Disputatio VIII: De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis et Summarium

On the Eschatological Manifestation of Truth

Quaeritur

Utrum veritas divina, quae in hoc saeculo nonnisi per interpretationem felicitatis intra modellos theologicos acceditur, in consummatione saeculorum manifestetur immediate in gloria; et utrum haec manifestatio non sit nova veritas, sed modus perfectus eiusdem veritatis quae nunc solum per fidem, per modellos, et per illuminationem Spiritus attingitur.

Whether the divine truth—which in this age is accessible only through the interpretation of felicitous predicates within theological models—will in the consummation of the ages be manifested immediately in glory; and whether this manifestation is not a new truth but the perfected mode of access to the same truth now reached only through faith, through models, and through the illumination of the Spirit.

Thesis

The speech of theology in the present age is real yet mediated; it participates through faith in divine discourse. Its truth arises only as these felicitous predicates are interpreted within the models by which God grants understanding. Its perfection will occur eschatologically, when what is now felicitously and truly spoken in the Spirit will be manifested in glory. The eschaton is not the abolition of theology but its fulfillment. It is the moment when the grammar of faith becomes the language of sight. 

Nota Bene: In this disputation “faith knows truth” always means “faith receives truth mediately through the Spirit’s interpretation of felicitous predicates within theological models.” Felicity alone does not constitute truth; it authorizes the predicates that become bearers of truth when interpreted.

Locus Classicus

1. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NA28)

ἄρτι βλέπομεν δι’ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον.

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.”

Paul marks the distinction between mediated and immediate knowing, between truth under the form of faith and truth under the form of glory. The object does not change; the mode of apprehension is transfigured.

2. Augustine, Sermon 88.6

Ipsa visio Dei finis erit desideriorum nostrorum.

“The vision of God will be the end of all our desires.”

Augustine expresses the teleology implicit in Paul. Faith awakens desire and vision consummates it. The eschatological manifestation of God is not an addition to faith but the fulfillment toward which faith has always been drawn.

3. Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q.3, a.8

Ultima et perfecta beatitudo non potest esse nisi in visione divinae essentiae.

“Ultimate and perfect beatitude can consist only in the vision of the divine essence.”

For Aquinas, the visio Dei is the perfection of participation. The finite intellect is elevated and sustained so that it may see God in God’s own light. Participation is thus not abolished in glory but brought to its final act.

From Paul through Augustine to Aquinas, a single line is traced. Faith and vision are not two different truths but two modalities of the same participation, first veiled, then manifest.

Explicatio

The eschatological manifestation of divine truth cannot be understood without the Christological and pneumatological structures already established. The finite intellect does not ascend to a vision of God by intrinsic power, nor does it apprehend divine essence through an unmediated natural capacity. Rather, the intellect beholds divine truth precisely within the medium God has appointed: the glorified humanity of the Logos. In the state of glory, mediation does not disappear but becomes perfect. The humanity of Christ, assumed by the eternal Word, becomes transparent to the divine light. This transparency constitutes the immediacy of eschatological knowledge.

Thus, the vision of God is immediate in its mode, yet Christological in its structure. The intellect sees God by the divine light, yet this light is communicated through the human nature of the Incarnate Word, now glorified. The humanity of Christ does not obstruct the vision but renders it possible. The hypostatic union becomes the metaphysical grammar of eschatological manifestation.

In the present life, theological cognition belongs to the ordo fidei. It is real knowledge, yet mediated through the grammar of faith, the models by which theology interprets divine truth, and the participatio constitutiva by which the Spirit illuminates the intellect. In this state the formula holds:

In statu viae:

T + M → FT → TC

The felicity of speech FT, when interpreted through theological modeling M, yields genuine truth-conditions TC. When interpreted through theological modeling M, these felicitous predicates FT yield mediated truth-conditions TC. Thus truth is known only through this interpretive act, and always under the form of sign.”

But in the state of glory the structure shifts. The Spirit who now mediates truth through faith will then manifest it without veil. The humanity of Christ, which now veils divine splendor for the sake of finite comprehension, will then be the instrument through which divine light is communicated without remainder. In this state the formula becomes:

In statu gloriae:

FT = TC

The felicity of speech and the truth it bears coincide, for the intellect is upheld by God to know God in God’s own light. Mediation is not removed but perfected. The sign becomes transparent to what it signifies. The sacrament becomes pure presence. Participation becomes manifestation.

This consummation does not imply that the intellect becomes infinite or that nature is absorbed into divinity. The creature remains creature. Yet the Spirit elevates the intellect into a mode of vision proportioned to divine self-disclosure, a proportion not natural but graced. The intellect sees because it is illumined; it understands because it is united; it knows because it is upheld. I

While in this vision there is no comprehension of the divine essence in itself, there is an unimpeded reception of divine truth in the medium of Christ.

The ordo theologiae therefore reaches its telos in glory. Grammar culminates in manifestation; modeling becomes sight; felicity becomes unity; truth becomes life. Theology becomes doxology. Theologia viatorum becomes theologia beatorum. The same truth known now under the form of faith will then be known under the form of glory. There is nothing added and nothing removed. There is only an unveiling. 

Thus eschatological vision is not a new truth but the same truth shining in its proper light. The Incarnation, which grounds all theological speech, becomes the light in which God is seen. The Spirit, who grants felicity in the ordo fidei, becomes the lumen gloriae in the ordo gloriae. Participation reaches its end not by ceasing but by becoming complete. And the intellect, perfected by grace, rests in the One who made it capable of divine truth.

Explicatio Analytica: De Transformatione Ordinis Cognitionis

The transition from the ordo fidei to the ordo gloriae is not merely a shift in epistemic attitude. It marks a transformation in the entire architecture of theological cognition—its grammar, its model-theoretic mediation, and its metaphysical ground. The movement is not from “indirect truth” to “direct truth” in abstraction, but from participatory cognition that remains mediated to participatory cognition perfected in the glorified Christ. Analytically expressed: cognition shifts from being hyperintensional and partial to being hyperintensional and complete.

1. Hyperintensionality: From Partial Participation to Full Manifestation

In the ordo fidei, theological predicates exhibit hyperintensional structure. Their meaning cannot be captured by extension (what they apply to) or by inferential role (how they behave in reasoning). In hyperintensional contexts, even necessarily equivalent expressions may diverge in meaning because meaning depends on more than extension or inference.

In theological speech, this “more” refers to the Spirit’s act of constituting felicity: a predicate acquires theological sense only when the Spirit authorizes it as belonging to the language of faith T and thus marks it as felicitous FT. This authorization is entirely intra-linguistic. It does not provide truth, reference, or extension. It simply determines which predicates count as legitimate modes of confessing the divine.

Thus in the ordo fidei, theological language is hyperintensionally thick because its meaning is conditioned by the mode of participation in the divine Word, not because any semantic connection to reality has yet been established. The predicates of faith belong to a grammar whose intelligibility is grounded in the Spirit’s enabling activity, but they do not yet possess truth-conditions. They become eligible for interpretation; they do not yet attain it.

In the ordo gloriae, the hyperintensional structure remains, but its opacity is removed. The predicate Deus lux est is no longer grasped through the limited and veiling modalities of present participation but through the Spirit’s lumen gloriae, which proportionates the intellect to the manifest divine presence. Hyperintensionality does not dissolve; it becomes transparent. The intellect no longer stands outside the light interpreting; it stands within the light that reveals.

Thus the eschatological movement is not from hyperintensional to extensional clarity. It is from hyperintensional opacity to hyperintensional manifestation.

2. Model-Theoretic Structure: From Interpretation to Identity

In the present age the structure of theological cognition can be represented schematically:

T → FT → (I: FT → M) → semantic content (reference, extension, truth-conditions).

The grammar of faith T yields felicitous predicates FT prior to any semantic interpretation. FT is a syntactic-pragmatic subset whose authorization belongs entirely to the Spirit’s internal governance of the theological language.

Only after felicity is established can an interpretive function I map these predicates into a theological model M. Only through this mapping do predicates acquire reference, extension, and truth-conditions.

Thus the model is indispensable not for felicity, but for any possibility of truth. Divine reality is not directly accessed by grammar; it is engaged only through a mediating interpretive structure.

In the ordo gloriae, the need for such mediation ceases—not because the intellect becomes unbounded nor because comprehension replaces apprehension, but because the model and the divine reality coincide in the glorified Christ. The resurrected Christ is the interpretive structure; He is the manifestation in whom divine meaning is perfectly given.

Thus the eschatological formula becomes:

FT + presence = manifestation,

not FT = truth, but FT enters into the presence that makes truth immediate. Interpretation is no longer a mapping; it is an indwelling. Model and reality are one.

In model-theoretic terms, the intensional distance collapses because the structure mediating divine self-presentation becomes identical to the reality presented.

3. Constitutive Causality: From Grounding to Immediate Ontological Presence

Earlier disputationes described causalitas constitutiva—divine causality as the act by which creatures receive being, intelligibility, and the very capacity for linguistic felicity. In the ordo fidei, this causality sustains the intelligibility of the world, the meaningfulness of language, theological predicates as felicitous speech, and the possibility of models that interpret such speech.

While none of this yet yields truth, it yields conditions for the possibility of truth.

In the ordo gloriae, constitutive causality is not replaced but intensified. The Spirit remains the ground of cognition, now not through the mediation of illumination but through immediate ontological presence. The Spirit does not merely authorize predicates; He becomes the light by which the intellect beholds what those predicates could only gesture toward.

Thus, in statu viae, the Spirit grants participatory access, and in statu gloriae, the Spirit grants manifest access. Participation thus becomes manifestation by removing what obscured; not by adding what was lacking.

4. Transparency and Manifestation: A Metaphysics of Perfected Signification

In the ordo fidei, every sign operates through a double movement: it points beyond itself even while concealing in part what it signifies. Sacraments grant real presence under veiled form.

In the ordo gloriae, signs do not vanish; they become transparent. The humanity of Christ—once the veil of humility—becomes the perfect sign through which divine glory is immediately manifested. The metaphysical grammar of the hypostatic union that structured theological speech in this life now structures eschatological vision in perfected form. Finite signification is not abolished; it is completed.

5. The Epistemic Structure of Vision: Apprehensio Without Comprehensio

Eschatological cognition is neither omniscience nor metaphysical fusion. It is an apprehensio immediata without a comprehensio totalis.

The intellect no longer ascends through models; it encounters divine reality directly in the medium God has given (the glorified Christ) and by the light God has given (lumen gloriae). But the intellect remains creaturely and does not comprehend the divine essence as God comprehends Himself. Vision is immediate without abolishing distinction.

6. The Formal Horizon of Theology: From Grammar to Manifestation

The eschatological transformation reveals the unity of theology’s various formal moments: grammar, felicity, modeling, interpretation, truth, causality, participation, and manifestation.

These are not sequential but teleological. Each is ordered toward the consummation in which mediated participation becomes manifest presence. Theology anticipates doxology and confession anticipates communion.

In the end, theology becomes praise, grammar becomes illumination, and faith becomes sight. The same divine reality spoken under the veil of the nova lingua is disclosed in the glory of immediate presence. The language that once reached toward God now rests in the God who reveals Himself.

Objectiones

Ob I. If in the ordo gloriae the felicitous utterance and its truth coincide, then language seems to lose its significance. For where there is direct vision, verbal mediation becomes superfluous. This appears to imply that theological speech itself passes away, contradicting the claim that signs become transparent rather than abolished.

Ob II. Participation in divine truth implies a transformation of the intellect. But if the lumen gloriae renders the intellect proportionate to divine reality, the distinction between Creator and creature seems imperiled. An intellect elevated beyond its nature appears to be divinized in essence, contrary to the metaphysical boundary of the duae naturae.

Ob III. In the ordo viae truth is mediated by models, analogies, and participatory structures. If the ordo gloriae abolishes this mediation, then the eschatological state appears to negate creatureliness itself, since creatures can know only mediately. Perfect immediacy seems incompatible with finite being.

Ob IV. If hyperintensionality reaches its consummation in eschatological manifestation, then the finite intellect seems to apprehend divine truth in its fullness. But full apprehension appears to imply full comprehension, and full comprehension of God is impossible for a creature. Thus the doctrine seems to collapse into contradiction.

Responsiones

Ad I. Although language does not disappear, its opacity does. The grammatical, sacramental, and ecclesial mediations of truth are fulfilled rather than replaced. The finite sign becomes a transparent vehicle of divine presence. Speech is not rendered irrelevant but perfected: its role shifts from indicating what is absent to manifesting what is present. The continuity of language reflects the continuity of creatureliness; its transfiguration reflects the eschatological immediacy of divine truth.

Ad II. The elevation of the intellect by the lumen gloriae does not divinize its essence but perfects its capacity to apprehend God according to a creaturely mode. The boundary of natures remains inviolable. The intellect is upheld, not transformed into divine intellect. The distance between Creator and creature remains infinite; what changes is the mode of access, not the nature of the knower.

Ad III. Mediation is not abolished but transfigured. In the ordo viae, mediation is necessary because of sin, finitude, and historical distance. In the ordo gloriae, mediation remains insofar as creatureliness remains, but its mode shifts from obscured signification to luminous manifestation. While the creature does not become unmediated, the mediation becomes immediate. Presence replaces absence and transparency replaces opacity.

Ad IV. Apprehension without comprehension is the hallmark of eschatological knowing. The intellect sees God immediately yet without circumscribing Him. Hyperintensional richness is not exhausted but is made luminous. The finite intellect apprehends God truly, not totally. The contradiction dissolves once the distinction between visio and comprehensio is maintained. The former belongs to the blessed; the latter belongs to God alone.

Determinatio

1. Eschatological knowledge retains hyperintensionality, for divine truth always exceeds finite conceptualization, yet in the ordo gloriae that excess becomes manifest rather than opaque.

2. The structure of theological cognition shifts from interpretive mediation to luminous immediacy, not by erasing creaturely limits but by perfecting participation through the lumen gloriae.

3. Language remains, but its role is transfigured: it becomes the transparent bearer of divine manifestation, fulfilling rather than abandoning its function in the ordo viae.

4. Constitutive causality is intensified, for the Spirit not only grounds being and speech but now grounds vision itself, rendering the intellect proportionate to divine presence without altering its nature.

5. Model and reality converge in Christ, who is both the interpreted and the interpreter, the content and the form. Eschatological truth is not deduced but beheld.

6. The finite intellect attains apprehensio immediata, a direct yet creaturely knowledge of God, preserving the infinite qualitative distinction while fulfilling the telos of theological desire.

Transitus ad Disputationem IX

Having now considered the eschatological horizon in which theological grammar is fulfilled, model-theoretic mediation is completed, and hyperintensional meaning reaches its consummation in divine manifestation, the inquiry must turn to the grammar itself as it exists in statu viae.

For if eschatological vision reveals the end toward which theological speech tends, then the proper structure of theological language in this life—its grammar, its logic, and its pneumatological authorization—must be understood in light of that end. The nova lingua is not an invention of faith but the temporal form of participation in divine truth.

We proceed therefore to Disputatio IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae et Origine Significationis Revelatae, to examine the emergence, structure, and Spirit-formed logic of the language by which God is spoken before God is seen.

Breve Summarium Primi Octavi

The first eight disputationes constitute a single formal unit: an ordered ascent from language to glory.

1. Disputatio I – De Expressionibus Theologicis ut Syntacticis. Theology begins as language T: a Spirit-given grammar that orders Christian confession. Before theology can be true, it must be speakable rightly; felicity is its first condition.

1. Disputatio II – De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum. Rightly ordered speech must be interpreted within models of reality. Theology moves from grammar to ontology as T is inserted into the world created and ordered by God.

2. Disputatio III – De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis. The Holy Spirit is the boundary of discourse, distinguishing T_in from T_out. Finitude of felicity marks speech as truly authorized yet never exhaustive.

3. Disputatio IV – De Veritate Theologiae Duplex. Theology’s truth is twofold: the veritas interna (felicity within T), and the veritas externa (adequation to being). Their unity is Christ, who is both Word and Reality.

4. Disputatio V – De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam. Felicity and truth are distinct yet inseparable—form and fulfillment of the same pneumatological act. The felicitous word is ordered toward its eventual verification.

5. Disputatio VI – De Causalitate Divina et Loquela Theologica. Divine causality grounds both being and speaking. The Spirit is causa principalissima of theological utterance; theology becomes a theophysical event rather than mere representation.

6. Disputatio VII – De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos. Participation is defined as constitutive dependence: divine perfections D_G are communicated as participated correlates D. Theosis is the ontological depth of salvation; it is a real sharing in divine life without confusion of essences.

7. Disputatio VIII – De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis. The entire ordo culminates in manifestation, for the same divine reality that is now approached through felicitous predicates interpreted within theological models will then be manifest in the immediacy of glory. Theologia is perfected as doxologia; the word of faith becomes the vision of God.

Taken together, the first octad shows that:

• Theology is scientia Spiritus: the Spirit gives its language, orders its truth, grounds its causality, enables its participation, and manifests its end.

• The movement from T → M → FT → TC → participatio → manifestatio is not a sequence of separate domains but one continuous act of divine communication embraced at different logical levels.

• The final form of theology is praise: the intellect’s assent and the soul’s joy coincide where truth and felicity are one in the sight of God.

Disputatio VII: De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos

On Participation and the Ontology of Theosis

Quaeritur

Utrum theosis non intelligatur ut ascensus creaturae in deitatem, sed ut participatio realis in actu divino quo Deus se communicat; et utrum haec participatio fundetur in causalitate constitutiva Spiritus Sancti, per quam creaturae fiunt capaces gloriae, ita ut theosis sit consummatio illius participationis in qua creatura suum esse, intelligibilitatem, et veritatem accipit.

Whether theosis should be understood not as the creature’s ascent into deity but as a real participation in the divine act by which God communicates Himself; and whether this participation is grounded in the constitutive causality of the Holy Spirit, by whom creatures become capable of glory, so that theosis is the consummation of the participation through which the creature receives its being, intelligibility, and truth.

Thesis

Theosis is not the divinization of the creature by nature but the perfection of creaturely participation in the divine life. The same Spirit who constitutes creatures in their being and renders their speech capable of divine truth also draws them into the life of God. Participation is therefore the ontological ground of theosis, and theosis is the eschatological fulfillment of participation. The creature remains creaturely, yet becomes fully luminous with the divine life it receives.

Locus classicus

2 Peter 1:4
ἵνα γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως.
“that you may become partakers of the divine nature.”
Participation (κοινωνία) is here the formal structure of salvation.

Psalm 36:9 (Vulgate)
Quoniam apud te est fons vitae, et in lumine tuo videbimus lumen.
“For with You is the fountain of life, and in Your light we shall see light.”
Knowledge, life, and glory are received, not possessed.

Athanasius, De Incarnatione 54
Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν.
“He became human that we might be made divine.”
Theosis is grounded in the Incarnation, not in creaturely ascent.

Explicatio

The doctrine of theosis arises wherever the Church confesses that salvation is not merely the correction of defect but the communication of divine life. Yet such communication requires a metaphysical ground: the creature must be capable of receiving divine life without losing its creatureliness. Participation provides this ground. For the creature receives its being, its intelligibility, and its orientation toward truth from the constitutive causality of the Holy Spirit. There is no creaturely actuality that is not first a divine gift. This dependence is not merely extrinsic; it is metaphysical, determining the very mode of creaturely existence. The creature is constituted as a participant in the divine generosity that grants being.

Participation in being is the first movement. The Spirit grants the creature its actus essendi, by which it subsists as a real nature with determinate capacities. Participation in intelligibility is the second movement. The Spirit grants the creature a share in the light by which it is knowable. Participation in verity is the third movement. The Spirit grants to the creature a relation to truth, both as an object of knowledge and as a bearer of meaning. These movements correspond to creation, illumination, and sanctification, and together they constitute the fundamental ontology of participation. Theosis emerges when these participations reach their eschatological fulfillment.

Yet participation must be distinguished from identity. The creature does not become God; it receives from God. The divine perfections remain incommunicable in their mode. What is communicated is not the divine essence but a real share in the divine life. The causal vector is always from God to the creature:

Dg​⇒Dc​(x)

where D_G denotes a divine perfection and D_c(x) the creaturely participation of that perfection in the mode proper to x. Theosis is the maximal intensity of this causal relation. It is not a fusion of natures but the consummation of participation.

This participatory structure clarifies why theosis is Christological in origin and pneumatic in execution. In the Incarnation the divine Word assumes human nature, thereby joining divine life to creaturely existence without confusion or division. The humanity of Christ becomes the first and perfect site of theosis. Through the Spirit this communication extends to all who are united to Christ. Thus theosis is not a metaphysical privilege of a select few but the eschatological destiny of all who are incorporated into the body of Christ. Union with Christ is the formal cause of theosis; the Spirit is its efficient cause.

The nova lingua developed in Disputatio IX presupposes this participatory ontology. The reason theological predicates can bear divine truth is that language itself participates in the expressive act of the Word through the Spirit’s authorization. The Spirit who renders finite speech capable of infinite truth is the same Spirit who renders finite being capable of infinite life. The grammar of participation becomes the grammar of theosis.

Likewise, the knowledge of God described in Disputatio X presupposes the same metaphysical structure. The intellect knows God not by its own power but through illumination. Illumination is already a form of participation and anticipates the final theosis in which the intellect will know God in the unmediated light of glory. In statu viae revelation grants participation in truth; in statu gloriae participation becomes vision.

Thus theosis is not a theological addendum but the horizon that unifies the ordo theologiae. Grammar leads to modeling, modeling to felicity, felicity to truth, truth to causality, causality to participation, and participation to manifestation. Theosis is simply the name for the creature’s consummate participation in the divine life—the perfection toward which the entire theological system tends.

This consummation does not erase creaturely finitude. The creature remains finite, yet its finitude becomes wholly luminous, wholly actual, wholly alive with the divine presence. Finitude does not become infinitude; it becomes transparent. Participation does not destroy distinction; it perfects communion. Theosis is therefore the metaphysical realization of what has always been true: the creature is constituted by the divine generosity in which it eternally participates.

Objectiones

Ob I. Participation appears too weak a notion to account for the radical transformation implied by theosis. If the creature remains creaturely, how can it be said to share in divine life?

Ob II. If theosis is grounded in constitutive causality, then all creatures already participate maximally in God. Theosis becomes indistinguishable from ordinary creaturely being.

Ob III. If the Spirit communicates divine life, then the divine nature seems divisible or communicable, contrary to classical doctrine.

Ob IV. Participation seems to collapse into metaphor, lacking the metaphysical precision needed to distinguish real theosis from moral or symbolic likeness.

Responsiones

Ad I. Participation is not a weak notion but the metaphysical means by which the creature receives divine life without ceasing to be creaturely. Theosis intensifies participation without transgressing the boundary between Creator and creature.

Ad II. Constitutive causality grants creatures their being, but theosis concerns the eschatological perfection of that being. All creatures participate in God as Creator, but only the redeemed participate in God as Life and Light unto glory.

Ad III. The divine nature is not communicated in its essence but according to a mode of participation proper to the creature. The Spirit communicates not God’s essence but a real share in divine life. There is no division of deity, only extension of divine generosity.

Ad IV. Participation is not metaphorical but real, grounded in the causal procession from divine perfection to creaturely participation. Theosis is therefore not likeness by imitation but likeness by communion.

Nota

Disputatio VII stands at the center of the theological system. Constitutive causality (VI) grounds participation; the nova lingua (IX) expresses participation; revelation (X) grants knowledge through participation; manifestation (VIII) fulfills participation. Theosis is therefore the metaphysical horizon of theology: the creature drawn into God without confusion, and God present in the creature without diminution.

Determinatio

1. Theosis is the eschatological fulfillment of creaturely participation in divine life.

2. Participation arises from the constitutive causality of the Spirit, who grants being and intelligibility.

3. Theosis does not efface creaturely finitude but perfects it.

4. Participation is real, causal, and metaphysical—not symbolic or merely moral.

5. The Incarnation grounds the possibility of theosis; the Spirit accomplishes it.

6. Theosis unifies the ordo theologiae by revealing its final horizon: communion with the living God.

Transitus ad Disputationem VIII

If theosis is the consummation of participation, then participation must have a mode of historical appearance. The divine life that perfects the creature must already be manifest within history, though under signs and veils. The question now concerns the nature of that manifestation. How does divine life become visible, tangible, sacramental, and efficacious within the order of faith?

We therefore advance to Disputationem VIII: De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis, where the word of faith is considered in its teleological orientation toward the vision of God.

Disputatio VI: De Causalitate Divina et Loquela Theologica

On Divine Causality and Theological Speech

Quaeritur

Utrum causalitas divina non sit externa actio super mundum, sed interna ratio tam essendi quam loquendi; cum Spiritus Sanctus, qui est amor subsistens, causet non solum esse rerum sed etiam recte loqui de Deo, ita ut omnis loquela theologica sit ipsa participatio in causatione divina.

Whether divine causality is not an external action upon the world but the interior ground both of being and of speaking; since the Holy Spirit, who is subsistent love, causes not only the existence of creatures but also the right speaking of God, such that every theological utterance is itself a participation in divine causality.

Thesis

The causality of the Spirit encompasses both the order of being and the order of speech. The God who causes creatures to exist also causes them to be spoken truly. Theology therefore does not merely represent divine acts; it participates in them through the Spirit, who is at once the cause of creaturely being and the cause of felicitous theological utterance.

Locus classicus

1. Philippians 2:13
   ὁ θεὸς ἐστιν ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν
   “It is God who works in you both to will and to act.”

2. Augustine, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio 17.33
   Non enim per solam gratiam fit ut faciamus, sed etiam ut velimus.
   Grace alone happens gives not only action but willing.

3. Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum II
   Ἡ θεία ἐνέργεια πάντα κινεῖ ἀκινήτως
   “The divine energy moves all things while itself unmoved.”

4. John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa II.12
   Ἡ τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐνέργεια διδοῖ τὸ εἶναι καὶ τὸ λέγειν
   “The energy of the Spirit bestows both being and speech.”

These witnesses confess a single truth: divine causality grounds both existence and utterance. Theology speaks truly only where it moves within this causal order.

Explicatio

The preceding disputationes have shown that the language of faith T possesses syntactical coherence, pneumatological felicity, external reference, and a duplex truth fulfilled in Christ. Yet each of these presupposes a deeper act: the divine causality by which creatures exist, by which discourse becomes meaningful, and by which theological predication is rendered capable of bearing truth. The Spirit therefore stands not merely at the terminus of theological speech—as the one who authorizes its felicity—but at its origin, as the giver of being, intelligibility, and communicability.

This causality must be distinguished in its two modes. The causalitas essendi bestows upon creatures their existence, structure, and intelligible form. Finite beings possess agency, powers, and determinate natures only because the Spirit continuously sustains them in being. Without this underlying act, there would be no world for theology to describe and no agents capable of entering into divine address.

The causalitas loquendi, however, concerns the possibility of theological discourse. It is the Spirit who grants the form and coherence of theological grammar, who opens human speech to divine reference, and who renders predicates proportionate to the perfections they name. Human words are not naturally fitted to signify the living God. They become fitted only as the Spirit draws them into the expressive act of the Word. Thus theological language is not an autonomous human construction but a finite participation in the divine act that grants both being and meaning. Theological predication arises from this double causality: creatures exist through the Spirit, and speech signifies through the Spirit.

Let D_G denote a divine perfection and D_c its creaturely participation. The relation

$$D_G \Rightarrow D_c$$

does not express metaphor or analogy derived from below but a real ontological procession: the divine perfection constitutes the creaturely participation. Likewise, when we write D_c(x), we signify that the creature x participates in that perfection according to its finite mode. The predicate is possible because the Spirit mediately communicates the divine perfection into the created order and simultaneously authorizes the linguistic act by which that perfection is spoken.

This dual procession—into being and into speech—grounds what may be called theophysical predication: finite words moved by the same divine act that grants creatures their form and intelligibility. Theological assertions therefore are not merely descriptive; they participate in the ontological generosity by which God renders Himself speakable. Every predicate is suspended from this causality: the reality signified is given by the Spirit, and the capacity to signify is granted by the same Spirit. Thus theological discourse is neither an epistemic construction nor a linguistic projection but a mode of participation in the divine causality that constitutes beings and makes truth-intelligibility possible.

Explicatio analytica — De causalitate constitutiva

Modern analytic philosophy isolates different explanatory functions of causality: counterfactual dependence (Lewis), event-causation (Davidson), grounding (Fine, Schaffer), and truthmaking (Armstrong). These roles illuminate how one fact, event, or entity may depend upon another. Yet each framework presupposes a structured world in which modal space exists, events have efficacy, facts possess determinacy, and states of affairs sustain propositions. Divine causalitas constitutiva is not one cause within this framework but the condition for the framework itself. It is the causality that makes these explanatory roles possible at all.

1. Counterfactual dependence

Lewisian counterfactuals require a modal landscape: a space of possible worlds against which “had A not occurred, B would not have occurred” can be meaningfully evaluated. But the structure of the possible is not self-sustaining. Modal order presupposes the creative act by which the Spirit constitutes the actual world and its modal neighbors. Without this underlying act, counterfactual comparisons would lack metaphysical footing. Divine causality therefore underwrites the very intelligibility of counterfactual reasoning.

2. Event-causation

Davidson interprets causation as an extensional relation among events, while causal explanation belongs to the intensional domain of description. Yet for events to serve as genuine secondary causes, creatures must possess agency and powers. These cannot arise from within the created order alone. Agency presupposes the Spirit’s continuous bestowal of esse, which confers upon finite beings their efficacy. Finite events cause because the Spirit causes them to be capable of causing. Divine causality does not replace creaturely causality; it constitutes it.

3. Grounding.

Grounding concerns the relation by which one fact obtains in virtue of another. It is often regarded as more basic than efficient causation because it orders the metaphysical hierarchy of dependence. But grounding relations require a field of determinate facts in which they can operate. The Spirit’s actus essendi establishes this field. Divine causality is not a ground among grounds; it is the ground of grounding—the act by which creatures possess natures, properties, and relations susceptible to grounding analysis.

4. Truthmaking

Truthmaker theory holds that true propositions require robust ontological correlates that make them true. In theological terms, divine causality supplies both the res and the verbum: the reality that grounds the proposition and the linguistic capacity by which that reality is predicated. The same constitutive causality that grants existence to creatures also grants reference and semantic stability to theological speech. A proposition about God has a truthmaker because God grants both the state of affairs that makes it true and the linguistic participation that allows it to be truly said.

Taken together, these analytic models reveal that divine causality is not an instance of any of these relations but the transcendental condition for their intelligibility. The Spirit constitutes the world in which counterfactuals can be assessed, events can act, facts can ground, and states of affairs can make propositions true. This causality is not subsequent to the created order; it is the ontological generosity that gives the created order its very capacity to be causally intelligible.

Thus causalitas constitutiva is the deepest presupposition of theology, grounding both being and discourse. It is the Spirit’s act that makes creatures exist, makes them intelligible, and makes theological predication possible. Every true statement about God is therefore a finite participation in this causality: a word that signifies because the Spirit first gives the reality signified and then grants the capacity to signify it.

Objectiones

Ob I. According to Aristotelian naturalism, human speech belongs to the domain of secondary causes. To attribute it to divine causality dissolves human agency.

Ob II. Nominalist voluntarism holds that theological language is an act of obedience to divine decree, not a participation in divine causality.

Ob III. If God directly causes every act, occasionalism follows; if humans act, divine causality must withdraw. The position is internally inconsistent.

Ob IV. Analytic semantics grounds meaning in convention and intention, not metaphysical causality. Divine causality is irrelevant to linguistic content.

Responsiones

Ad I. Primary and secondary causes do not compete. Divine causality grants the creature its power to act. The theologian truly speaks, yet speaks by the Spirit who enables the act without supplanting it.

Ad II. Nominalism protects divine sovereignty but denies divine presence. The Spirit’s causality is participatory: human signs remain human yet become transparent to divine reality through the Spirit’s enabling.

Ad III. The dilemma assumes univocity between divine and creaturely causation. Divine causality is in esse: it grounds the being of secondary causes and their efficacy. God causes the act to be the creature’s act.

Ad IV. Semantic theories describe proximate mechanisms of meaning but cannot secure theological reference. The Spirit grounds the determinacy of divine predicates and authorizes their truth.

Nota

To relate causality and language is to secure theology’s realism. If to be is to act, then truthful speech must itself be an act grounded in God. Felicity thus appears as the linguistic form of divine causality, for the Spirit does not merely permit theological utterance, He empowers it. A felicitous word is causal because it proceeds from divine causality and tends toward its fulfillment in divine truth.

Without causal participation, theological predicates become abstractions. With participation, they become acts of communion—finite words bearing the life of God.

Determinatio

1. Divine causality operates both in the order of being and the order of speech.

2. The Holy Spirit is the principal cause of every felicitous theological utterance.

3. Theology speaks truly only where it is divinely caused.

4. Felicity is the linguistic manifestation of this causality and truth is its ontological fulfillment.

5. The Spirit binds ontology and discourse in a single causal order, causing both what is spoken and what is spoken of.

Transitus ad Disputationem VII: De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos

Divine causality has now been shown to ground creaturely existence and theological utterance alike. The Spirit who causes creatures to be and words to signify is the Spirit who renders creation capable of participating in God. To be is already to participate; to speak truly is to participate knowingly.

Thus the next question concerns the nature of this participation: how the Spirit constitutes real union without confusion, and how creaturely life is elevated into communion with the divine. We therefore proceed to Disputatio VII: De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos.