; with the Spirit, it becomes the living speech of God.

Ad IV. Hegel’s dialectic recognizes the unity of thought and being but confuses participation with identity. The Spirit in theology is not the world’s consciousness of itself but God’s causal presence within finite language. The divine Word does not evolve into human understanding; it speaks through it. Theology is not Spirit’s self-mediation but Spirit’s indwelling of the finite as grace.

The difference between divine and human remains, yet it is precisely in this difference that communion occurs.

Ad V. Post-liberal coherence explains theology’s internal structure but cannot account for its truth. Felicity within the community (FT) requires linkage to truth-conditions (TC) that obtain in divine reality. That link is the Spirit’s causality. The Word guarantees referential content; the Spirit guarantees participation. Thus, theology is neither self-referential grammar nor speculative metaphysics but a dual act: the Word speaking, the Spirit authorizing.

Theological meaning is therefore realist because it is caused.

Nota

To speak of theology as the act of Word and Spirit is to confess that all true theology is God’s own discourse in the mode of the finite.
The Holy Spirit determines inclusion within T (the formal language of theology) and mediates the causal link between felicity and truth.
The Word provides the ontological content of that truth; the Spirit provides its efficacious form.

Hence: FT + TC = Truth of Theological Speech where FT (felicity conditions) ensure internal coherence and authorization, and TC (truth conditions) denote the real divine states of affairs modeled ontologically by T. The Spirit, as both formal and causal principle, unites these two in a single act of divine communication.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theology is not autonomous discourse but the continuing act of the divine Word communicated through the Spirit.

2. The Spirit’s causality is non-competitive and constitutive: it authorizes human language to bear divine truth.

3. The Word’s eternity is the meta-language within which all finite theological languages (Lₙ) are interpreted and fulfilled.

4. Truth in theology arises when the felicity of human speech (authorization within T) is linked, by the Spirit, to real states of divine being modeled in ontology.

5. The nova lingua theologiae is therefore incarnational: the infinite speaks within the finite, and the finite becomes transparent to the infinite.

In this union, theology ceases to be mere talk about God and becomes God’s own speaking through the creature. Theology is thus the act of Word and Spirit, an event of truth in which language itself becomes participation in divine life.

Disputatio XIX: De Meta-Lingua Theologiae et Verbo Divino

On the Meta-Language of Theology and the Divine Word

Meta-lingua theologiae non est sermo humanus superior aliis, sed ipse Verbum divinum, in quo et per quem omnis lingua creata interpretatur. Deus non habet aliud verbum de se quam se ipsum: Logos est meta-lingua qua universa loquela humana in veritatem redigitur.

The meta-language of theology is not a human discourse standing above other discourses but the divine Word Himself, in whom and through whom all created language is interpreted. God possesses no other word about Himself than Himself: the Logos is the meta-language by which all human speech is gathered into truth.

__________

Thesis

The only true meta-language of theology is the eternal Word. All human theological languages—old, new, symbolic, propositional—exist as finite object-languages within the field of divine communication. The Logos is both their ground and their interpreter, the infinite discourse in which their partial meanings are united and fulfilled.

Locus classicus

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

This verse establishes the primacy of divine speech: before there were languages, there was the Word; before there were signs, there was meaning itself. The divine Logos precedes, grounds, and interprets every act of human speaking.

Explicatio

The notion of meta-language in logic and model theory designates a higher-level language used to describe the rules, syntax, or semantics of another. In theology, such a separation is impossible: no language can stand outside the Word of God to describe it. All human discourse remains within the domain of divine utterance, because the Word is both the Creator of speech and its ultimate hearer.

Thus, when theology speaks about God, it does so within God’s own communicative act. The Logos is not an external commentary on the world but the internal ratio by which it exists and becomes intelligible. Every language, whether philosophical, poetic, or dogmatic, participates as an object-language within the comprehensive “meta-language” that is God’s eternal self-utterance.

This means that the relation between divine Word and human language is not hierarchical but participatory. Let us represent this formally (and then explain it):

• Let L₁, L₂, L₃ … denote the many object languages of creation—ordinary speech, philosophical reasoning, scriptural idiom, the nova lingua of faith.

• Let L∞ denote the divine Logos, the Word that encompasses and grounds all finite discourse.

Then for every Lₙ, the relation Lₙ ⊂ L∞ holds analogically: each finite language is contained within, and intelligible through, the divine Word. This containment is not linguistic hierarchy but ontological participation.

Hence, divine meta-language is not an external code but the infinite horizon of interpretation within which all meaning subsists. The Spirit mediates this participation, translating the divine Word into the polyphonic tongues of creation and translating creation’s words back into praise.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Ludwig Wittgenstein and the later linguistic turn argue that language games possess internal criteria of meaning; there is no “meta-language” beyond them. To claim that the Logos functions as a meta-language imposes a totalizing framework that violates the autonomy of forms of life.

Obiectio II. Karl Barth maintains that revelation is wholly event and never a stable linguistic form; thus, there can be no divine “meta-language,” for God’s Word encounters us only as momentary address, never as standing structure of meaning.

Obiectio III. Jacques Derrida and his heirs hold that all language is differential play, without final referent or transcendental signified. The claim that the Logos interprets all language reintroduces the metaphysics of presence which deconstruction has exposed as illusion.

Responsiones

Ad I. Wittgenstein’s insight that meaning arises within language-games is valid at the level of human usage, but theology concerns the ground of linguistic possibility itself. The Logos is not a competing game but the condition for all games—the ratio loquendi that makes signification possible. Without the divine Word as ontological ground, even internal coherence loses intelligibility.

Ad II. Barth rightly emphasizes the event-character of revelation, but the event itself presupposes the eternal Word. The Logos is not a static structure but the living continuity of divine speech. Revelation as event is the historical manifestation of that eternal discourse. Thus, divine meta-language is not static text but the ongoing act of self-communication through the Spirit.

Ad III. Deconstruction’s critique of presence inadvertently confirms the theological claim: no finite language can secure its own meaning. The Logos, however, is not an available presence within language but the transcendent act that bestows meaning upon the play of difference. The Spirit does not close différance but transfigures it into relation.

Nota

To speak of the divine Word as theology’s meta-language is to confess that all truth is linguistic because all being is spoken. The cosmos itself is a sentence within the discourse of the Logos. In this sense, theology’s many models and expressions (as seen in Disputationes XVII–XVIII) are not rival statements but varied declensions of a single Word.

This view transforms the philosophy of language into theology of communion. Meaning no longer rests upon formal conventions or social contracts but upon participation in the divine speech-act that sustains creation. Hence, all interpretation is ultimately Christological: every word finds its coherence only in the Word made flesh.

Formally we might write (and then explain):

∀w ∈ Lₙ, Meaning(w) = Participation(w, L∞).  That is, every finite word w acquires meaning insofar as it participates in the divine Word. This formula signifies that semantic realism—the conviction that words truly refer—is the linguistic echo of creation’s metaphysical realism.

The Church, as communio verbi, is the living medium of this divine meta-language in history. Its confession, liturgy, and doctrine are not human projections upon silence but articulations of the eternal discourse of the Word and Spirit. In the Church’s speech, divine meta-language enters temporal form without losing transcendence.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. The divine Logos is the only true meta-language of theology: the eternal act of meaning in which all created languages participate.

2. All human theological discourse (Lₙ) functions as finite object-language within this horizon; its truth lies in participation, not autonomy.

3. The Spirit mediates this participation, translating the eternal Word into temporal speech and returning human language into praise.

4. Philosophical denials of meta-language (Wittgensteinian, Barthian, Derridean) rightly expose the limits of human systems but fail to see that divine discourse is not a system but the very act of meaning itself.

5. Therefore, theology’s meta-language is not analytical but incarnational: the Word made flesh is the hermeneutical center in which all human words are gathered and made true.