Disputatio XVI: De Lingua et Intentionalitate et Prooemium ad Partem II

Prooemium ad Partem II

De Lingua et Modeling Theologico

In the first part of these Disputationes, the inquiry was directed toward being: toward participation, causality, and the ontological conditions under which creatures exist and are ordered toward God. That inquiry established that intelligibility is not accidental to reality, nor imposed upon it by cognition, but belongs to the structure of being itself as grounded in the Logos.

The present part turns not away from ontology, but toward its articulation. Theology does not merely contemplate what is; it must speak. Yet speech is not a secondary operation added to being. Language is itself a mode of participation. If reality is ordered toward intelligibility, then language is the creaturely form in which that intelligibility may be received, borne, and confessed.

This turn therefore concerns neither linguistics as a technical discipline nor language as a social artifact. It concerns the ontological conditions under which language can mean at all, the structure of intentionality by which speech is about something, and the way finite discourse may inhabit an intelligible order that precedes it.

Accordingly, this part proceeds in three movements. First, it examines language and intentionality as grounded in objective intelligibility rather than in consciousness or convention. Second, it considers theological modeling as the disciplined articulation of meaning within that intelligible order. Third, it reflects upon the limits of modeling, not as failures of language, but as disclosures of transcendence.

Throughout, language will be treated not as expressive projection but as responsive participation. Theology speaks truly not because it masters its object, but because it is drawn into alignment with an intelligibility that precedes and exceeds all speech.

Nota Methodologica Generalis: De Limitatione Phenomenologiae

In these Disputationes, a strict distinction is maintained between ontological intelligibility and phenomenological disclosure.

Ontological intelligibility denotes the objective order of meaning by which beings are what they are and by which truth is possible at all. This intelligibility is grounded in the Logos and exists apart from human awareness, perception, language, or historical horizon. It is not constituted by acts of consciousness, nor does it depend upon conditions of manifestation.

Phenomenological accounts of disclosure, horizon, appearing, or worldhood concern the manner in which beings are encountered or understood by finite subjects. Such analyses may illuminate the structure of experience, but they do not ground intelligibility itself. Accordingly, phenomenological categories are not employed here to explicate the ontological conditions of meaning.

For this reason, distinctions such as being and beings, horizon and appearance, disclosure and withdrawal, though significant within phenomenological inquiry, are not used analogically to describe teleo-spaces or the Logos-grounded order of intelligibility. To do so would risk conflating the conditions of experience with the conditions of being.

Phenomenology may therefore appear in these disputations only diagnostically or critically, never as a positive source of metaphysical grounding. The task of these disputations is not to describe how meaning appears, but to inquire into what must be the case for meaning to exist at all.

On Language and Intentionality

Quaeritur

Utrum lingua humana intelligibilis sit non ex conscientia vel conventione humana, sed ex participatione in Logos, qui est intelligibilitas obiectiva rerum; et utrum intentionalitas sermonis non sit motus psychologicus, sed directio ontologica intra spatium teleologicum, quo significatio ipsa possibilis est.

Whether human language is intelligible not from human awareness or convention, but from participation in the Logos, who is the objective intelligibility of things; and whether intentionality in speech is not a psychological movement, but an ontological directedness within a teleological space in which signification itself is possible.

Thesis

Language does not generate meaning. It presupposes intelligibility.

The intentionality of speech is not grounded in consciousness, perception, or linguistic practice, but in participation in the Logos as the objective order of meaning. Human language is intelligible because it inhabits teleo-spaces of significance that precede all acts of speaking, thinking, or hearing. Intentionality is thus ontological before it is linguistic, and linguistic before it is psychological.

Locus Classicus

“In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum.”
John 1:4

Life is not added to intelligibility, nor intelligibility to life. The Logos is both the light by which things are intelligible and the ground in which meaning abides. Language participates in this light only because it is already there.

Explicatio

The modern account of language commonly begins from the subject. Words are treated as expressions of mental states, intentions as acts of consciousness, and meaning as a function of use, convention, or pragmatic success. Such accounts may describe how language functions within a community, but they cannot explain why language can mean at all. The present disputation proceeds otherwise.

Language is intelligible only because reality is intelligible. Meaning does not arise when a subject intends an object; intention itself is possible only because being is already ordered toward intelligibility. This order is not linguistic. It is not psychological. It is ontological.

Intentionality, properly understood, is not an inner aim or mental direction. It is the structure by which something can be about something. Such aboutness cannot be manufactured by signs, nor imposed by convention. It presupposes a space of possible significance in which reference, truth, and understanding may occur. This space is what has been named a teleo-space.

Teleo-spaces are not purposes imposed upon language. They are fields of intelligibility that draw language into meaningful articulation. They do not determine what must be said, but they make saying possible. They are not products of linguistic practice, but conditions of it.

Human language, therefore, does not create meaning but responds to it. Words are formed within a prior order of significance that precedes speech and exceeds it. To speak is to inhabit that order, however imperfectly.

The Logos is the objective ground of this order. The Logos is not a word among words, nor a concept among concepts, but the intelligibility in virtue of which anything can be meaningful at all. Language participates in the Logos not by resemblance, but by dependence. It means because reality is already ordered toward meaning.

Intentionality in speech is thus not subjective projection but ontological alignment. When speech intends truth, it does not impose sense upon the world but conforms itself to an intelligibility that precedes it. Falsehood arises not from the absence of the Logos, but from resistance to it.

The Spirit’s role is not to inject meaning into language from without, but to align finite speech with the intelligible order already given. The Spirit authorizes speech by restoring it to its proper orientation toward truth. In this way, language becomes capable of theological meaning not by elevation beyond creatureliness, but by faithful inhabitation of the teleo-spaces of intelligibility grounded in the Logos.

Objectiones

Ob I. If intelligibility exists apart from human awareness and language, then language becomes superfluous. Meaning would exist whether or not anyone speaks.

Ob II. If intentionality is ontological rather than psychological, then human responsibility for meaning is undermined. Speech would merely echo a prior order.

Ob III. To ground language in the Logos collapses the distinction between theology and philosophy, making linguistic theory dependent upon theological claims.

Responsiones

Ad I. Language is not superfluous but responsive. Meaning precedes speech, but speech is the mode by which meaning becomes communicable. The prior existence of intelligibility does not negate language; it grounds it.

Ad II. Ontological grounding does not eliminate responsibility. Participation is not compulsion. Human speech may conform to intelligibility or resist it. Responsibility arises precisely because meaning is given and not invented.

Ad III. The Logos is not introduced as a theological hypothesis but as the necessary name for objective intelligibility itself. Theology does not annex language theory; language theory, when pursued to its ground, opens onto theology.

Nota

This disputation corrects a fundamental error of modern linguistic thought: the assumption that meaning originates in the subject. Meaning originates in reality’s intelligible order.

Language is possible because the world is already ordered toward sense. Intentionality is possible because intelligibility precedes intention. The Logos is therefore not the conclusion of linguistic analysis but its presupposition.

Theological language does not differ from other language by possessing a special syntax or vocabulary, but by explicitly acknowledging the source of intelligibility in which all language already participates.

Determinatio

It is determined that:

1. Language presupposes intelligibility and does not generate it.
2. Intentionality is ontological before it is psychological.
3. Teleo-spaces of meaning precede linguistic practice.
4. The Logos is the objective ground of intelligibility.
5. The Spirit aligns finite speech with this ground without abolishing its finitude.

Transitus ad Disputationem XVII

If language does not originate meaning but responds to an intelligible order that precedes it, then theological discourse cannot be understood as mere description or representation. It must instead be understood as modeling: the disciplined construction of forms that allow intelligibility to appear without being exhausted.

This raises the decisive question of truth in theology. If language inhabits teleo-spaces rather than generating meaning, by what criterion are theological models true? Is truth correspondence, participation, manifestation, or something else?

We therefore proceed to Disputatio XVII: De Modeling et Veritate Theologica, in which the nature of theological truth is examined in light of the Logos as the ground of intelligibility and the Spirit as the author of faithful speech.

Disputatio XV: De Intentionalitate et Cognitione Divina

On Intentionality and Divine Knowing

Quaeritur

Utrum intentionalitas divina sit ipse actus quo Deus seipsum cognoscit et in hoc seipso cognoscendo omnia cognoscit; cum cognitio Dei non sit receptio specierum ab extra sed expressio sui ab intra, ita ut hic actus intentionalis sit simul causa et exemplar omnis cognitionis creatae, quae participatione in eo subsistit.

Whether divine intentionality is the very act by which God knows Himself and, in knowing Himself, knows all things; since God’s knowledge is not the reception of forms from without but the inward expression of Himself, such that this intentional act is both the cause and exemplar of all created knowing, which subsists by participation in it.

Thesis

All true knowledge, whether divine or creaturely, is intentional, ordered toward what is known. In God, however, intentionality is not a relation added to being but is identical with being itself. God’s act of knowing is His act of being. Divine intentionality is therefore the archetype of intelligibility and the ground of theology’s possibility, for to know anything at all is to participate, analogically, in the self-knowing Word of God.

Locus Classicus

Psalm 36:9
Apud te est fons vitae,
et in lumine tuo videbimus lumen.
“For with you is the fountain of life,
and in your light we see light.”

John 1:1, 4
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος…
ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν,
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων.
“In the beginning was the Logos…
in Him was life,
and the life was the light of human beings.”

Augustine, De Trinitate IX.10.15
Non sic cognoscit Deus creaturam quomodo creatura cognoscitur a creatura,
sed quomodo cognoscit seipsum Deus.
“God does not know the creature in the way a creature is known by a creature,
but in the way God knows Himself.”

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.14, a.5
Deus cognoscit omnia non in seipsis, sed in seipso.
“God knows all things not in themselves, but in Himself.”

These witnesses converge upon a single claim: divine knowing is not receptive but constitutive. God’s light is not an added condition for knowledge but the source in which all seeing occurs. The Logos is not merely the bearer of meaning but the act in which intelligibility itself subsists.

Explicatio

Intentionality names the directedness proper to every act of knowing. In finite intellects, this directedness presupposes a real distinction between knower and known. The intellect reaches beyond itself toward what it is not, receiving determination from an object that stands over against it. Knowledge thus unfolds as a movement across distance, mediated by forms, representations, or signs.

Nothing of this structure may be transferred uncritically to God. In God there is no distance, no reception, no transition from potency to act. Divine knowing is not a movement toward an object but the eternal act in which intelligibility subsists as reality itself. God does not become informed; He is the fullness of form. God does not acquire knowledge; He is knowledge.

The Father knows Himself in the Son. This knowing is not representational but generative. The Son is not an idea of God but the eternal Logos, the expressed intelligibility of the divine essence. Divine cognition is therefore not an act alongside being but the very form of divine life. The identity of knowing and being does not dissolve personal distinction but grounds it. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not divided by cognition but constituted in its fullness. Divine simplicity is not the absence of relation but the plenitude of intelligibility so complete that relation itself subsists without composition.

Within this single eternal act, all that is intelligible is comprehended. God knows creatures not by attending to them as external objects but by knowing Himself as communicable being. Creatures are known in God as finite participations in divine intelligibility. To be created is already to be intelligible, and to be intelligible is already to be comprehended within divine knowing. God’s knowledge of creatures is therefore not observational but causal. God knows all things by causing them to be what they are.

This does not collapse creation into divine self-contemplation. On the contrary, it is precisely this mode of knowing that secures the reality and distinctness of creatures. A creature is finite because it is known as finite. To be known by God is not to be absorbed into God but to receive determinate being within the order of participation. Creaturely intelligibility is not autonomy from God but dependence upon divine reason. A world independent of divine knowing would not be more real but unintelligible.

From this follows the participatory character of all creaturely knowledge. Human knowing is not an autonomous orientation toward truth that later happens to correspond with reality. It is a finite participation in the divine act of intelligibility. When the human intellect knows truth, it does so because it already stands within the light by which God knows all things. This participation is analogical, not univocal. The finite intellect mirrors the structure of divine cognition without sharing its fullness. Illumination does not confer infallibility. It establishes proportion between finite intellect and intelligible being.

The Spirit mediates this participation not by supplying additional objects of knowledge but by conforming the intellect to intelligibility itself. Illumination is not the addition of content but the restoration of right orientation. To know truthfully is to be rightly situated within the light that precedes all cognition. Epistemic autonomy describes the operation of human faculties but not their ground. Theology does not deny the integrity of natural cognition. It explains why cognition is possible at all.

Critical philosophy rightly describes the limits of unaided reason. Theology does not dispute this analysis. It confesses a gift. Participation in divine knowing is not an extension of phenomenal cognition into the noumenal realm, nor an illicit metaphysical inference. It is the transformation of the knower through revelation. God is not known as an object placed before consciousness but as the ground within which consciousness is made possible. The limits of reason are not violated but fulfilled.

Divine intentionality thus names the ontological ground of intelligibility itself. Truth is not first a property of propositions but the temporal echo of an eternal act. Because God is intelligible in Himself, reality is intelligible. Because reality is intelligible, creatures can know. Theology alone renders explicit what every act of knowing already presupposes.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. If God’s knowing is identical with His being, then knowing must imply a distinction between knower and known. Such distinction introduces composition and violates divine simplicity.

Obiectio II. If God knows creatures only in knowing Himself, then creatures lack independent intelligibility and collapse into divine self-contemplation.

Obiectio III. If human knowing participates in divine knowing, human intellect would appear divine or infallible, contrary to experience.

Obiectio IV. Modern epistemology grounds knowledge in human cognitive structures. Divine participation is unnecessary and undermines autonomy.

Obiectio V. Kant restricts knowledge to phenomena. Participation in divine knowing would entail illicit access to the noumenal.

Responsiones

Ad I. The distinction in God is relational, not compositional. Divine knowing is identical with divine being, internally differentiated as personal relation. Simplicity is not threatened but fulfilled.

Ad II. God knows creatures as their cause. Being known in God secures, rather than negates, creaturely distinctness.

Ad III. Participation is analogical. Human knowing is illuminated, not divinized. Finitude remains.

Ad IV. Autonomy describes operation, not origin. Participation grounds cognition without replacing it.

Ad V. Revelation does not extend reason into the noumenal but transforms the knower. God is known as ground, not as object.

Nota

Divine intentionality reveals that truth is not first a property of propositions but an act of God. All finite truth is an echo of divine self-knowing. The Logos is the intelligible act in which all meaning subsists. Creation, providence, language, and knowing all stand within this horizon.

Human knowledge does not stand beside divine knowledge but within it, as participation within plenitude. To know truthfully is already to think within the light by which God knows Himself.

Determinatio

1. Divine intentionality is identical with divine being; God’s act of knowing is His act of being.
2. God knows Himself eternally in the Logos, and in knowing Himself knows all things as possible and actual participations in His being.
3. Divine cognition is not representational or receptive but creative and constitutive of intelligibility.
4. Creaturely knowing is analogical participation in divine knowing, mediated by the illumination of the Spirit.
5. Human knowledge remains finite and fallible, yet genuinely participates in divine intelligibility.
6. Truth is not autonomous from God but the temporal reflection of God’s eternal self-knowing.
7. Theology is possible because intelligibility itself is grounded in divine intentionality.

Transitus ad Disputationem XVI

If divine knowing is creative and participatory, then language cannot be treated as a neutral instrument appended to cognition. Speech is the exterior articulation of intentionality, the manifestation of intelligibility in shared signs. Yet theological language bears a unique burden: it seeks to signify the divine act that grounds all signification. How finite words may bear infinite intelligibility now demands inquiry.

Therefore we proceed to Disputatio XVI: De Lingua et Intentionalitate, where it is asked how language participates in divine knowing and whether speech, when taken up into revelation, becomes more than sign, namely a vessel of participation in the speaking God.

Disputatio XIV: De Intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico

On Intension and Intention in Theological Discourse

Quaeritur

Utrum in theologia intensio significet participationem sermonis in veritate quam nominat, intentio vero designet pneumaticam ordinationem sermonis et cognoscentis ad Deum; et utrum hae duae constituant duplicem structuram loquelae theologicae, scilicet formam significationis et actum directionis.

Whether in theology intension signifies the participation of speech in the truth it names, while intention designates the pneumatic ordering of both speech and knower toward God; and whether these two together constitute the dual structure of theological discourse, namely the form of meaning and the act of orientation.

Thesis

Theological discourse is constituted by a double ordering. By intension, language participates in divine truth. By intention, that same language is directed by the Spirit toward its divine referent. Theology remains true only where these two are held together, so that what is said of God and the act of saying it belong to one unified movement of faith.

Locus Classicus

1 Corinthians 2:16
ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν.
“We have the mind of Christ.”

Here cognition and orientation are inseparable. To possess the mind of Christ is not merely to grasp correct propositions but to be inwardly ordered by the Spirit toward God’s own knowing and willing.

Explicatio

In Disputatio XIII, theological intension was shown to be participatory. Meaning is not generated by abstraction but received through divine self-communication. Language shares in what it signifies because it is authorized by the Spirit.

Yet theology does not consist in meaning alone. Theological language is not static content but enacted confession. It is spoken toward God. This directedness is intention.

Although intensio and intentio share an etymological root in intendere, they differ in theological function. Intensio names the form of meaning, the structure by which language participates in divine reality. Intentio names the orientation of the speaker, the act by which language and knower are ordered toward God as their end.

In theology these cannot be separated. Language that participates in divine meaning but is not rightly oriented becomes formalism. Language that intends God without true participation collapses into enthusiasm. Only the Spirit holds form and direction in unity.

Formally, and then explained:

Let I(p) denote the intension of a theological predicate p, its participatory form of meaning and J(p) denote the intention with which p is uttered, its pneumatic orientation toward God.

The relation I(p) → J(p) expresses not a logical inference but a theological completion. Meaning reaches its truth only as it is drawn toward God by the Spirit. Theological truth is therefore not exhausted by semantic adequacy but fulfilled in right orientation.

Theological discourse is thus teleological. It moves from participation to communion, from meaning to invocation. To confess is not merely to signify but to be directed. Theology speaks from God and toward God in one act.

This resolves the classical tension between speculative and practical theology. Speculation concerns intensio, the contemplation of truth. Practice concerns intentio, the movement of will toward the good. In the Spirit these are one. To know God truly is already to be ordered toward God rightly.

Objectiones

Ob I. Meaning and intention are properties of individual minds. To invoke the Spirit as their cause undermines epistemic autonomy.

Ob II. Language is governed by public use, not inward intention. Pneumatological intention adds nothing to semantic explanation.

Ob III. Within the Church, intention is simply conformity to communal grammar. Divine authorization is unnecessary.

Ob IV. Intention belongs to moral willing, not to cognition. Theology confuses ethics with knowledge.

Ob V. Finite language never coincides with intention. To claim convergence through the Spirit reinstates a metaphysics of presence.

Responsiones

Ad I. Theology does not begin with the autonomous subject but with divine address. The Spirit does not override cognition but grounds it. Finite intentionality becomes genuinely God-directed only because it is first drawn.

Ad II. Public use is necessary but not sufficient for truth. The same words may be grammatically correct yet theologically empty. The Spirit distinguishes mere use from confession.

Ad III. Ecclesial grammar defines possibility, not actuality. The Spirit animates grammar, making it a living act of truth rather than a closed system of use.

Ad IV. In revelation, intellect and will are not divided. To know God is to love God. The Spirit unites cognition and desire in a single act of faith.

Ad V. Theology does not deny finitude or différance. It confesses that finitude is upheld by grace. Intension and intention converge not by closure but by participation. The Word becomes flesh without ceasing to be Word.

Nota

The dual structure of theological discourse mirrors the Incarnation. As the Word assumes human nature without abolishing it, so divine meaning assumes human intention without coercion.

Intensio secures truth. Intentio secures direction. The Spirit secures their unity.

Where intensio is isolated, theology becomes a system. Where intentio dominates, theology dissolves into affect. Only their union yields confession.

Thus theology is neither mere science nor pure devotion. It is ordered speech addressed to God, true because it participates, faithful because it intends.

Determinatio

It is determined that:

1. Theological discourse possesses a dual structure of intensio and intentio.

2. Intensio grounds participatory meaning; intentio grounds pneumatic orientation.

3. The Spirit unites these without confusion or collapse.

4. The truth of theology lies not only in what is said but in its being said toward God.

5. Theology is therefore at once contemplative and doxological.

Transitus ad Disputationem XV

Human intention has been shown to be derivative and participatory. The mind of faith intends divine truth only because it is already intended by God. If our knowing is genuinely directed toward God, this must be because divine knowing precedes and grounds it.

A deeper question therefore arises. Does God know creatures by representation or by causation? Is divine knowledge receptive, as in us, or creative, identical with being itself? How does finite cognition participate in an eternal act of knowing that does not learn but gives being?

Accordingly, we proceed to Disputatio XV: De Intentionalitate et Cognitione Divina, where it will be asked how divine knowing relates to creaturely being, and how all finite acts of understanding are grounded in that eternal cognition by which all things are known, willed, and sustained.

Disputatio XIII: De Intensione et Modeling Linguae Theologicae

On Intension and the Modeling of Theological Language

Quaeritur

Utrum intensio in theologia non sit mera conceptio mentis sed forma participationis, qua sermo fidei participat ipsam rem de qua loquitur; et utrum modeling theologicum sit interpretatio huius intensionalis structurae intra ordinem entis, per quam verbum confessionis inseritur in veritatem ontologicam a Spiritu causatam.

Whether intension in theology is not merely a mental conception but a mode of participation by which the speech of faith shares in the very reality it names; and whether theological modeling is the interpretation of this intensional structure within the order of being, through which the word of confession is inserted into ontological truth as caused by the Spirit.

Thesis

Theological intension is participatory. The meaning of theological language does not arise from abstraction over finite instances but from participation in divine reality mediated by the Spirit. Modeling is the act by which this intensional participation is rendered intelligible within an ontological framework. Thus, theological realism is grounded not in extension but in intension ordered toward being.

Locus Classicus

Isaiah 55:11
כֵּן יִהְיֶה דְבָרִי אֲשֶׁר יֵצֵא מִפִּי לֹא־יָשׁוּב אֵלַי רֵיקָם כִּי אִם־עָשָׂה אֶת־אֲשֶׁר חָפַצְתִּי
“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall accomplish that which I purpose.”

Here the divine Word is not a sign pointing beyond itself but an efficacious act. Meaning and effect are inseparable. This unity is the archetype of all theological signification.

John 6:63
τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ λελάληκα ὑμῖν πνεῦμά ἐστιν καὶ ζωή ἐστιν.
“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Theological language lives because it is Spirit-borne. Its intension is not neutral content but living participation.

Explicatio

In philosophical logic, intension is commonly defined as conceptual content, distinguished from extension, the set of entities to which a term applies. Such a distinction suffices for empirical and formal domains. It fails in theology. Theological language does not begin with finite concepts later projected toward God. It begins with divine self-communication received in faith.

Accordingly, the intension of a theological predicate is not an internally generated concept but a participatory form. When theology confesses Deus est bonus, the predicate bonus does not derive its meaning from created goodness and then ascend by analogy. Its meaning is given from above, through participation in divine goodness itself. The Spirit is the mediating cause of this participation. Meaning is not constructed but received.

This participatory structure gives theological language its realism. Words refer because they are authorized. Predicates signify because they are grounded in divine causality. Theological intension is therefore neither subjective nor merely conceptual. It is ontologically thick. Meaning is already oriented toward being.

Modeling enters at this point. The task of modeling is not to invent reference but to interpret it. Theology does not ask whether its language refers but how it refers. Modeling is the reflective act by which theology interprets the intensional participation of its language within a structured ontology.

Formally, and then explained:

Let p be a theological predicate, I(p) denote its intensional content as given through participation in divine reality, and M(p) denote the ontological interpretation of that predicate within a theological model.

The relation I(p) → M(p) does not move from concept to reality but from participation to intelligibility. Modeling unfolds what is already given in faith. Ontology follows intension, not the reverse.

This is why theological predicates are irreducibly intensional. Their meaning cannot be exhausted by truth conditions across possible worlds or by extensions within a domain. Distinct predicates may be extensionally equivalent yet intensively distinct, because they participate in divine reality under different aspects. Creator, Redeemer, and Lord do not divide God but articulate distinct participatory relations.

Theological language thus inhabits a space of hyperintensionality. Its precision lies not in narrowing meaning but in preserving distinction without separation. Modeling safeguards this precision by making explicit the structural relations among predicates without reducing them to univocal properties.

In this sense, modeling is a theological discipline before it is a formal one. It presupposes revelation, confession, and Spirit-given participation. Logic serves theology here by clarifying structure, not by dictating content.

Objectiones

Ob I. Meaning is exhausted by extension. Intension adds nothing real and is therefore irrelevant to ontology.

Ob II. Theological language lacks empirical reference and is therefore cognitively meaningless. Modeling merely disguises nonreferential discourse.

Ob III. Meaning arises solely from use within a form of life. Formal or intensional analysis misconstrues theological grammar.

Ob IV. Extensional semantics suffices for all truth claims. Intensional modeling violates semantic adequacy.

Ob V. The truth of theology is internal to ecclesial grammar. External modeling reintroduces metaphysical realism illegitimately.

Responsiones

Ad I. Extension presupposes intension. In theology, extension cannot ground meaning because divine reality is not one instance among others. Intension names the participatory relation by which predicates signify God analogically rather than univocally.

Ad II. Empirical verification is not the measure of cognitive meaning. Theological language refers by divine causality, not by observation. Modeling makes explicit the formal conditions under which such reference is coherent.

Ad III. Use presupposes authorization. The Church speaks meaningfully because the Spirit authorizes its speech. Modeling articulates the inner logic of this authorization without denying praxis.

Ad IV. Extensional semantics fails where predicates are intensively distinct despite extensional equivalence. Theology necessarily operates at the intensional level because its referent is infinite.

Ad V. Ecclesial coherence is necessary but not sufficient for truth. Theological language claims participation in divine reality. Modeling expresses this claim formally, uniting felicity and truth.

Nota

Theological language is not descriptive in the ordinary sense. It is confessional, participatory, and performative. Yet it is not therefore noncognitive. Its cognition is grounded in participation rather than observation.

In model-theoretic terms, theology is a living model whose satisfaction conditions are secured not by the world alone but by the Spirit’s causality. Theological intension is thus sacramental in structure: a finite sign bearing infinite content.

To speak truly of God is to speak within God’s own self-giving. Modeling does not add to this gift. It renders its form intelligible.

Determinatio

It is therefore determined that:

1. Intension in theology is participatory, not merely conceptual.

2. Theological meaning is given through divine causality mediated by the Spirit.

3. Modeling interprets this intensional participation within an ontological framework.

4. Theological realism is grounded in intension ordered toward being.

5. Precision in theology arises from faithful participation, not semantic reduction.

Transitus ad Disputationem XIV

The intension of theological language has been shown to be participatory and ontologically grounded. Yet meaning alone does not exhaust theology. Theological language is not only what is meant but what is intended. It is speech directed toward God, uttered in faith, shaped by will and confession.

Meaning and intention must therefore be distinguished without separation. Theological truth is not merely modeled correctly but intended rightly. Here the intellect and the will converge. Understanding becomes invocation.

Accordingly, we proceed to Disputatio XIV: De Intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico, where it will be asked how intensional meaning relates to intentional speech, and whether theology reaches its truth not only in semantic adequacy but in the Spirit-led act of confession itself.

Extensionality, Description and the Question of Good Works: Towards An Anomalous Monergism?

 The great American philosopher Donald Davidson (1917-2003) wrote the following about causality:

The salient point that emerges so far is that we must distinguish firmly between causes and the features we hit upon for describing them, and hence between the question whether a statement says truly that one event caused another and the further question of whether the events are characterized in such a way that we can deduce, or otherwise infer, from laws or other causal lore, that the relation was causal ("Causal Relations," The Journal of Philosophy, 64 (1967), 691-703).  

Davidson's point in this famous article is that causality has an extensional nature.  If a causes b, it is, in fact, the event a that causes b to obtain, and this is a causal relation that obtains apart from however a and b might be described.   

Compare the following: 

1. Jack fell down and broke his crown.
2. That Jack fell down explains the fact that Jack broke his crown. 

Clearly, (1) bespeaks extensionality and (2) intensionality.  Very simply put, extensionality concerns what there is, while intensionality deals with how we might pick out or refer to what there is.  For example, in f(x) = y +2 for natural numbers N where 1< y < 5, the intension is the rule 'y +2' applied to either 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, while the proposition's extension is {<1, 3>, <2, 4>, <3, 5>, <4, 6>, <5, 7>}. 

What is there a difference between (1) and (2) above?  (2) is concerned with the relation between two descriptions, 'Jack fell down' and 'Jack broke his crown'. These two sentences are related by the operation of causally explaining.  Notice, however, that (1) does not connect to descriptions at all, for the 'and' in (1) is concerned with the actual events of Jack falling down and Jack breaking his crown.  

Assume that d is the event of Jack falling down and c is the event of Jack breaking his crown. Notice that event d  may cause event c without any recourse to modal terms.  Clearly, the singular event d and the singular event c, both denizens of the extensional, cannot be connected by a modal operator, for modality applies to events only in so far as they are properly described.  Modality is de dicto and not de re.  In Humean terms, it concerns the relations of ideas, not the matters of fact.  

One could, I suppose, have a general law claiming that for all x, if x falls down then x breaks x's crown.  Such an occurrence may be so regular that one might, I suppose, claim that it is necessarily the case, that for all x, if x falls down then x breaks x's crown. But this modal operator which concerns relations between ideas (or language) might be replaced by a far more modest operator in intensional contexts, the causal explanation operator.  We have our stories about the world and the behavior of objects within it.  We know that there are features instanced in Jack's falling down and Jack's breaking his crown, such that the features of the first causally explains the features of the second.  Thus, it is true that Jack's falling down causally explains the breaking of Jack's crown.  

But Jack is the man most to be pitied on Beecher Street, and while his falling down is the most unfortunate event of his lifetime,  his breaking of his crown is that that issued in his wife leaving him. Does causal explanation still work as we substitute descriptions for singular events salve veritate?

3. That the man most to be pitied on Beecher Street suffered the most unfortunate event of his lifetime causally explains the fact that his wife left him. 

Clearly, any law connecting fallings and breakings is now no longer at issue. Here the connection is between unfortunate events happening to guys on Beecher Street and their wives abandoning them.  While one might think the causal explanation operator in (2) is apt, its use in (3) seems much more problematic.  But how can causal relations depend upon the descriptions of d and c?  Is it not simply about the relations between these two events however they might be described? 

Davidson developed a theory of token identity in the philosophy of mind that exploits the difference between causal relations and causal explanation.  Imagine that there is some event e such that it can be given both a neuro-physical and psychological description.  The neural event that e is is presumably related to other neural events, but the mental description of that event -- perhaps a particular thinking of one's particular mother when she was 36 -- cannot seemingly be relatable to other mental events causally in the same way.  After all, neural events do not swim in the waters of the normative.  My thinking of my mother when she was 36 might be followed by a particular thought of the appropriateness of my love for her, and this is clearly a matter of normativity.  One ought to love one's mother, after all; it is right to do so.  

One might generalize from these reflections into the philosophy of action.  What is the best explanation why Bob gets in his vehicle and drives the 25 miles to the airport at 4:50 p.m. on April 23?  It is that Bob believes that his wife Jan is flying home on the 6:00 p.m. plane from Chicago, and that Bob has a desire to see her.  Causal explanations for why we do what we do our routinely cast in the language of beliefs and desires, and not in the language of neural states.  It would be odd, after all, to say that Bob is getting in his vehicle at 4:50 on April 23 because Bob's neurophysiological states coupled with appropriate external sensations caused it to be so. What kind of causal explanation for Bob's behavior refers simply to brain states and perceptual inputs?  How could knowing the neural events of Bob causally explain the purpose he had when entering his auto? 

Davidson's token identity theory of the mental and physical simply points out that our mental life with its complexities of purpose in beliefs in desires is physically realized, that is to say, that some set of neuro-events realizes our mental states.  Davidson is not a substance dualist, after all, claiming that there is an ontic realm of mental events, entities, properties, relations or functions that can exist on its own, and whose processes are simply coordinated with physical events, entities, properties, relations of functions in the brain, and that, in principle, one might be able to draw causal connections between the mental and the physical.  By claiming a token identity between mental states and some brain states or other realizing these mental states, Davidson believes he can protect the anomalousness of the mental while not acquiescing to dualism.  His position is appropriately called anomalous monism.  The point is that one event can have different descriptions, and that there is a certain irreducibility of the mental to the physical.  Accordingly, the complexities of our mental life cannot be either explained or predicted by pointing to the existence of strict scientific law -- if there actually is such -- at the neuro-level.  

Whether or not Davidson's position of anomalous monism is finally defensible is not my concern here.  I advert to this only because I want to show again the importance of description when it comes to events. Causal explanation is possible because of the descriptions we give to a particular event.  Causal explanation involves language, in our use of language to highlight features of events we want to explain.  Causal relations, however, are ultimately extensional, they are drawn between events however they might be described.  That event e causes event e', is a feature of the world, not a feature of our description of the world -- or so one might argue.   But what might any of this have to do with theology? 

In the Lutheran tradition there has been since the beginning profound controversy about the status of good works in salvation.  Classically, one might ask, "are good works necessary for salvation?"  An unreflective quick response is simply "no!"  "Good works do not save us before God, so good works are not necessary for salvation."  It is perhaps a response like this that underlies the suggestion by Amsdorf and others that good works might even be harmful for salvation. 

But reflecting on the logical form of the statement, 'Good works are necessary for salvation' does not mean 'if good works, then salvation'.  If 'if A then B' obtains, then A is sufficient for B, and B is necessary for A.  The proper translation of 'good works are necessary for salvation' is 'if salvation, then good works', that is, 'if not good works, then no salvation'. Those claiming that good works are necessary for salvation are clearly not claiming that by doing good works, one might be saved; they are not saying that good works are sufficient for salvation.  Good trees bear good fruit.  If God makes the tree good, then good fruit will follow.  Therefore, good works are necessary for salvation. 

But merely pointing to the logic, does not seemingly solve the controversy.  Those espousing monergism, that we are saved wholly by God apart from our own agency, want to protect divine autonomy.  They are deeply suspicious of language having to do with human working and doing, of language having to do with human discipling, for such language suggests human agency; the language itself suggests synergism.  Luther was profoundly critical of the category of created grace, the notion that God through his agency might create in human beings ontologically-extended dispositions to behave, and thus that there might be something in human beings on the basis of which the divine imputation of righteousness rests.  Luther accordingly rejects the notion that human beings have been made right, and on that basis, they are pronounced right; the Gerechtmachung grounds the Gerechtsprechung.  But if this were so, were we given such goods, then why and how could we who have benefitted so deeply utter as did Luther in his final hours, "Wir sind bettler, hoc est verum?"  

There are standard moves in this debate, a debate that is connected to the so-called "third use of the law." My purpose here is not to get into the debate and follow the lines of reasoning that have a certain plausibility no matter upon which side one finds oneself.  My purpose here is simply to propose something new that might move the conversation forward.  

What if we took seriously the distinction between the event of the person doing a good work and its description?  Let me be more clear, what if we took seriously the distinction between d, the event of a person behaving in a particular way, with its description as to what the person was doing in that event d?  After all, Paul's ingredience in d could be described as both the doing of a good deed through Paul's own agency or as a divinely-gifted doing where it is no longer I who live but He who lives in me.  The point is this, the same event d is multiply describable. It can be described on the basis of a human agent believing that he must do the act and desiring so to do it, or it can be described as a behavioristic input/output function, or it can be described as wholly caused by the Holy Spirit. Our background assumptions and theories deeply influence how the event might be described.  The same event can be given a description in terms of beliefs and desires and the intent by the person to "do what is within them."  It can be described, solely in monergistic terms; the event is that work that is worked by God in us propter Christum and by grace through faith; or the event could be described perhaps without averting to so-called "folk psychological ascriptions" at all.  If we were to give a neuro-description to the event, it would make no sense in giving a casual explanation to the event to speak of the Holy Spirit's causality or the desire to be saved and the belief that that a particular doing, a suitable description of d, motivates the doing.  

The language of discipleship -- what is it to be a fisherman that follows -- is clearly a different language than the language of apostolicity -- what heralds does God establish in His Wording of the world.  Both languages can be developed quite thickly, with language available to speak of all sorts of events, and both languages can provide causal explanations.  This being said, however, there still is some underlying events that are what they are because of causal relations they sustain with other events. The fact that no language can mime the contour of these causal relations does not tell against their presence.  The extensionality of causal relations of such d doings by Paul might not be able to be articulated in the languages by which events like d are described.  Here we are talking about propositional attitudes, about the believings of people doing d.  Here we are at the level of the intensional.  

Although I have not defended anamolous monism, in closing I want to open up the possibility of an anamolous monergism.  What if Davidson is right, and that there are simply causal relations at the neuro-level that support mental descriptions where causal explanation is possible?  What if one could be a nonreductive physicalist of such a kind?  Does this have relevance for the theological issue at hand? 

Imagine that the Holy Spirit has a causality such that some human events are caused by the Holy Spirit.  After all, maybe Luther is right in that we are either ridden by the devil or Christ.  If the Holy Spirit causes that event we might describe as a good work, then clearly no human agency is determinative in its doing.  Clearly, this is an embrace of monergism.  But what about our description, our own self-understanding of that event?   

Surely, we could causally explain that act in terms of beliefs and desires.  We could have an intent to do what God would have us do, and we could believe that that doing is meritorious somehow before God.  We live lives that are thus pleasing to God, and we try in all we do to keep God's commandments.  We learn more about God and we attempt to follow Christ in all we do.  All of this description of our life of faith, as thick or thin as we might want, could be seen as realizable within the underlying divine causality upon human events. Clearly, the language of belief, desire, intentionality, and following is not reducible to the language that describes the Holy Spirit's causality upon our behavior.  From the standpoint of the extensional, God authors are events, but from the standpoint of the intensional, are doings realized by those events can be explained in therms of the motivations of living the Christian life.  

What I am suggesting here is an anamolous monergism that neither undercuts the reality of monergism, nor does it downplay the complex experience of living out the Christian life. There are deep philosophical and theological objections to this view, of course, but I do think that the main point might be defendable: The penchant to good works is a way of talking or describing Christian lived existence, and this way of talking or describing does not have to contradict the reality that I cannot cause that event that might be described as a Christian following.  Similarly, third use of the law talk need not contradict the reality that there are only two proper uses.  But this topic must await a later treatment.