Disputatio LXI: De Providentia Speciali et Revelatione in Eventibus Particularibus

 On Special Providence and Revelation in Particular Events

Quaeritur

Utrum providentia specialis designet modum quo voluntas divina manifestatur in eventibus particularibus, ita ut eventus isti non sint merae contingentiae temporales sed loci in quibus Logos intentionaliter agit; et quomodo haec particularis manifestatio non confundat causam divinam et creatam nec redigat revelationem ad interpretationem humanam.

Whether special providence designates the mode by which the divine will manifests itself in particular events, such that these events are not mere temporal contingencies but loci where the Logos intentionally acts; and how such particular manifestation neither confuses divine and creaturely causality nor reduces revelation to human interpretation.

Thesis

Special providence is the enactment of divine intention within determinate historical events. It is not an intrusion upon natural processes nor an alternative causal chain. It is the Logos’ intentional ordering of specific occurrences so that they bear the form of divine act. Such events become revelatory when the Spirit illumines them as manifestations of divine purpose.

Special providence does not violate creaturely freedom, for it operates at the level of constitutive intelligibility, not at the level of coercive determination. Nor does it collapse into general providence, for it concerns the particular specification of divine agency within concrete history. Thus special providence is the personal articulation of divine intention within the temporal order.

Locus Classicus

Genesis 50:20
Vos cogitastis de me malum, Deus autem cogitavit in bonum.
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

A single event bears two intentions without competition.

Acts 17:26–27
ἐποίησέν τε ἐξ ἑνὸς πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων κατοικεῖν ἐπὶ παντὸς προσώπου τῆς γῆς,
ὁρίσας προστεταγμένους καιροὺς καὶ τὰς ὁροθεσίας τῆς κατοικίας αὐτῶν,
ζητεῖν τὸν Θεόν, εἰ ἄρα γε ψηλαφήσειαν αὐτὸν καὶ εὕροιεν,
καί γε οὐ μακρὰν ἀπὸ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου ἡμῶν ὑπάρχοντα. 

"He made from one every nation of humankind to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God."

Luther, WA 10 III, 35
Deus gubernat omnia non solum in universali, sed in particulari.
“God governs all things not only in general but in particular.”

Explicatio

1. Special providence is not a narrower form of general providence

General providence concerns the constitutive order of all things: the intelligibility of history and the sustaining power of the Logos. Special providence concerns the specific articulation of divine intention within determinate events. To use an image: general providence is the grammar of history; special providence is the sentence God speaks within it. Thus, special providence is not a separate kind of causation but a more determinate mode of divine intentionality operating within the field general providence provides.

2. A particular event becomes revelatory when illumined

Every event possesses its own creaturely causal history. Special providence does not abolish this but brings it into relation with divine intentionality. An event becomes revelatory not because a different kind of cause appears but because the Spirit grants the event to be perceived according to its deeper meaning in the Logos. Thus revelation is not a doubling of events but an unveiling of the intention that grounds them. Accordingly, the Red Sea crossing, the call of Abraham, the Damascus road encounter: each is a historical occurrence whose revelatory character derives from divine intentionality perceived under illumination.

3. Special providence does not negate creaturely agency

A single event can bear both divine and creaturely intentions without contradiction because:

• divine intention grounds the event’s being and meaning,

• creaturely intention grounds its moral and temporal content.

Joseph’s brothers intend evil. God intends good. These intentions coexist because divine intentionality does not operate on the same causal register as creaturely intention. God does not coerce their act; he situates its meaning within the broader narrative of salvation.This is neither compatibilism nor libertarianism, but enjoins a participatory causality.

4. Special providence is intelligible only within a participatory ontology

If divine and creaturely causes occupy the same plane, special providence becomes indistinguishable from determinism or interventionism. But when the Logos is understood as the intelligible ground of all finite processes, special providence becomes the specification of divine intention within a concrete finite form. Thus natural and divine causes do not compete. Divine action sustains natural causality even as it uses it. Luther’s language of God working “in and under” events reflects this metaphysical layering.

5. Revelation arises from divine act, not human interpretation

Special providence does not depend on human judgment. An event is revelatory because God acts, not because humans discern divine action. Illumination grants recognition but does not constitute the divine act. Thus the subjectivism of purely hermeneutical or postliberal models is avoided. What God does is real even before it is recognized. Interpretation follows illumination; illumination follows divine intention; and divine intention grounds the event.

Objectiones

Ob I. If special providence identifies divine intention in particular events, how can one distinguish revelation from coincidence?

Ob II. If God intends specific events, does this not collapse creaturely freedom?

Ob III. If revelation arises from illumination, is it not subjective

Ob IV. If God orders particular events, is God then responsible for evil?

Ob V. Special providence seems indistinguishable from miracle. Are they the same?

Responsiones

Ad I. Coincidence is a name for events lacking perceived intelligibility. Special providence is the intentional grounding of events by the Logos. Recognition requires illumination, but the reality does not depend on recognition.

Ad II. Divine intention provides the possibility and meaning of the event, not the moral content of the creaturely act. Freedom determines intention; providence establishes context. One does not negate the other.

Ad III. Illumination grants the truth of revelation to be known. It does not create the truth. Revelation is objective in divine act and participatory in creaturely apprehension.

Ad IV. God sustains the event as event but does not intend the creature’s evil. Providence orders evil toward good without causing the evil itself. The defect arises from the creature; the ordering arises from God.

Ad V. Miracle suspends ordinary natural processes. Special providence works through them. Both reveal God; they differ in mode, not in reality of divine action.

Nota

Special providence is the concrete specification of divine intentionality in history. It is not occasionalism, for it preserves creaturely agency; nor is it deism, for it recognizes divine presence in every event. It reveals God as the one whose eternal will becomes manifest in time without violence to freedom or nature.

This is theological realism: God acts, and events bear the form of that act.

Determinatio

We determine:

Special providence is the particular manifestation of divine intention in concrete historical events.
It does not abolish creaturely causality but situates it within divine purpose. Revelation in specific events arises from the Logos’ ordering and the Spirit’s illumination. Thus special providence is neither determinism nor hermeneutic projection. It is divine action in the concrete.

Transitus ad Disputationem LXII

Having shown that divine intention becomes manifest in particular events, we now turn to the event in which divine intention and creaturely nature are united in the most intimate form: the incarnation. For Christ is not merely a revelatory event but the ontological union of God and man.

We therefore proceed to Disputatio LXII: De Communicatione Idiomatum et Ontologia Participationis.

Disputatio LX: De Providentia et Libertate

 On Providence and Freedom

Quaeritur

Utrum providentia divina possit ordinare historiam sine cohibitione vel dissolutione libertatis humanae, ita ut actus creaturae sint vere proprii et tamen intelligantur intra ordinem intentionalem Logi; et quomodo haec coexistentia voluntatis divinae et libertatis creaturae non resolvatur in determinismum aut in dualismum causarum.

Whether divine providence can order history without constraining or dissolving human freedom, such that creaturely acts are genuinely their own and yet intelligible within the intentional order of the Logos; and how this coexistence of divine will and creaturely freedom does not collapse into determinism or a dualism of causes.

Thesis

Providence is the eternal intention of God, articulated in the Logos, whereby history receives its intelligible order. Freedom is the creature’s finite participation in this order according to its own mode of agency. Divine and human agency do not compete because their modes of causality differ: the divine is constitutive, the human participatory. The act of God grounds the possibility of creaturely act but does not determine its content. Human freedom is therefore neither negated nor autonomous. It arises within the Logos-shaped field where providence provides the conditions of intelligibility for action.

Thus providence orders history without coercion, and freedom flourishes within providence without separation.

Locus Classicus

Psalm 139:16
In libro tuo scripti erant omnes dies.
“All the days ordained for me were written in your book.”

Providence frames the horizon of creaturely life.

Philippians 2:13
Deus est qui operatur in vobis et velle et perficere.
“God is the one who works in you both to will and to act.”

Divine causality does not negate creaturely willing but grounds it.

Luther, WA 18, 636 (De servo arbitrio)
Deus est in omnibus operans, non ut violenter trahat, sed ut sustentet.
“God works in all things, not by drawing violently, but by sustaining.”

Providence is constitutive, not coercive.

Explicatio

1. Providence is constitutive, not competitive, causality

Providence is not a secondary cause among causes. It is the intelligible ground of all finite acts. To say that God governs history is to say that every temporal event receives its possibility, its field of intelligible relations, and its metaphysical coherence from the Logos. Thus, providence does not intervene from without, nor does it supersede creaturely action. It is the deep structure within which creaturely causes operate as causes.

If two painters work upon one canvas, their strokes compete. If God and a creature act, their modes of causation do not inhabit the same plane. This is the error of competitive metaphysics. But Providence is not a rival to freedom. It is the condition for its existence.

2. Freedom as finite participation in divine intentionality

Freedom is not spontaneity detached from order. It is the creature’s capacity to enact meaning within the Logos-shaped horizon of possibility. A free act is an act that arises from the creature’s own powers. However, those powers themselves arise from divine act. Thus freedom is not independence from God but the creature’s participation in the meaningful field God sustains.

For Luther, bondage of the will concerns the incapacity to enact righteousness, not the absence of agency. Creatures choose, deliberate, and act. Their acts are genuine because their agency is real. But agency is always grounded in providence.

3. Providence and freedom do not divide the act

A single human act is not partially divine and partially human. Rather, it is wholly divine as to its being and possibility, and wholly human as to its moral quality and intention. This avoids the metaphysical mistake of partitioning causality. God does not cause the moral defect of actions and creatures do not sustain their own agency. Providence sustains the act as act and freedom shapes the act’s determination. Thus both modes of agency coexist in the same event without competition.

4. History is the ordered field of freedom

Because providence shapes history as meaningful order, creaturely freedom always occurs within a web of givens:

• a body,
• a culture,
• a time,
• a vocation, 
• and a moral horizon. '

These are not constraints but the very conditions under which freedom becomes intelligible. History is not a prison, but an arena of meaning. Freedom is not exemption from history, but a participation in its intelligible unfolding.

5. Rejection of determinism and dualism

Determinism arises when divine causality is construed as competitive. Dualism arises when creaturely causality is viewed as self-sufficient. Both follow from misunderstanding the metaphysical difference between Creator and creature. Providence is the sustaining intelligibility of the Logos and freedom is the creature’s participation in this intelligibility. Thus neither absorbs the other. Freedom without providence is chaos and Providence without freedom is fatalism. Luther affirms neither.

Objectiones

Ob I. If God ordains all things, human choices are predetermined.

Ob II. If creatures are genuinely free, divine providence cannot be exhaustive

Ob III. Providence sustaining every act implies that God is the cause of evil.

Ob IV. If freedom is participation, is it genuine freedom or derived necessity?

Ob V. Scripture sometimes depicts God changing his mind. Does this not imply contingency in providence?

Responsiones

Ad I. Providence ordains the horizon of action, not its specific moral content. God gives possibility; creatures fill it with intention. Possibility is not predetermination.

Ad II. Freedom is not a domain exempt from God but a mode of agency grounded in God. The fullness of divine providence does not require the emptiness of human agency.

Ad III. God sustains the act as act. The defect belongs to the creature’s intention. Sustaining is not identical with approving. Ontological support is not moral endorsement.

Ad IV. Participation does not negate autonomy but establishes it. A creature becomes itself through participation in divine act. Freedom is not diminished by derivation but constituted by it.

Ad V. Scriptural anthropomorphisms display the relational quality of divine action, not its contingency. Providence is eternal; its temporal enactment is relationally responsive without metaphysical change.

Nota

Providence and freedom coexist because their causal orders differ. Providence is the condition of agency. Freedom is agency exercised. The Logos provides intelligibility. The Spirit grants illumination. History becomes the field where divine and creaturely acts unfold without competition. This is theological realism: divine act grounds creaturely act without eliminating it.

Determinatio

We determine:

1. Providence is the constitutive grounding of all finite action.
2. Freedom is finite participation in the intelligible order that providence supplies.
3. Divine and human causality are not competitive but layered.
4. History is the arena where providence and freedom converge.
5. This view avoids determinism by preserving creaturely intention, and avoids dualism by preserving divine transcendence.

Thus providence orders without coercing, and freedom flourishes without severing.

Transitus ad Disputatio LXI

Having established providence as the structuring horizon of creaturely freedom, we now inquire how particular events may reveal divine intention in concrete form. If providence is the eternal order, special providence is the temporal manifestation.

We therefore proceed to Disputatio LXI: De Providentia Speciali et Revelatione in Eventibus Particularibus.

Disputatio LVI: De Formā Logi ut Principio Intelligibilitatis

 On the Form of the Logos as the Principle of Intelligibility

Quaeritur

Utrum forma Logi sit principium intelligibilitatis omnium divinorum actuum, ita ut omnis divina operatio sit cognoscibilis solum quia informatur a Logō; et quomodo haec informatio non solvat simplicitatem divinam neque introducat abstractionem supra vitam Trinitatis.

Whether the form of the Logos constitutes the principle of intelligibility for all divine acts, such that every divine operation is knowable only because it has its determinate form in the Logos; and how this does not compromise divine simplicity nor introduce an abstraction standing above the life of the Trinity.

Thesis

The Logos is not merely the interpreter of divine action nor a medium through which intelligibility flows. The Logos is the ground of intelligibility itself. Every divine act is intelligible because its act-form subsists in the Logos. There is no higher principle of order, no abstract structure, no metaphysical category that conditions God’s intelligibility from without.

The form of the Logos is therefore both metaphysically constitutive and epistemically foundational: constitutive because all divine action is structurally what it is in and as the Logos; foundational because creatures know divine action only by participation in this Logos-formed intelligibility.

Thus intelligibility is neither imposed upon God nor constructed by creatures. It is the radiance of the divine act as it subsists in the eternal Word.

Locus Classicus

John 1:18
ὁ μονογενὴς Θεὸς… ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.
“The only-begotten God… He has made Him known.”

The Logos is the exegesis of God, not by reporting but by being the intelligible form of divine life.

Colossians 1:16–17
τὰ πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται… καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκε.
“All things were created through Him and for Him… and in Him all things hold together.”

Creation’s intelligibility depends on the Logos’ inner structural sufficiency.

Athanasius, Contra Arianos II.22
ὁ Λόγος μορφὴ τοῦ Πατρός ἐστιν.
“The Word is the form of the Father.”

Luther, WA 40 III, 64
Christus est ratio et forma omnium promissionum.
“Christ is the reason and form of all promises.”

Divine intelligibility is Christologically concentrated.

Explicatio

1. Intelligibility cannot arise from creaturely or abstract conditions

Theological modernity has sometimes treated intelligibility as a category external to God—a structure into which God must “fit” to be known. This misconstrues both metaphysics and revelation. Intelligibility is not a transcendental horizon that precedes God; neither is it a human conceptual framework imposed upon divine action.

To posit intelligibility as an abstract form above God would be to posit a metaphysical genus under which God falls. This violates the categorical dualism of Creator and creature and implicitly denies divine simplicity.

Therefore: whatever intelligibility divine acts possess must arise from within the divine life itself.

2. The Logos as the constitutive form of divine intelligibility

Following Disputatio LV, where divine intention and divine act were shown to be one in the Logos, we now articulate the deeper structure: Every divine act is intelligible because its form subsists in the Logos as its constitutive intelligibility.

This means:

• The Logos is not the representation of divine operations.

• The Logos is their formal principle, their internal determination.

• The Logos is not a cognitive filter applied by creatures but the intrinsic ground by which divine actions can be known at all.

Intelligibility is therefore ontological before it is epistemological. In classical terms: the forma logica of divine action is simply the Logos Himself, the eternal articulation of the Father’s being.

3. Intelligibility and divine simplicity

This view preserves simplicity rather than threatens it. For if God were intelligible by a form other than the Logos, God would be composite: essence + form, act + structure. But Scripture and tradition affirm that the Word is eternally “with God” and “is God.” Therefore the form that makes God’s act intelligible is not added to God but is God.

The Logos is the divine act in its intelligible articulation. This articulation is one with the being of God, not an abstraction above it.

4. Creaturely knowledge as participation in Logos-formed intelligibility

Creaturely knowledge of God, then, is not a climb toward divine essence nor a projection of human concepts onto divinity. It is the Spirit-enabled participation in the intelligibility that already inheres in the Logos.

The Spirit does not produce intelligibility; the Spirit grants access to intelligibility already constituted in the Logos. Thus every act of divine revelation—Scripture, sacrament, promise—is not merely information but participation in the Logos’ intelligible form.

What creatures perceive as “revelation” is nothing other than the Logos donating His own act-form to them.

5. Rejection of merely linguistic or postliberal construals

Some modern theologies, especially postliberal ones, treat intelligibility as a function of the ecclesial grammar that governs Christian discourse. But grammar without metaphysical anchor cannot disclose divine act. It only regulates human speech.

The intelligibility of theology must be anchored in the Logos or it becomes circular, self-referential, and finally empty. Revelation is not the community’s speech about God; it is God’s act made knowable because the Logos is its form.

Objectiones

Ob I. If intelligibility is located in the Logos, we introduce a second-level structure in God, undermining simplicity.

Ob II. If all intelligibility is in the Logos, the Father and Spirit become unintelligible except through the Son—an implicit subordinationism.

Ob III. Intelligibility is a creaturely category; to attribute it to God is anthropomorphism.

Ob IV. Intelligibility in the Logos suggests determination of divine acts, jeopardizing divine freedom.

Ob V. Postliberal theology denies that intelligibility is metaphysical; it is purely linguistic.

Responsiones

Ad I. No second-level structure is introduced. The Logos is God; therefore no composition arises. Intelligibility is not an attribute added to God but the radiance of divine act.

Ad II. The knowledge of God is indeed through the Son, but this is not subordination. It is Johannine metaphysics. The Son is the exegesis of the Father, and the Spirit grants participation. Each person is known personally in the one divine act.

Ad III. Creaturely intelligibility is a participation in divine intelligibility, not its source. Anthropomorphism arises only when creatures impose structures on God; we instead receive intelligibility from God.

Ad IV. Determination in the Logos is not constraint. It is the fullness of divine act in its eternal articulation. Freedom is the plentitude of act, not the absence of form.

Ad V. Grammar without ontology cannot speak of God. The Logos grounds all theological grammar by grounding the very acts theology names.

Nota

To say that the Logos is the principle of intelligibility is to say that divine truth is not a construction, approximation, or regulative ideal. It is the self-articulation of God’s own life. Theology’s intelligibility, then, is not a human achievement but a gift: the Spirit draws creatures into the Logos’ articulation of divine being.

This is why theology cannot begin with epistemology. It must begin with Christology. Knowledge of God is grounded not in the capacities of the knower but in the intelligible form of the One who acts and gives Himself to be known.

Determinatio

We therefore determine:

1. Intelligibility is not an external condition to which God conforms but an internal articulation of God’s act in the Logos.

2. The Logos is the constitutive form of all divine action; nothing God does is without this form.

3. Creaturely knowledge of God is participation in the Logos by the Spirit’s donation.

4. This view preserves divine simplicity, avoids abstraction, and grounds theological realism.

5. No theological statement (Tₜ) can be true unless grounded in the Logos-constituted act that Λ ⊨* Tₜ specifies.

Transitus ad Disputationem LVII

Having established that the Logos is the condition of intelligibility for all divine action, we now consider how this intelligibility becomes efficacious in creaturely life. If intelligibility is constituted in the Logos, it is communicated through the Spirit’s act of illumination.

Thus we proceed to Disputatio LVII: De Spiritu Ut Luminatore Intelligibilitatis, where we examine how the Spirit grants creatures access to the intelligible structure of divine act without reducing revelation to cognition or collapsing knowledge into mere conceptuality.

____________________

Quaestiones Analyticae Post Determinationem

Q1. You say that the Logos is the constitutive form of all divine action. Yet the term ‘form’ can be elusive. What exactly is meant here?

Responsio

The term form is not employed in its Aristotelian sense as an intrinsic constituent of a composed substance, nor in the Kantian sense of a subjective structuring condition. Rather, by form I mean the intelligible principle that makes an act the act it is. Every act must possess an internal principle of specification if it is to be identified as a distinct act. Divine action requires the same.

The Logos is the subsisting intelligibility of God. It is through the Son that divine agency is articulate rather than opaque, intelligible rather than merely asserted. To call the Logos the constitutive form of divine action is to say that divine acts have their identity through the one who makes God’s intentionality expressible. Without this, the category of divine action loses its internal criterion. It becomes a projection rather than an intelligible feature of God’s life.

Q2. Should this be understood as a grounding claim, a truthmaker claim, or something else?

Responsio.

It is best understood as a hyperintensional individuation thesis. Grounding and truthmaking presuppose that the relata already possess stable identity. My concern here precedes both. Before one can ask what grounds a divine act or what makes a proposition about divine action true, one must know what makes a divine act identifiable.

The Logos supplies this. It is the principle that secures the fine grained identity conditions of divine action. Once divine acts are intelligibly individuated, questions of grounding or truthmaking can arise. But the individuation of divine agency is logically prior, and that is what the claim addresses.

Q3. Does positing an eternal form for divine action entail modal collapse or eternalism?

Responsio.

No. An identity condition does not entail necessity. The fact that the Logos eternally provides the intelligible form of divine action does not imply that God must actualize any particular action. It means only that whenever God does act, the identity of that act will be articulated through the Son.

Thus the world’s history remains contingent and freely willed. Its intelligibility is eternal, because God is eternal, but its actuality belongs entirely to divine freedom. No eternalist picture is required. There is an eternal form of divine agency because God is eternally intelligible. But the exercise of divine agency takes place freely within the temporal economy.

Q4. Does this risk collapsing divine action into divine conceptualism, reducing divine acts to internal mental events?

Responsio.

No. Conceptualism arises only if one regards the Logos as a divine idea. But the Logos is not a concept. The Logos is a person. As the personal intelligibility of God, the Son is the one through whom God acts in creation. Thus the form of divine action is not conceptual but personal and causal.

Divine action is individuated in God but enacted in the world. The intelligibility that specifies divine action and the causality that accomplishes divine action coincide in the Logos. This unity prevents conceptualism. Divine actions are not mental episodes within God but the personal acts of God who reveals himself through the very structure that makes his acts knowable.

Nota Finalis

In this disputation we have asked how divine action can be intelligible without reducing God to a creaturely agent or dissolving divine agency into mere effects. The analytic questions press precisely on the point where intelligibility and transcendence meet. They reveal that the specification of divine action must lie within God and yet cannot remain a purely inward matter. The Logos answers this requirement. The Son is the one in whom divine agency is articulate for us and the one through whom divine agency is enacted toward us. These questions therefore serve not to complicate the Determinatio but to show its inner coherence: divine action is intelligible because God is intelligible, and God is intelligible because the Logos is God’s own self articulation.

Disputatio LIV: De Hyperintensionalitate Divinae Operationis:

 

On the Hyperintensionality of Divine Action

Quaeritur

Utrum actus divini, quoad identitatem, formam, et rationem essendi, non possint explicari per extensionalem aequivalentiam, modalem necessitationem, vel possibilia mundorum, sed sint essentialiter hyperintensionales; et utrum veritas theologica requirat talem hyperintensionalitatem ut Deus cognoscatur secundum actum, non secundum eventum.

Whether the identity and form of divine acts can be explained by extensional equivalence, modal necessity, or possible-world semantics, or whether they are essentially hyperintensional; and whether theological truth requires such hyperintensionality so that God is known according to the act God performs, not merely according to an outcome.

Thesis

Divine acts are hyperintensional. By this we mean that the identity of a divine act cannot be captured by any framework in which acts are considered the same whenever they yield the same outcomes, share the same extension, or hold necessarily across all possible worlds. A divine act is not defined by its effects, nor by the set of circumstances under which it occurs, nor by its modal profile. Instead, a divine act is individuated by its formal identity within the Logos, by the specific constitutive act through which the Logos brings a res into being or presence, and by the Spirit’s concrete donation of that act to creatures.

Thus, extension does not capture divine identity,modal equivalence does not capture divine identity, and possible-world semantics is too coarse-grained to describe divine agency. A hyperintensional account alone preserves the theological conviction that God’s acts are personal, irreducible, and internally differentiated modes of the one divine life.

Locus Classicus

1. Exodus 3:14 — אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה

“I AM WHO I AM.”

This is not a definition, but an identity of act. Being itself is hyperintensional, for it names a unique form of divine acting, not a property instantiated across possible worlds.

2. John 5:19 — ἃ ἂν ἐκεῖνος ποιῇ, ταῦτα καὶ ὁ Υἱὸς ὁμοίως ποιεῖ

“Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”

The divine act is not duplicated or numerically separable. Rather, its identity is internal to the Trinity, not extensionalized in effects.

3. Athanasius, Contra Arianos I.21

ὁμοούσιος οὐ κατὰ θέλησιν ἀλλὰ κατὰ φύσιν.
“Of one being not by will but by nature.”

The divine act is identical with divine being; it is an identity finer than any modal equivalence.

4. Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Ablabium

Οὐ τὰ γινόμενα, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ τρόπος τῆς ἐνεργείας τὴν διαφοράν ποιεῖ.
“It is not the outcomes, but the manner of operation that makes the distinction.”

This is a classical statement of hyperintensionality clearly stating that the manner by which something obtains profoundly matters.

5. Luther, WA 40/III, 343

“Deus non est causa sicut causae creatae.”
“God is not a cause as created causes are causes.”

Thus God cannot be modeled extensionally.

Explicatio

1. Why extensional identity is inadequate

Extensional identity holds when two expressions apply to precisely the same set of objects. If two predicates pick out exactly the same individuals, classical extensional logic treats them as equivalent. For example, if every creature that is forgiven is also elected, and every creature that is elected is also justified, then these predicates are extensionally equivalent: they have the same extension.

Formally, if for all x, x is forgiven ↔ x is elected and x is elected ↔ x is justified, then the predicates forgiven, elected, and justified are coextensive.

Similarly, in the Spirit’s work, if for all x, x speaks in the Spirit ↔ x has been given the Spirit, and x has been given the Spirit ↔ the Spirit dwells in x, then Spirit-speaking, Spirit-giving, and Spirit-indwelling are extensionally equivalent expressions.

But extensional equivalence tells us nothing about what distinguishes these divine actions in God Himself. Forgiving is not the same divine act as electing, nor is electing the same divine act as justifying. Likewise, the Spirit’s giving, indwelling, and speaking are not identical divine operations simply because they coincide in the believer. Extensional identity collapses formally distinct divine works into a single undifferentiated outcome and therefore cannot serve as the framework for a theology that seeks to speak truthfully of God’s own acting.

2. Why modal equivalence is insufficient

A second temptation is to appeal to modal identity. Accordingly, if two acts occur in every possible world in which God acts toward creatures, or if one cannot conceive God performing one without the other, then they are treated as identical.

Creation and preservation offer a clear example. Classical theology holds that God’s preserving of the creature is nothing other than the continued giving of being. Because no creature could exist for a moment apart from God’s sustaining act, creation and preservation are necessarily coextensive: wherever one occurs, the other is already taking place.

So too with incarnation and redemption. In the Christian confession, the Son becomes incarnate for our salvation, and His incarnate life is unintelligible apart from His redeeming work. One cannot separate them modally, for in every possible description of God’s salvific activity, incarnation and redemption occur together.

Yet modal inseparability does not entail formal identity. Creation and preservation differ in their reason, because one brings being into existence, while the other maintains that being in existence. Incarnation and redemption differ likewise, for one is the assumption of human nature, the other is the reconciling act performed in that nature. Modal equivalence cannot register these distinctions because it treats any necessarily co-occurring acts as identical, thereby losing the finer structure of God’s activity that theology must retain.

3. Why divine acts require hyperintensional individuation

If theology is to speak truthfully, it must be able to say why this particular divine act grounds this theological statement. In our broader account, a theological utterance is true because the Logos performs a determinate act—Λ ⊨* Tₜ. But determinate truth requires determinate action. If divine acts could not be distinguished except by their extensions or modal profiles, then the truthmaker for any theological statement would be some undifferentiated divine activity, and doctrinal distinctions would lose their ontological grounding.

By hyperintensional identity I mean that divine acts differ not by their outcomes or by their modal placement but by their internal form in the Logos—the determinate way God is acting here and not otherwise. This internal form cannot be captured by appeal to effects, extensions, or modal profiles; it belongs to the act as God performs it. Forgiving is formally distinct from electing because each expresses a different aspect of the divine life, even when the same creature receives both. The Spirit’s indwelling is formally distinct from the Spirit’s giving because each arises from a different manner of divine self-communication. Hyperintensionality preserves the integrity of these differences.

4. The Spirit’s donation is hyperintensional

The Spirit does not donate to creatures a general divine presence or a generic divine favor. Instead, the Spirit donates the specific act that God is performing toward the believer. In one moment, this may be forgiveness; in another, consolation; in another, empowerment. The specificity of the Spirit’s donation presupposes a finely articulated structure of divine action in God Himself. Without this specificity, divine presence would become conceptual rather than real, and theology would lose the concreteness of God’s address.

5. Felicity is indexed to particular divine acts

A theological assertion is felicitous only if it corresponds to the act God is performing here and now—an act that is already individuated in God with a hyperintensional precision. The Spirit authorizes not theological grammar in general but this particular word because this particular divine act is being given. Thus the intelligibility of theology depends on a hyperintensional account of divine acting.

Objectiones

Ob I: According to classical extensionalism if two divine acts produce the same effects, they are the same act. If this is so, there is o need for hyperintensional identity.

Ob II: Modal realism holds that if God necessarily performs A and B, then He performs A and B in all possible worlds, and thus A = B. Therefore, modal equivalence suffices in individuation.

Ob III: Thomism claims that since God is simple, all divine actions are identical and distinctions collapse.

Ob IV: Deflationism asserts that hyperintensionality describes linguistic distinction, not metaphysical difference.

Ob V: Postliberalism holds that since all distinctions arise from use within the community, divine action adds nothing.

Responsiones

Ad I: Effects underdetermine cause. Divine acts differ in their formal ratio, not merely in outcome (Gregory of Nyssa). Thus, extension collapses personal identity.

Ad II: Possible-world semantics assumes shared structure with creaturely action. But divine acts exist outside modal ontology; they ground modality rather than inhabit it. God is not a node in a modal structure but its creator.

Ad III: While implicity entails no composition in God, it does not follow that divine acts lack distinct formal identities. The Fathers held simplicity alongside real distinctions of operation.

Ad IV: Hyperintensionality is not linguistic fineness but metaphysical precision. Divine act identity is not a function of language but of participation in the Logos.

Ad V: While usage explains how we talk, it does not identify what God does. Without hyperintensional divine action, grammar loses its anchor in reality.

Nota

Hyperintensionality is the ontological form of God’s personal action. We have seen that constitutive causation (L) requires fine-grained identity; that real presence (LI) is specific, not generic; that donation (LII) concerns a particular res, and that felicity (LIII) authorizes a particular act of creaturely speech. If theological semantics were simply extensional or modal, the Trinity collapses into one role, the sacrament collapses into symbol, revelation collapses into a proposition, grace collapses into an effect, and Christology collapses into monism.

Regarding the Trinity, hyperintensionality preserves the distinction of the trinitarian persons, Christ’s unique acts, sacramental specificity, and the performative depth of divine truth. Simply put, hyperintensionality is not an analytic embellishment but a theological necessity. Without it, we could not preserve the conviction that God acts personally and decisively for the creature, nor could we maintain the integrity of the Gospel’s claim that God’s work is addressed to us in its fullness and specificity.

Determinatio

We have determined that:

1. Divine acts are intrinsically hyperintensional, distinct in their internal form even when extensionally identical.

2. Neither extensional equivalence nor modal necessity suffices to individuate divine action.

3. Hyperintensional identity flows from the Logos’ constitutive act (L) and is made present (LI), donated (LII), and authorized (LIII).

4. Theological truth (Λ ⊨* Tₜ) requires such hyperintensional grounding.

5. Therefore, theology must employ a hyperintensional semantics to speak truly of God.

Transitus ad Disputationem LV: De Intentione Divina et Identitate Actuum in Deo

Having established hyperintensionality in divine action, we proceed to the related question as to how divine intentions are related to divine acts, and how the Logos unifies them without collapsing distinctions. 

Thus, we turn to Disputatio LV: De Intentione Divina: Utrum Intentiones Dei Sint Actus et Quomodo Unitas in Logō Constituitur, where we shall inquire as to whether God’s intentions are identical with His acts, and how the Logos grounds their unity and distinction.

Disputatio LII: De Donatione Referentiae per Spiritum: Utrum Spiritus Sanctus Donet Rem Theologicam

 On the Donation of Reference by the Spirit: Whether the Holy Spirit Gives the Theological Referent

Quaeritur

Utrum referentia in theologicis non per designationem humanam sed per donationem divinam constituatur; et utrum Spiritus Sanctus sit ille qui rem ipsam quae per linguam fidei significatur creaturae largitur, ita ut verbum theologicum referat quia res donatur.

Whether reference in theological language is constituted not by human designation but by divine donation; and whether the Holy Spirit is the one who bestows the very reality signified by the language of faith, so that a theological word refers because the res is donated.

Thesis

In theology, reference is not designation but donation. A theological expression does not gain its referent through human intention, mental representation, or linguistic convention, but through the Spirit’s act of giving the res that the expression signifies.

Thus:

1. The Logos constitutes being and truth, that is, the Logos is the truthmaker for theological language: Λ ⊨* Tₜ.  

2. The Logos is present as the truth-for-us as we saw in Disputatio LI. 

3. The Spirit donates the referent of theological language by linking word to real presence.

Hence, theological reference just is the Spirit-given participation in the reality of the Logos.

Locus Classicus

1. John 16:14 — ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ λήμψεται καὶ ἀναγγελεῖ ὑμῖν

ἐκεῖνος ἐμὲ δοξάσει, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ λήμψεται καὶ ἀναγγελεῖ ὑμῖν.
“He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.”

The Spirit takes (λήμψεται) and gives (ἀναγγελεῖ). This is precisely donation: the res is received from Christ and given to the believer.

2. Romans 8:16 — αὐτὸ τὸ Πνεῦμα συμμαρτυρεῖ

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit.”

Witness is thus not designation but granted participation. The referent is given, not inferred.

3. 1 Corinthians 2:12 — τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ χαρισθὲν ἡμῖν

“We have received the Spirit… that we might know the things freely given to us by God.”

Knowing follows giving. The referent precedes the concept.

4. Augustine, De Magistro

“Nemo docet nisi interior magister.”
“No one teaches except the inner Teacher.”

The Spirit gives the res to the mind; language alone cannot.

5. Luther, WA 40/1, 360

“Spiritus est qui dat intellectum verbi.”
“The Spirit is the one who gives the understanding of the Word.”

Understanding presupposes reference. Thus, the Spirit gives the referent by giving the thing signified.

Explicatio

While Disputation L established constitutive truth -- the Logos makes being -- and Disputation LI established presential truth -- the Logos is present as truth-for-us -- Disputation LII establishes semantic truth, for the Spirit gives the referent of theological language.

1. The Problem of Reference in Theology

While ordinary semantics treats reference as a human designation, that is, a word refers because a subject intends it, in theology the following holds: 

• the subject cannot circumscribe God,

• the mind does not contain the res,

• signs do not determine their own referents.

Accordingly, designation fails. This suggests that only donation can ground reference.

2. Donation as the Ontological Form of Reference

The Spirit gives the referent by uniting:

• the human word to divine reality,

• the signifier to the Logos’ presence,

• the finite knower to the infinite known.

This act is therefore neither intellectual nor linguistic but ontological.

3. Donation and the Operator Λ ⊨* Tₜ,

We must distinguish these:

• Λ ⊨ T : truth in a model

• Λ ⊨* Tₜ : truth through the Logos

• donation as the Spirit’s act of linking T to Tₜ

Thus, while designation → Λ ⊨ T, donation → Λ ⊨* Tₜ.  Accordingly, donation is the movement from linguistic form to divine act.

4. Donation and Participation

Accordingly, to have a referent in theology is to participate in the reality of Christ. The Spirit grants this participation and thus grants reference.

Objectiones

Ob I: According to the Fregean theory of reference, reference is determined by sense or descriptive content. No Spirit is needed.

Ob II: For the Kripkean direct reference theory, terms refer rigidly independent of mental or divine acts, and therefore donation is unnecessary.

Ob III: Postliberalism claims that theological reference occurs within the grammar of Christian usage, and thus metaphysical donation is superfluous.

Ob IV: The Phenomenological critique declares that if God transcends objecthood, He cannot be referred to. Thus, donation is conceptually impossible.

Ob V: Constructivist Hermeneutics argues that reference is constructed within interpretive communities and that donation is an illusion.

Responsiones

Ad I: Since God exceeds conceptual capture, reference cannot be mediated by sense. Thus, the Spirit must donate the reality in excess of description.

Ad II: Rigid designation works only when the designator is already in causal contact with the referent. But the creature has no such causal access to God apart from divine initiative. Thus, rigid designation presupposes donation.

Ad III: Grammar governs felicity, not ontology. Revealed truth requires that the referent be real and given, not merely textual. Thus, without donation, theology becomes semiotic idealism.

Ad IV: Donation is not the giving of God as object but the giving of participation in divine presence. Accordingly, the Spirit gives mode of access, not objectification.

Ad V: Interpretation does not entail construction. Donation is the metaphysical act by which meaning precedes interpretation, and meaning is received because the res is given.

Nota

Donation is the semantic form of participation.

• In Disputatio L, the Logos constitutes being and truth.

• In Disputation LI, the Logos is present as truth-for-us.

• In Disputation LII, the Spirit donates the referent so that theological language participates in this presence.

Thus, theological semantics unfolds as:

1. Constitutive Ground because the Logos makes truth. 

2. Real Presence since the Logos is truth-for-us. 

3. Donated Reference because the Spirit gives the res of the word. 

4. Felicity since the Spirit authorizes the creature’s act of speaking.

5. Participation because truth becomes ours. 

Without donation, theology collapses into:

• designation as in analytic theory,

• symbolism as with Zwingli,

• grammar as postliberalism holds, 

• and construction as hermeneutics attempts. 

With donation, theology becomes:

• ontologically grounded,

• presential,

• pneumatologically mediated,

• hyperintensional,

• participatory,

• and true.

Determinatio

We determine:

1. Reference in theology is donation, not designation;

2. The Spirit donates the res of theological language, enabling participation in the Logos;

3. Reference is grounded in presence, not sense or convention;

4. Donation is the semantic form of the Spirit’s interpretive act;

5. Thus, theological language refers truly because the Spirit gives what it says.

Transitus ad Disputationem LIII: De Felicitate Theologica

Having established that reference is a divine donation, we now turn to the complementary question: How does the Spirit authorize the human act of speaking so that donated reference becomes felicitous utterance?

Thus we proceed to Disputatio LIII: De Felicitate Theologica: Utrum Spiritus Sit Auctor Locutionis Fideli where it will be asked whether the felicity of theological language arises from the Spirit’s co-action with the human speaker, rendering theological assertions valid, trustworthy, and performatively true.