Disputatio XX: De Theologia ut Actu Verbi et Spiritus

On Theology as the Act of the Word and the Spirit

Quaeritur

Utrum theologia non sit sermo humanus aliis superior, sed ipsa actio Verbi et Spiritus, in qua et per quam omnis loquela theologica habet esse suum—ita ut verbum fidei non solum de Deo loquatur, sed in ipso Dei loquendo subsistat.

Whether 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—such that the word of faith does not merely speak about God, but subsists within God’s own act of speaking.

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.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXI

In the foregoing disputation it was affirmed that theology is not merely a reflective discourse about divine realities but the very event of divine speech, the actus Verbi et Spiritus in which God addresses the world through human language. The theologian, in speaking truly, does not stand before the Word as observer but is caught up within the living exchange between Word and Spirit. Theology thus appeared as participation in a trinitarian act rather than the exercise of a solitary intellect.

Yet this very insight now summons a further inquiry. If theology is the act of Word and Spirit, by what means are these two united and distinguished within the one speaking of God? How does the communicatio between Verbum and Spiritus ground the possibility of theological meaning, such that divine truth may be both given and received? And what does this communication imply for the structure of theological language itself, for its authority, its coherence, and its power to signify beyond itself?

Therefore we pass to Disputationem XXI: De Meta-Lingua Theologiae: De Communicatione Verbi et Spiritus, in which it will be examined how the divine Word and the Holy Spirit together constitute the meta-linguistic horizon of theology, the inner dialogue by which the infinite speaks itself into the finite and gathers finite speech into the eternal conversation of God.

Disputatio IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex

On the Twofold Truth of Theology

Quaeritur

Utrum veritas theologiae duplicem habeat formam: internam, quae consistit in felicitate Spiritu data intra linguam fidei T, et externam, quae consistit in adaequatione huius linguae ad esse divinitus constitutum; et utrum hae duae veritates, distinctae sed ordinatae, in Christo, qui est simul Verbum et Res, suam unitatem reperiant.

Whether the truth of theology possesses a twofold form: an internal truth, consisting in Spirit-given felicity within the language of faith T, and an external truth, consisting in the adequation of that language to the reality constituted by God; and whether these two forms of truth, distinct yet ordered, find their unity in Christ, who is both Word and Reality.

Thesis

Theology possesses both an internal and an external truth.

• Internal truth (veritas interna) refers to the coherence and felicity of theological speech as governed by the Spirit within the community of faith.

• External truth (veritas externa) pertains to the correspondence or adequacy of that speech when interpreted within being, its fulfillment in the order of reality that God creates and sustains.
  Together they form a single movement from faith’s language to God’s reality and back again.

Locus Classicus

Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή· οὐδεὶς ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα εἰ μὴ δι’ ἐμοῦ.

— Ἰωάννης 14:6

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6

In this saying, Christ names Himself not as one who possesses truth but as Truth itself. The ego eimi identifies the divine speaker with the structure of intelligibility itself: the way (ὁδός) that orders, the truth (ἀλήθεια) that discloses, and the life (ζωή) that enacts. The Word thus contains in Himself the threefold form of logic—ordo, veritas, actus. Every theological proposition, insofar as it participates in Him, carries this trinitarian imprint: it orders, reveals, and vivifies.

“Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐλάβον παρὰ Κυρίου ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν.”

— 1 Κορινθίους 11:23

“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.” — 1 Corinthians 11:23

Paul here reveals the divine pattern of transmission: the word of faith is not self-generated but received and handed on. Theological language thus possesses a forma tradita—a logical form not invented by reason but bestowed in revelation. The structure of saying corresponds to the structure of giving: every verbum fidei is a participation in the Logos who both speaks and gives Himself.

Λόγος ἐστιν ἐνδιάθετος καὶ προφορικός· ὁ μὲν ἐνδιάθετος ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ὁ δὲ προφορικός ἐν φωνῇ.

— Κλήμης Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Στρωματεῖς V.14

“The Word exists both inwardly and outwardly: the inward Word in the soul, the uttered Word in speech.” — Clement of Alexandria, Stromata V.14

Clement distinguishes between the logos endiathetos (the word conceived) and the logos prophorikos (the word spoken), a distinction later adopted into Trinitarian theology. The Logos of God, eternally endiathetos in the Father, becomes prophorikos in creation and incarnation. The structure of human discourse mirrors this divine procession: thought proceeds to word, interior reason to exterior form, without ceasing to be one. Logic, therefore, is not alien to theology but the vestige of divine procession within language.

“Forma sermonis, sicut et forma rerum, a Verbo Dei derivatur.”

— Augustinus, De Trinitate XV.11

“The form of speech, like the form of things, is derived from the Word of God.” — Augustine, On the TrinityXV.11

For Augustine, both linguistic and ontological form flow from the same source—the divine Word through whom all things are shaped. Grammar and creation share a common archetype. The ordo signorum (order of signs) reflects the ordo rerum(order of things), because both proceed from the ordo Verbi. Hence, the logical form of a true theological statement is not a human imposition upon revelation but a participation in the rationality that created it.

“Et sicut per artem fit opus artificis, ita per Verbum Dei fit omnis creatura.”

— Thomas Aquinas, Super Ioannem 1.1

“And just as by his art the craftsman produces his work, so by the Word of God every creature comes to be.”— Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on John 1.1

Aquinas here extends the analogy of form to divine action: as art gives form to matter, so the divine Word gives form to being. The logical structure of theology—its subject, predicate, and copula—thus mirrors the metaphysical structure of creation—ens, forma, actus. To speak rightly of God is to let the form of divine wisdom shape the syntax of human thought.

In these testimonies—Christ, Paul, Clement, Augustine, and Aquinas—the same mystery unfolds: forma logica arises from forma Verbi. The Word who is Truth orders both thought and being; He is at once the principle of intelligibility and the content of revelation. Theological language, therefore, is not a human system of representation but a sacramental participation in divine rationality.

Every true theological proposition is an echo of that eternal utterance by which God speaks Himself and all things into being. Its logical form—subject ordered to predicate through the copula—repeats, in miniature, the procession of Son from Father and the return of all things through the Spirit. To speak with logical clarity in theology is thus to enter the rhythm of Trinitarian speech itself: the Logos giving Himself form in human words.

Explicatio

In previous disputations, theology was described as a formal language T, authorized by the Spirit, and interpreted within models that link language to being. Here we consider what it means to say that such theological expressions are true.

In logic, truth is often defined by correspondence: a sentence is true when what it says obtains in the world. In theology, that notion must be qualified. Theology’s words do not first describe and then verify; they participate in divine speech.

To express this participation, we distinguish between two levels of truth:

1. Internal truth (veritas interna) occurs within the system of theological language itself. We might say that a tatement is internally true when it is felicitous, when it coheres with Scripture, doctrine, and Spirit-guided discourse. For instance, “Christ is Lord” is internally true because it is consonant with the grammar of faith T as the Spirit has given it.

   Symbolically, we may call the internal measure of this truth FT, the felicity conditions of T. These conditions ensure that theology speaks rightly, even before modeling connects it to being.

2. External truth (veritas externa) arises when the same expression is interpreted within a model of reality M, yielding what we earlier called TC, or truth conditions. These are the states of affairs, the real relations, events, or properties through which God’s Word is fulfilled in the world.

   In simple terms: FT + Modeling = TC. That is, when Spirit-given felicity joins ontological adequacy, the statement is true in both faith and fact.

This distinction does not divide truth into two different kinds but shows its two dimensions. Internal truth without external fulfillment is mere coherence; external truth without inner authorization is unfettered speculation. Only when the Spirit unites both does theology achieve full truth.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Thomas Aquinas maintains that truth is the adequation of intellect and thing (adaequatio intellectus et rei). Theology, insofar as it concerns divine things, must therefore have a single, objective truth grounded in God’s being. To posit a “double truth” in theology would divide divine reality from its cognition and collapse truth into mere human interpretation.

Obiectio II. Late medieval nominalism holds that theological statements possess truth only insofar as they express the divine will revealed in Scripture. There is no ontological correspondence beyond God’s voluntary decree. To speak of an “ontological truth” in addition to a “formal” or linguistic one is to reintroduce metaphysical realism against the simplicity of God’s sovereignty.

Obiectio III. For Kant, all human knowledge is conditioned by the forms of intuition and categories of the understanding. “Theology” may express moral faith but cannot claim objective correspondence to the divine. Any “double truth” distinguishing linguistic coherence from ontological reality confuses the distinction between phenomena and noumena. The only truth theology can have is practical, not ontological.

Obiectio IV. George Lindbeck and others argue that theological truth resides within the coherence of a community’s grammar. There is no “ontological truth” to be accessed beyond the language of faith. To posit a second, deeper truth is to reintroduce the very representationalism Lindbeck rejects. Theological truth is singular and intralinguistic; there is no duplex veritas.

Obiectio V. From a constructivist or deconstructive standpoint, all claims to “truth” are historically contingent linguistic performances. A “double truth” merely multiplies illusions. Theology’s so-called ontological truth is only a higher-order fiction meant to stabilize its discourse. Truth is produced, not revealed.

Responsiones

Ad I. Thomistic realism correctly grounds truth in the relation between intellect and being, yet theology’s intellect is not autonomous but pneumatic. Its formal truth, the coherence and intelligibility of theological language, is secured within the human domain. Its ontological truth, the correspondence of that language to divine reality, is effected by the Holy Spirit, who bridges word and being. These two aspects are not contradictory but correlative; the Spirit makes the formal act of saying coincide with the divine act of being.

Ad II. Nominalism preserves God’s freedom but severs divine willing from ontological intelligibility. The “double truth” of theology does not undermine divine sovereignty; it clarifies its modes of manifestation. God’s will becomes present formally in the human act of confession and ontologically in the reality the confession names. The Spirit unites both, ensuring that what is truly said in faith corresponds to how God truly is, and without collapsing divine causality into human speech.

Ad III. While Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena limits knowledge to the conditions of human sensibility, theological truth concerns divine communication. The Spirit renders finite intellects proportionate to divine truth without violating their transcendental structure. The duplex truth of theology honors both sides: the formal truth proper to human language and the ontological truth granted by divine participation. Revelation transforms the limits of reason into avenues of communion.

Ad IV. Post-liberal theology rightly emphasizes the communal and grammatical dimensions of faith, but its refusal of ontological reference renders theology self-enclosed. The double truth affirms that grammar and reality are distinct yet related: theological statements are formally true as expressions within a rule-governed practice, and ontologically true insofar as that practice participates in divine being through the Spirit. The grammar of faith is sacramental; it mediates what it signifies.

Ad V. Constructivism dissolves truth into performance, yet it inadvertently testifies to a real difference between the act of speaking and what the act seeks to convey. The duplex truth acknowledges that difference while grounding it in divine causality. The Spirit authorizes human constructions as instruments of revelation, preserving their historical finitude while ensuring participation in the eternal. Theological truth is neither illusion nor production but participation in a Word that precedes every word.

Nota

Picture the unity of these two truths as a circle rather than a line. Theological language begins with T, the grammar given by the Spirit. Within T, internal truth arises through faithful speech. This language is then modeled into reality M, producing external truth as divine being answers divine word. The resulting adequacy returns again to renew T, forming a continual exchange between language and being, grace and truth.

When theologians write FT + Modeling = TC, they are not composing an equation but naming a semantic reality: felicity (Spirit-authorized speech) joined to modeling (Spirit-interpreted being) yields theological truth. It is a symbolic shorthand for Luther’s claim that God’s Word is true because it does what it says.

Christ Himself is this coincidence of internal and external truth, the Word that is also the world’s fulfillment. To confess that “the Word became flesh” is to say that God’s internal Word (eternally spoken) has become externally real in history.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theology possesses both an internal truth (felicity within the Spirit-governed language of faith) and an external truth (adequacy to divine reality).

2. These two are ordered, not opposed: internal truth grounds theology’s faithfulness, external truth secures its realism.

3. Christ, as both Word and Reality, is the unity of these two modes of truth.

4. The Spirit mediates their conjunction, ensuring that the truth of faith is neither abstract nor speculative but living and enacted.

5. Hence, theology’s veracity is neither purely linguistic nor purely ontological; it is incarnational, the meeting of speech and being in the Spirit of Christ.

Transitus ad Disputationem V: De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam

Having discerned that theological truth is twofold—internal in the felicity of the Spirit, external in the adequation of language to divine reality—it now becomes necessary to examine the relation between these two modes. For if theology is true both in actu Spiritus and in ratione verbi, then truth and blessedness cannot be opposed, but must interpenetrate within the life of faith.

The danger of division is constant: a theology concerned only with external correspondence lapses into formalism, while one absorbed in internal felicity risks dissolving truth into experience. Yet their separation betrays the nature of both, for truth without joy is barren, and joy without truth is vain. Theologia therefore finds its wholeness only where the intellect’s assent and the soul’s delight converge, where the knowledge of God becomes the joy of God known.

Hence we proceed to Disputationem V: De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam, wherein it will be asked how truth and felicity are related as form and act within theology; whether felicity is the perfection of truth or its manifestation; and how, in the life of the believer, the Spirit unites the veracity of the Word with the beatitude of participation.