Disputatio XXXI: De Conceptuali Schematismo et Verbo Reali

On Conceptual Schematism and the Real Word

Quaeritur

Utrum conceptus humanus sit schema sufficiens ad apprehendendum divinam veritatem, an vero omne conceptum, ut finitum et intentionaliter clausum, indigeat participatione Verbi realis ut fiat verum de re et non tantum in mente.

It is asked whether the human concept is a sufficient schema for apprehending divine truth, or whether every concept, as finite and intentionally enclosed, requires participation in the Real Word in order to be true of reality and not merely within the mind.

Thesis

Concepts are forms of thought by which the intellect schematizes being. Yet the conceptual schema, as finite and discursive, does not contain the fullness of the real. Theological truth demands not only conceptual adequation but ontological participation. Therefore, every true theological concept must be conformed to, and fulfilled by, the Verbum reale, the Real Word that grounds both thought and being.

The Word is not merely the object of theology, but its constitutive cause: the act in which the conceptual becomes real. Hence, the intellect’s schemata are true only insofar as they are taken up and completed in the Real Word.

Locus Classicus

“In thy light shall we see light.” — Psalm 36:9

The Fathers interpreted this as a confession of the participatio intellectus divini—that the human mind sees truly only in the light of the divine. Athanasius writes: “The Word is the light that illumines every man; by participating in Him, the mind becomes mind indeed.” Aquinas echoes: “Intellectus noster non intelligit nisi per participationem lucis divini intellectus.” (ST I.79.4). Thus, conceptuality in theology is not autonomous schematization but participatory illumination.

Explicatio

Kant described human cognition as a synthesis of intuitions under concepts, governed by the transcendental schematism that orders appearances in time. In this view, knowledge arises from the spontaneous activity of the understanding, which imposes form upon the manifold of intuition.

But such a scheme, while sufficient for the phenomena, cannot reach the noumenon. The concept mediates but does not disclose being as it is. The structure of finite knowing is thus intentional, not ontological: it orders what appears to us, not what is.

For theology, this limitation is decisive. If the concept’s formality closes knowing within itself, no divine reality could ever be known; the Word would remain forever outside human reach. The only alternative is that the Word itself participates in the concept, making it not only a schema of thought but a vessel of real presence.

This is the meaning of the Verbum reale: not merely the word spoken, but the Word that speaks through the human word, giving it truth and being. When theology utters, “God is love,” the conceptual structure of is and love does not capture God; it becomes true only when the Spirit gathers that utterance into participation with the Real Word, which is love.

Hence, theological schematism is pneumatic, not transcendental: it depends upon the Spirit’s act of conforming thought to reality. The intellect does not constitute its object but is constituted by the divine light that enables understanding.

The Real Word thus functions as the infinite horizon of intelligibility, the meta-logos within which conceptual forms are true. The human concept is an instrument, the Spirit the act of illumination, and the Logos the truthmaker of all thought.

Interlocutio cum Davidsone

Donald Davidson, in his celebrated essay “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974), denied the existence of any distinction between scheme and content. For him, there is no neutral reality to be “interpreted” through a scheme, nor any scheme-independent world. Language and world are one continuous web of belief. Thus truth consists in the internal coherence of that web, not in correspondence with something beyond it.

This move that is designed to collapse relativism succeeds only at the cost of transcendence. By abolishing the space between scheme and content, Davidson inadvertently abolishes the possibility of logos as mediation. If there is no “beyond” of language, there can be no Word that enters into it. His monism of truth leaves no ontological interval through which the divine could speak.

The theological consequence is grave. The Incarnation presupposes exactly what Davidson denies: that there is a reality (res divina) which can enter into and transform the finite scheme of human discourse.
Without the possibility of a divine Word beyond our conceptual frame, theology dissolves into anthropology: its language is no longer participatory but self-referential.

Against Davidson, theology must affirm a transcendental asymmetry: there is both a word spoken by man and the Word that speaks man into being. The finite conceptual scheme is not abolished but gathered into the Infinite Logos. Theological realism thus restores what Davidson’s pragmatism erases: the ontological distance within which relation, revelation, and participation become possible.

For the Word that words does not stand outside discourse as a second world, but within it as its constituting act. In that act, scheme and content, concept and being, are reconciled, not by fusion but by participation.

Hence, theology agrees with Davidson that the dualism of scheme and content cannot stand as a rigid opposition, but it insists that their unity must be ontological, not linguistic. It must concern the unity of the Logos that gathers both thought and thing into truth.

Obiectiones

Obj. I. Kantians claim that concepts are the sole means by which the understanding orders experience. To claim access to reality beyond conceptual mediation is to violate the limits of reason and regress to dogmatic metaphysics.

Obj. II. In the phenomenological tradition, the phenomenon appears only within intentional correlation. “Real Word” as a cause of intelligibility is a metaphysical projection beyond the horizon of appearance.

Obj. III. Analytic thought assumes that concepts are semantic structures, that their truth depends on usage and reference, not on any “Real Word.” To posit a metaphysical truthmaker is unnecessary duplication of explanatory entities.

Obj. IV. Postmodern thought supposes that language produces the world it describes. There is no “Real Word” behind words; every word is its own world. Theological appeal to a transcendent Word reinstates metaphysics as domination.

Obj. V. Theological nominalism argues that God’s Word signifies by divine will, not by ontological participation. To assert that human concepts participate in the divine Word risks collapsing Creator and creature.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant rightly limits the spontaneity of finite understanding, but his very limitation testifies to the reality that exceeds it. The incompleteness of conceptual schematism points to the act of being that grounds it. Theology affirms that this act is personal—the divine Logos—who enables finite thought to know without abolishing its limits.

Ad II. Phenomenology discloses intentionality but not its source. The appearing of phenomena presupposes a ground of appearance. The Verbum reale is not another phenomenon but the condition of manifestation itself—the “light in which all appearing appears.”

Ad III. Semantic structure explains the operation of meaning within discourse, not the reason that meaning itself exists. The “Real Word” names not an entity among meanings but the ontological act that makes meaning possible. Without a truthmaker transcending use, semantics floats without being.

Ad IV. If every word creates its own world, no world could gather the words into intelligibility. Yet meaning presupposes gathering (logos). The postmodern thesis thus refutes itself: the very claim that all is linguistic difference depends upon the unity of discourse, which is the act of the Real Word.

Ad V. Participation does not collapse the distinction of Creator and creature but secures it. The concept’s reality is derivative, not identical, with the divine Word. God remains transcendent as the source in which all signification finds its being. The human word is true not by essence but by grace.

Nota

Conceptual formality without participation yields only the shadow of truth. The conceptus humanus orders appearances, but its schematism remains empty unless gathered into the act of the Verbum reale. Theological thought, therefore, cannot be confined to semantics; it is ontology in the mode of speech. When the Word becomes flesh, language itself becomes real, and signification is transfigured into presence.

The crisis of modern thought, from Kant’s transcendental limits to Davidson’s denial of scheme and content, rests upon the refusal to take  participation seriously. To restore the link between concept and reality is to rediscover the Logos as the living syntax of being. Every act of understanding that truly corresponds to what is, does so because the Word that words makes it so.

Hence, the conceptus is not the measure of truth but its vessel. Accordingly, meaning flows from the act that speaks through it. The Verbum reale does not destroy language but fulfills it. In every true judgment, finite reason is gathered into the infinite discourse of the Logos. Thus, theology’s task is not to transcend language but to let language become transparent to the One who, by speaking, makes all things real.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. The human concept, as schema of the understanding, orders appearances but does not generate being.

2. Theological truth requires that this schema be taken up into the act of the Real Word—the divine Logos who is the principle of intelligibility itself.

3. The Spirit mediates this participation, illumining the intellect so that its concepts signify truly, not only performatively but ontologically.

4. Therefore, conceptus is fulfilled only in participatio Verbi realis: the finite form of thought becomes true when it participates in the infinite act of knowing and being.

5. The Real Word is the bridge between syntax and semantics, between felicity and truth, between human discourse and divine reality.

Hence we conclude: Omnis conceptus verus est verbum participatum, that every true concept is a participated word. In the gathering of the Logos, conceptual schematism becomes revelation: the intellect is not merely the possessor of forms, but the hearer of the Word that makes being intelligible.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXXII

The participation of the finite concept in the Real Word reveals the intellect’s deeper longing for the Infinite Understanding. The very act of questioning becomes evidence of the Spirit who moves thought toward sufficiency. 

Thus we pass to Disputatio XXXII: De Ratione Quaerente et Spiritu Intelligentiae, where the eros of reason is interpreted as the trace of divine intelligibility within the creature.

Disputation XXX: De Veritate Interna et Externa Theologiae

On Internal and External Truth in Theology

Quaeritur

Utrum veritas theologiae sit tantum interna in suo sermone, an etiam externa in relatione ad ipsum Deum, ita ut sermo theologicus non solum sit fidelis in se, sed etiam verus de eo quod est.

It is asked whether the truth of theology is only internal to its own discourse, or also external in its relation to God himself, so that theological language is not only faithful in itself but also true of what is.

Thesis

Theology possesses a twofold truth: internal and external. Veritas interna is the felicity of discourse authorized by the Holy Spirit within the community of faith; it is the truth of theology intra systema fidei. Veritas externa is the adequation of this discourse to divine reality: the truth of theology de Deo ipso.

The former concerns the integrity of theological grammar; the latter, the participation of that grammar in the infinite Word. The two are not opposed but ordered: the Spirit authorizes language internally so that it may participate externally in the Logos.

Formally expressed:

$$\text{<i>Auth</i>}<i>(</i>{\mathrm{<i>L</i>}}_{\mathrm{<i>t</i>}}<i>)</i><i>\Rightarrow </i>\mathrm{<i>\exists </i>}\mathrm{<i>I</i>}<i>:</i>{\mathrm{<i>L</i>}}_{\mathrm{<i>t</i>}}<i>\hookrightarrow </i>{\mathrm{<i>L</i>}}_{\mathrm{<i>\infty </i>}}$$

This states that theological truth obtains only if the Spirit establishes an interpretive inclusion of the finite theological language $L_t$ into the infinite divine discourse $L_{\mathrm{\infty }}$. This symbol (↪) indicates participatory inclusion, not the formal subset relation. It is the Spirit’s act by which finite discourse is gathered into infinite meaning.

Locus Classicus

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” — John 14:6

In this declaration, Christ identifies truth not as correspondence or coherence, but as personal participation in the divine Logos. Augustine reads this as meaning that “veritas non est aliquid extra Deum, sed ipse Deus veritas est” (De TrinitateVIII.4). Aquinas echoes: “Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei; in Deo autem idem est intellectus et res” (ST I.16.5). Therefore, for theology, truth cannot be merely formal, but it must be participatory. The finite intellect is true only insofar as it shares in the divine act of knowing.

Explicatio

On the Transcendental Nature of Truth

The transcendentals—ens, unum, verum, bonum—are convertible: whatever is, is one, true, and good.

1.  Ens signifies being under the aspect of actuality.
2. Verum signifies being under the aspect of intelligibility, that is being as capable of being known
3. Thus, truth is not something added to being; it is the luminosity of being itself.
4. Wherever there is being, there is an implicit veritas, because to be is to be capable of being understood
5. Hence, truth is a transcendental property of being.

In God, who is ipsum esse subsistens, being and intelligibility are identical; He is the verum primum, the archetype and measure of all other truths.

In creatures, truth is participatory: finite beings are true insofar as they share in divine intelligibility and correspond to the divine idea in which they are conceived.

On Internal and External Truth

a. Veritas interna refers to the integrity and coherence of a discourse or system—its syntactic and performative correctness, its internal felicity.

b. Veritas externa refers to the correspondence between what is said and what is—between sign and reality, intellect and being.

Theological language, like all human speech, can achieve felicity without necessarily achieving truth; yet without internal felicity, it could not even aim at truth.

Felicity, then, is the condition of possibility for truth, but not its ground. The ground of truth is the being of God, in whom every finite coherence finds its measure.

Theology, as language about God, must therefore transcend its own grammar: its truth lies not merely in saying well (bene dicere), but in saying what is (dicere esse). It is true when its internal felicity participates in divine external truth.

On the Participation of Theology in Divine Truth

Theology does not produce truth; it participates in it. When the theologian speaks truly of God, this occurs because divine being grants intelligibility to that speech—because the light of being shines through language. The Holy Spirit is the mediating act through which this participation occurs: the one who makes human words capable of bearing divine meaning.

3. Thus, every theological assertion is twofold:

   • Internally: it is grammatically felicitous, coherent, and consistent.

   • Externally: it is illuminated by the light of the One who is Truth itself.

   In this participation, truth and being are united without confusion.
   Theology is not the measure of God; God is the measure of theology.

Obiectiones

Obj. I. Empiricism claims that all truth must be verifiable by observation. Theological claims are unverifiable and thus have no external truth. There is only the internal coherence of theological discourse for believers using it. 

Obj. II. From the cultural-linguistic standpoint, theology’s meaning arises only within the communal grammar of faith. Thus, to speak of “external truth” misunderstands language as representational rather than formative. Theology is true insofar as it performs its grammar.

Obj. III. Post-modernity assumes that every discourse is self-referential such that “outside” a language game there is nothing. Hence “external truth” is a non-starter. All truth is internal to interpretation.

Obj. IV. Barthians held that God’s revelation is self-grounded and free, and that appeal to participation or adequation cannot verify it. Truth exists only in the event of revelation, it is not tied to ontology.

Obj. V. Contemporary analytic thinking holds that model-theoretic analogies fail for theology. There is no definable model of God; hence talk of inclusion Lt​↪L∞​ is metaphorical and lacks formal content.

Responsiones

Ad I. Verificationism mistakes the order of reality for the order of appearance. Theology is not an empirical but a participatory science: it knows by union, not by observation. External truth in theology is not sensory correspondence but ontological inclusion in the act of God.

Ad II. The Church’s grammar is indeed formative, yet its form is the Spirit’s work, not a human construct. The Spirit’s authorship makes the grammar porous to transcendence; hence, its truth cannot be merely communal but is grounded in the divine speech that precedes the Church.

Ad III. Postmodern closure presupposes the very transcendence it denies. The internal system’s finitude points beyond itself to the infinite that constitutes it, just as, by the Löwenheim–Skolem principle, any consistent system admits higher interpretations. The finite theological discourse testifies by its very limitation to the necessity of the divine meta-language.

Ad IV. Revelation is not opposed to participation but presupposes it. God’s free act of self-disclosure is the mode in which creatures participate in divine truth. To say revelation alone grounds truth is already to affirm that truth has external reality in Deo ipso.

Ad V. While theology cannot construct a formal model of God, the analogy holds analogically: God is the modelus sui sermonis, the reality to which divine discourse is perfectly adequate. Finite theology participates in that adequation by the Spirit. Thus, the inclusion ${\mathrm{<br>}}_{}$ is not formal but real: it signifies the Spirit’s act of joining human speech to the eternal Word.

Nota 

The distinction between internal and external truth in theology mirrors the structure of revelation itself. Veritas interna designates the truth of faith—the Spirit’s authorization of discourse within the divine economy of speech, and veritas externa names the correspondence of that discourse to divine reality as such. These are not two truths, but two perspectives upon one act. The internal truth is the participation of the believer in the Word, while the external truth is the participation of the Word in the world.

Within the sphere of veritas interna, felicity and faith coincide: the statement “Jesus is Lord” is true because it is spoken in the Spirit. Within veritas externa, that same statement is true because the incarnate Word is objectively Lord of all. The Spirit assures, the Word grounds, and the Father unites these two horizons in the single act of truth.

Thus, theology’s truth is not reducible to logic nor to experience; it is a relation of participation. Language, illumined by the Spirit, shares in the ontological act of the Word and so becomes both performative and correspondent. The finite utterance is true when it is gathered into the divine discourse that both causes and completes its meaning.

Determinatio

1. Truth is a transcendental property of being: verum est ens in quantum cognoscibile.

2. Being and intelligibility are coextensive; full being entails full intelligibility.

3. In God, being and knowing are one: esse et intelligere sunt idem.

4. Every finite act of truth is participatory, grounded in the infinite act of self-identical being.

5. Theology’s internal coherence (felicity) depends upon its participation in external divine truth.

6. Therefore, theology is true because it shares in the self-identical fullness of being, in whom to be and to be known are one.

7. Veritas interna is the pneumatological authorization of theological discourse, its faithfulness, coherence, and integrity within the Spirit’s grammar.

8. Veritas externa is the Christological participation of that discourse in the divine Logos, the ontological adequation by which the Word that words also constitutes what is.

9. The two are ordered: the Spirit perfects language internally so that it may correspond externally to the Word.

10. Finite discourse, like a logical system, cannot ground its own truth; it requires inclusion in the infinite speech of God.

11. Therefore, theological truth is neither merely communal nor purely propositional but participatory, It is rather the inclusion of finite utterance in infinite meaning.

Hence we conclude: Veritas interna sine externa est infidelis; veritas externa sine interna est muta. Only when the Spirit authorizes and the Logos fulfills does theology speak the truth.

Postscriptum Modernum

Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and the Löwenheim–Skolem results together illuminate the formal necessity of theological participation.
Gödel showed that any sufficiently rich, consistent formal system contains truths that cannot be proven within it; there are statements true in the system but not demonstrable by it. The Löwenheim–Skolem theorems, conversely, reveal that no formal language uniquely determines its own model, foeeven first-order theories with infinite models admit both smaller and larger interpretations.

Taken together, these findings expose a deep structural fact: no finite system can secure its own truth. Consistency does not entail completeness and satisfaction within does not entail adequation without. Hence, every coherent finite language gestures beyond itself toward a meta-language or an infinite frame in which its truth is grounded.

Theology mirrors this logic. The finite L_t of human discourse may be internally consistent—Spiritually felicitous—but its truth as about God depends upon participation in the infinite L_∞ of the divine Logos. The incompleteness of reason is not its defect but its vocation: it is the mark of the finite’s openness to the Infinite.

Thus, what logic demonstrates negatively—that no system can prove itself complete—theology confesses positively: Finite speech becomes true only when the Word that words gathers it into the world that worlds. In this gathering, internal felicity becomes external truth; the Spirit’s authorization becomes the Logos’s fulfillment.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXXI

If the Spirit authorizes theology’s internal felicity and the Logos grounds its external truth, what is the nature of the concept that mediates between them? The next disputation investigates the structure of human conceptuality itself: its finitude, its schematism, and its completion in the real Word. 

We proceed to Disputatio XXXI: De Conceptuali Schematismo et Verbo Reali, and ask how human concepts, limited by finitude, become vessels of infinite meaning, and how the Real Word transforms thought itself into a mode of divine speech.

Disputatio XIX: De Meta-Lingua Theologiae et Verbo Divino

On the Meta-Language of Theology and the Divine Word

Quaeritur

Utrum meta-lingua theologiae non sit sermo humanus aliis superior, sed ipsum Verbum divinum, in quo et per quem omnis lingua creata interpretatur; et utrum Deus non habeat aliud verbum de se quam se ipsum, ita ut Logos sit meta-lingua qua universa loquela humana in veritatem redigitur.

Whether the meta-language of theology is not a human discourse standing above others but the divine Word Himself, in whom and through whom all created language is interpreted; and whether God possesses no other word about Himself than Himself, such that 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.

Transitus ad Disputationem XX

The preceding disputation uncovered that theology cannot transcend itself by means of a higher, detached language. Its meta-lingua is not an external code but the very reflexivity of the divine Word within finite speech; it is the Word illumining itself in the medium of human discourse. Thus theology was shown to exist not as commentary upon revelation but as revelation’s own self-interpretation, the finite word drawn into the infinite articulation of God’s Logos.

Yet this discovery opens a deeper question. If theology truly occurs within the self-speaking of the Word, what then is its mode of actuality? How does the human act of theologizing participate in the divine act of speaking? What role belongs to the Spirit, through whom finite utterance is gathered into the living voice of God?

Therefore we advance to Disputatio XX: De Theologia ut Actu Verbi et Spiritus, in which theology will be considered not as a superior human discourse about the divine, but as the very action of the Word and Spirit, an event wherein God, in speaking through human language, continues the eternal dialogue of truth within time.

Prooemium ad Partem III: De Logica et Incompletudine; XVIII: De Finibus Modeling Theologici et Transcendentia Veritatis

Prooemium ad Partem III: De Logica et Incompletudine

Why Theology Must Confront the Limits of Reason

The theological movement now turns from the analysis of language to the discipline of logic. Having examined how divine truth becomes expressible in human speech, we must now inquire as to how that same truth becomes demonstrable, and as to where demonstration itself must yield to transcendence. For theology cannot rest content with felicity of utterance or coherence of confession. It must also test the form of reason through which it seeks understanding. To believe that theology can think truly is to believe that truth can be formalized without being confined.

Logic thus stands at theology’s threshold. It promises order and necessity, yet every attempt to formalize truth also exposes its incompleteness. The human intellect, in seeking to systematize divine intelligibility, discovers that any consistent system of finite propositions is necessarily open: what it cannot express may still be true. This discovery, made explicit in Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, is not a defeat of reason but its purification. It reveals that reason’s strength lies precisely in its capacity to witness beyond itself.

Throughout the history of thought, the dream of a total logic has haunted philosophy. Aristotle sought closure through the syllogism; the medievals through the scientia demonstrativa; Descartes through clarity and distinctness; Leibniz through the characteristica universalis; the positivists through symbolic formalization. Yet each attempt, by pushing logic toward completeness, has uncovered its inner paradox: that the more consistent the system, the less it can account for its own truth. Theological reason receives this paradox as revelation—finite intellect as mirror of infinite Logos.

The model-theoretic vision of these Disputationes interprets logical incompleteness as a formal analogue of the creature’s dependence on God. Just as every theory requires a model in which its sentences are true, so every act of reason requires a reality that transcends its formulations. The “incompleteness” of the logical system corresponds to the creature’s incapacity to ground itself. Truth always exceeds provability; the Infinite is the necessary truth-maker of the finite. Thus theology finds in logic not an alien science but a parable of grace: the law of thought itself bears witness to the Logos who is both Reason and Revelation.

The disputationes that follow therefore explore the boundary where reason becomes contemplative. They trace the movement from formal system to divine truth, from provability to participation, from finite syntax to infinite semantics. For logic, when purified by theology, becomes a confession: that thought can know itself as incomplete only because it already participates in the infinite fullness of truth.

Praefatio ad Partem III: De Logica et Incompletudine

Ratio concludit, et revelatur infinitum

In hac tertia parte Disputationum, theologia transit a lingua ad logicam, ab significatione ad formam. Hic ratio humana, quae per linguam veritatem significavit, conatur eamdem veritatem demonstrare; sed in ipso actu demonstrationis invenit suam limitatam naturam. Nam omnis systema finitum est incompletum, et nulla regula finita potest comprehendere plenitudinem veritatis divinae.

Logica, quae videtur instrumentum certitudinis, fit speculum humilitatis: ostendit quod vera necessitas non est clausura sed apertio ad infinitum. Theologia logicae non adversatur, sed eam purificat; docet quod omnis consequentia recta terminatur in mysterio, et quod ratio vera est ratio adorans.

Haec pars igitur examinat terminos intelligibilitatis ipsius. Investigat modum quo veritas, dum formam logicam recipit, excedit eam. In theorematibus mathematicis, in structuris linguisticis, in systematibus scientiae, ratio semper se ostendit ordinatam sed non sufficientem. Incompletudo logicae est signum transcendens, indicans quod omnis ratio finita testatur de ratione infinita. Hinc sequitur quod intelligere finitum est semper participare infinitum in modo negationis.

In this third part of the Disputationes, theology moves from language to logic, from signification to form. Here the human mind, which has expressed truth through language, seeks to demonstrate that same truth; yet in the very act of demonstration it discovers its limitation. For every finite system is incomplete, and no finite rule can encompass the fullness of divine truth.

Logic, which seems the instrument of certainty, becomes the mirror of humility: it reveals that true necessity is not closure but openness to the infinite. Theology does not oppose logic; it purifies it, teaching that every valid inference ends in mystery, and that true reason is reason adoring.

This part therefore examines the boundaries of intelligibility itself. It inquires how truth, while receiving logical form, at the same time surpasses it. In mathematical theorems, linguistic structures, and scientific systems alike, reason shows itself ordered yet insufficient. The incompleteness of logic is a transcendent sign, indicating that all finite reason bears witness to infinite reason. To understand finitely is always to participate in the infinite under the mode of limitation.

________

On the Limits of Theological Modeling and the Transcendence of Truth

Quaeritur

Utrum omne modelum theologicum sit verum participative sed finitum formaliter; et utrum hic finis non sit defectus sed indicium transcendenciae veritatis divinae, quae non comprehenditur sed communicatur; ac demum utrum Spiritus Sanctus hunc ordinem servet, ut finitum maneat capax infiniti sine confusione.

Whether every theological model is true by participation but finite in form; and whether this limit is not a defect but a sign of divine transcendence—the truth of God which cannot be comprehended yet can be communicated; and finally, whether the Holy Spirit preserves this order so that the finite remains capable of the infinite without confusion.

Thesis

Theological models are necessarily bounded expressions of divine truth. Their formal incompleteness is not failure but fidelity: each model bears witness to a truth that exceeds it. The transcendence of truth is thus the very condition of theology’s realism—the sign that its words refer beyond themselves to the living God whom no concept can contain.

Locus classicus

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” — Romans 11:33

The Apostle’s exclamation affirms that divine truth is both knowable and unsearchable. Theology does not abolish mystery; it articulates it. The depth of divine knowledge marks the horizon of all theological modeling.

Explicatio

Every theological model seeks to interpret the language of faith (T) within an ontological structure that makes its truth intelligible. Yet by its very nature, this interpretation is bounded. Finite language cannot capture infinite reality, but it can participate in it.

Modeling’s limit is therefore intrinsic and theological. To express it formally (and then explain):

• Let M denote a theological model, and V the divine truth it seeks to express.

• The relation M ⊂ V means that the model is contained within the divine truth, not the reverse.

• The inclusion is analogical, not spatial: theological truth exceeds every formalization because it is grounded in divine self-being (ipsum esse subsistens).

This limit does not undermine theology’s validity; it guarantees it.
If theology could exhaust divine truth, God would be reduced to a logical totality. Instead, the Spirit maintains an open horizon—a structured incompleteness analogous to Gödel’s insight that every consistent system points beyond itself.

Thus, the incompleteness of theology is not an epistemic failure but a mark of its realism. To speak truly of God is to acknowledge that one’s words refer beyond themselves to the inexhaustible fullness of divine meaning.

In theological modeling, then, there are two horizons of truth:

1. Formal completeness (perfectio formalis) — the coherence and internal truth of the model itself.

2. Transcendent adequacy (adequatio transcendens) — the degree to which the model participates in divine reality beyond all system.

The Spirit bridges these horizons, ensuring that theology’s finite models remain ordered toward the infinite without dissolution or despair.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. If every theological model is limited, theology can never yield certainty; all statements about God remain provisional.

Obiectio II. To speak of limits implies that divine truth is in principle unknowable, collapsing theology into apophatic silence.

Obiectio III. The analogy to Gödelian incompleteness introduces a mathematical formalism alien to the nature of revelation.

Responsiones

Ad I. Theological certainty differs from mathematical completeness. It rests not on exhaustive comprehension but on participatory adequacy. The believer’s assurance (certitudo fidei) arises from communion, not closure. Certainty in theology is relational — it depends on the faithfulness of the Revealer, not the fullness of our models.

Ad II. Limits do not negate knowledge but define its sanctity. To know God truly is to know Him as inexhaustible. The more theology apprehends, the more it perceives the excess of what remains. The apophatic and the cataphatic are not opposites but concentric movements around divine mystery.

Ad III. The Gödelian analogy is illustrative, not foundational. It serves to illuminate the principle that truth transcends formal systems. As logic points beyond itself to meaning, so theology points beyond itself to the living God. The analogy expresses theological humility, not technical equivalence.

Nota

The finitude of theological models discloses their vocation. They are not idols but icons: transparent forms through which divine light passes. An idol contains what it names; an icon reveals what exceeds it. To model truly is to construct such icons—finite forms ordered toward infinite reality.

In this light, theology’s incompleteness becomes a virtue. A perfect model would contradict its own subject, for God cannot be reduced to formula or schema. The Spirit’s presence ensures that each model remains porous, open to transcendence, capable of bearing infinite significance within finite form.

We might symbolize this relation (and then immediately explain it):

T + M → V* where T is the language of faith, M the model interpreting it, and V** (“V-star”) the transcendent truth that grounds both. This notation reminds us that truth (V**) always exceeds its modeled representations (V), even as it grants them participation.

Hence, theology’s structure is eschatological: every true model anticipates its fulfillment in glory, when formal adequacy and divine presence will finally coincide (FT = TC = V**).

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theological modeling is necessarily finite; its limit is the sign of divine transcendence, not the mark of error.

2. Truth in theology is participatory: each model communicates a real share in divine reality without exhausting it.

3. The Spirit mediates this participation, sustaining both coherence (formal felicity) and openness (transcendent adequacy).

4. The incompleteness of theology secures its realism: it acknowledges the otherness of God while truly speaking of Him.

5. Therefore, theology’s task is not to eliminate its limits but to sanctify them — to make every model an icon of mystery, transparent to the infinite truth that alone fulfills it.

Transitus ad Disputationem XIX

The boundaries of modeling have revealed that no finite language can contain divine truth. Theology therefore finds itself suspended between two orders of speech: the human, which signifies by mediation, and the divine, which signifies by being. Every theological statement, if true, participates in both. It speaks of God while being spoken by God, for the same Word who is the content of theology is also its condition.

Yet this double belonging calls for further clarification. If theology’s words are grounded in divine speech, then what is the nature of that grounding? Does theology possess a meta-lingua—a higher language of the Spirit—within which its finite utterances receive authorization and coherence? And how does this meta-language relate to the eternal Verbum divinum, the Logos in whom all truths are articulated and made real?

Therefore we proceed to Disputatio XIX: De Meta-Lingua Theologiae et Verbo Divino, in which it is asked whether theology speaks about God or within the speech of God, how the divine Word functions as the metalanguage of all theological discourse, and how human language, assumed into that Word, becomes both instrument and revelation of divine truth.