Disputatio XXI: De Meta-Lingua Theologiae: De Communicatione Verbi et Spiritus

On the Meta-Language of Theology: On the Communication of Word and Spirit

Quaeritur

Utrum nova lingua theologiae sit ille modus loquendi, in quo sermo humanus, assumptus a Verbo et animatus a Spiritu, fit instrumentum divinae communicationis; et utrum haec lingua non substituat linguas humanas, sed eas transformet, ut participent in ipsa veritate quae loquitur—ita ut in ea infinitum non tantum se revelet sed loquatur, et finitum non tantum audiat sed respondeat.

Whether the new language of theology is that mode of speech in which human words, assumed by the Word and animated by the Spirit, become instruments of divine self-communication; and whether this language does not replace human languages but transforms them, so that they participate in the very truth that speaks—in which the infinite not only reveals itself but speaks, and the finite not only hears but answers.

Thesis

The nova lingua theologiae arises where divine Word and human speech coincide under the causality of the Spirit. It is new because its being and meaning are renewed from within by divine presence. Theology thus speaks truly only as it becomes the language of divine communication itself: the eternal Word articulated in finite discourse, the infinite made audible in the finite.

Locus classicus

“We speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.” — 1 Corinthians 2:13

Here Paul identifies a linguistic transfiguration: words remain human, yet their origin and order are divine. The Spirit teaches, and through this teaching, human speech becomes the medium of divine wisdom: a new language of theology.

Explicatio

The nova lingua theologiae is the linguistic form of participation.
In philosophy, language is typically conceived as a human system of symbols; in theology, language is the place where divine and human communicability meet. The Word (Logos) is not only the content of revelation but its grammar; the Spirit is the causality that makes human utterance bear truth.

Thus, theological language is double in form but single in act:

• Human as finite sign and historical utterance.

• Divine as bearer of infinite meaning.

Let L∞ denote the eternal Word, the infinite language of divine self-communication. Let Lₜ denote finite theological discourse, the language of faith and confession. Finally, let Auth(Lₜ) denote the authorization of Lₜ by the Spirit.

Then:

Theological truth obtains only if Auth(Lₜ) → (Lₜ participat L∞ per Spiritum); that is, finite discourse is true not by inclusion within the divine Word but by real participation in it, as the Spirit makes human language proportionate to divine meaning.

The nova lingua is therefore neither an abstract meta-language nor a private religious dialect. It is the site where human speech becomes transparent to divine reality, where felicity (Spirit-given authorization) and truth (correspondence with divine being) coincide.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Kantian Transcendentalism claims that human cognition is confined to phenomena structured by the categories of understanding. Accordingly, theology can express moral faith but not divine causation in thought or speech. To claim that language participates in divine Word and Spirit mistakes moral symbolism for metaphysical participation, violating the autonomy of reason and the limits of possible experience.

Obiectio II. Barth and Brunner held that revelation is the wholly other act of God, not a linguistic system accessible to humanity. Theology may bear witness to revelation but is not itself revelation’s continuation. To speak of a new language of theology that shares in divine communication is to blur the infinite qualitative distinction between Creator and creature, turning revelation into religious expression.

Obiectio III. Wittgenstein claims that meaning arises from the use of language within a form of life (Lebensform). The felicity of theological discourse is determined by ecclesial grammar, not metaphysical causation. To posit the Spirit as the cause of meaning introduces a category mistake: causation belongs to nature, not to language. The Spirit’s “authorization” adds nothing beyond communal propriety.

Obiectio IV. Hegelian Idealism claims that the Spirit realizes itself in the dialectical unfolding of human consciousness. Accordingly, theology is not a distinct divine act but the self-expression of the Absolute within finite reason. The nova lingua theologiae is thus unnecessary because human discourse already manifests divine Spirit in its self-development. To posit transcendent causality in theology regresses to pre-critical metaphysics.

Obiectio V. George Lindbeck and Kathryn Tanner both hold that theology’s truth is intralinguistic, that it is a coherent discourse within the Church’s rule of faith. Divine causation is thus a superfluous hypothesis. To claim that the Spirit determines what counts as true speech reintroduces metaphysical realism under the guise of pneumatology. The “new language” of theology should be understood as communal practice, not ontological participation.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant’s limits define the autonomy of reason, not the transcendence of God. Revelation does not violate the categories of thought but constitutes their ground. The Spirit does not add a second cause to cognition but founds its capacity for meaning. Thus, the nova lingua arises precisely where reason is fulfilled by grace; the Spirit elevates the finite intellect to participation without abolishing its structure. Theological discourse thus becomes rational in a higher sense. a rationality transfigured by participation.

Ad II. Barth rightly insists on divine freedom, yet divine freedom includes the liberty to dwell within human language. The nova lingua does not erase the Creator–creature distinction but actualizes it: God’s Word remains transcendent even while speaking immanently. The Spirit’s presence ensures that theology is not revelation itself but its living continuation, for the Word still speaks in the Church’s speech.

Ad III. Wittgenstein’s insight that meaning arises from use is incomplete. The ecclesial Lebensform exists because the Spirit sustains it. The grammar of faith is not self-originating; it is founded in divine authorization. The Spirit’s causality is not physical but constitutive; it makes the correspondence between sign and referent possible. Without the Spirit, theology reduces to linguistic anthropology; with the Spirit, grammar becomes sacrament: the finite sign that mediates infinite truth.

Ad IV. Hegel’s dialectic rightly perceives the relation between thought and being but confuses participation with identity. The divine Word does not evolve into human consciousness; it speaks through it. The Spirit is not the world’s self-realization but God’s personal presence within the finite. The nova lingua therefore represents not the self-consciousness of reason but the descent of divine communication. Communion arises not by dialectical necessity but by grace.

Ad V. Post-liberal theology correctly locates truth within the Church’s language but cannot explain why that language bears truth at all. Felicity requires truth conditions that obtain beyond grammar, and this occurs through the Spirit’s causality. While the Word guarantees referential content, the Spirit vouchsafes participation. Thus, theology’s “new language” is not another dialect but the transformation of language itself into the site of divine truth.

Nota

To speak of the nova lingua theologiae is to confess that all true theology is God’s own discourse in the mode of the finite. The Holy Spirit determines inclusion within T (the formal language of theology) and mediates the causal link between felicity and truth. The Word provides the ontological content of that truth; the Spirit provides its efficacious form.

Hence:

FT + TC = Veritas Theologica, where FT (felicity conditions) ensure internal coherence and authorization, and TC (truth conditions) denote the real divine states of affairs modeled ontologically by T.

The Spirit, as both formal and causal principle, unites these two in a single act of divine communication.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. The nova lingua theologiae is the linguistic manifestation of the act of Word and Spirit: the infinite Word speaking through finite words.

2. The Spirit’s causality is non-competitive and constitutive; it authorizes human speech to bear divine truth.

3. The Word’s eternity is the meta-language within which all finite theological languages (Lₙ) are interpreted and fulfilled.

4. Theological truth arises when felicity (Spirit-given authorization) is linked to truth through modeling.

5. The nova lingua theologiae is incarnational: the infinite speaks within the finite, and the finite becomes transparent to the infinite.

In this union, theology ceases to be speech about God and becomes God’s own speech through the creature, language redeemed into truth, and truth made audible as the living Word.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXII

The preceding disputation disclosed that the meta-language of theology is not a neutral system above divine speech, but the living communicatio between the Word and the Spirit, the eternal dialogue through which divine truth both descends into and gathers up finite discourse. Within this communication, the human theologian speaks only insofar as the Spirit appropriates human language into the self-expression of the divine Word. Theology is thus dialogical in its very essence: it exists as participation in an ongoing conversation between God and the world.

Yet every divine conversation meets a worldly reply. The Word that enters human speech inevitably encounters other languages—philosophical, scientific, political, and poetic—each claiming its own authority over meaning. How does theology, as the speech of the Spirit, engage these rival discourses without losing its distinctive mode of truth? Can the language of faith coexist, translate, or contend with the languages of secularity, or must it reclaim a logic of its own, irreducible to the grammar of the age?

Therefore we proceed to Disputationem XXII: De Confrontatione Linguarum: Theologia et Saecularitas Sermonis, wherein it shall be examined how the sacred and secular orders of speech meet and resist one another, how theology maintains its truth within the pluralism of tongues, and how the Spirit sustains the integrity of divine discourse amid the babel of the world.

Disputatio XX: De Theologia ut Actu Verbi et Spiritus

On Theology as the Act of the Word and the Spirit

Quaeritur

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

Whether theology is not a human discourse standing above others but the living act of the Word and the Spirit, within and through which all theological speech receives its being—such that the word of faith does not merely speak about God, but subsists within God’s own act of speaking.

Thesis

Theology is the continuing act of divine self-communication in language. The Word is its content and the Spirit its cause. Human discourse participates in this act finitely, not by nature but by grace. Thus, theology speaks truly only as it becomes the act of the Word through the causality of the Spirit, the infinite in the finite.

Locus classicus

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears.”
— John 16:13

This verse establishes the pneumatological condition of all theological truth. The Spirit’s speech is not autonomous but participatory. The Spirit speaks what it hears from the Word, mediating the eternal discourse of the Son within the languages of history. Theology thus lives as the finite echo of an infinite conversation between Word and Spirit.

Explicatio

In human sciences, language and meaning are related externally: propositions describe or directly denote states of affairs. In theology, language and being coincide in the divine act. The Word is the ratio essendi of both creation and signification. The Spirit, as the divine causal medium, renders finite discourse proportionate to infinite meaning, linking felicity (authorized saying) with truth (ontological correspondence).

Let us formalize the relation as an analogy between divine and human discourse:

• Let L∞ denote the eternal Word, the infinite language of divine self-communication.

• Let Lₜ denote finite theological discourse, the language of faith and confession.

• Let Auth(Lₜ) denote the authorization of Lₜ by the Spirit.

• Then, theological truth obtains only if Auth(Lₜ) → (Lₜ ⊂ L∞); that is, finite discourse is true insofar as the Spirit causes its participation in the divine Word.

This causality is non-competitive. Human language remains finite and historical, yet within it the Spirit effects ontological reference. The Word speaks through words. Accordingly, the infinite inhabits the finite without destroying it. Theology is precisely this indwelling speech; it is an act in which divine causality and human signification coincide.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Kantian Transcendentalism limits cognition to phenomena structured by the categories of understanding. Theology, as human reflection, can express moral faith but not divine causation within thought or speech. To say that theology is an act of Word and Spirit is to mistake moral symbolism for metaphysical participation, violating the autonomy of reason and the bounds of possible experience.

Obiectio II. Barthian Revelationism insists that revelation is the wholly other act of God, never a human process. Theology may witness to the Word but is not itself the Word’s act. To identify theology with the act of Word and Spirit is to blur the infinite qualitative distinction between Creator and creature, turning divine revelation into a form of human religiosity.

Obiectio III. Wittgensteinian linguistic conventionalism teaches that meaning arises from the use of language within forms of life (Lebensform). Theological felicity, then, is determined by ecclesial grammar, not metaphysical causation. To posit the Spirit as the cause of meaning introduces a category mistake,for causes belong to physics, not to language. The Spirit’s “authorization” adds nothing to grammatical propriety.

Obiectio IV. In Hegelian idealism, Spirit realizes itself through human consciousness and divine speech is the dialectical unfolding of Absolute knowing. Theology, therefore, is not a separate act of Word and Spirit but the self-comprehension of Spirit in finite reason. To posit transcendent divine causality within theology is to regress to pre-critical representationalism.

Obiectio V. Within post-liberal theology, theology’s truth is intralinguistic: it is coherence within the Church’s rule of faith. Divine causation is a superfluous hypothesis. Any claim that the Spirit determines what is in or out of T, or that the Word speaks through language, replaces theological humility with metaphysical presumption.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant’s boundaries define reason’s autonomy, not God’s. Revelation does not transgress the categories of understanding but fulfills them by constituting their very possibility. The Spirit does not add a second cause to human thought but founds its capacity to signify God. Theological cognition is thus not heteronomous but participatory: reason becomes itself when moved by the Spirit to speak truthfully of the Word.

Ad II. Barth’s distinction between revelation and theology guards divine freedom but misconceives the Spirit’s immanence. Theology is not revelation itself but its continuation within the economy of language. The Word once spoken in Christ continues to act in the Church through the Spirit. The Spirit’s causality ensures that theology’s human speech remains the site of divine self-communication, not its substitute.

Ad III. Wittgenstein is right that meaning depends on use, but theological use presupposes a deeper authorization. The Church’s grammar exists because the Spirit constitutes it. Felicity, in theology, is not mere conformity to rules but participation in divine life. The Spirit’s causality is not empirical but constitutive. He makes possible the very relation between finite sign and infinite referent.

Without the Spirit, theological grammar collapses into tautology; with the Spirit, it becomes the living speech of God.

Ad IV. Hegel’s dialectic recognizes the unity of thought and being but confuses participation with identity. The Spirit in theology is not the world’s consciousness of itself but God’s causal presence within finite language. The divine Word does not evolve into human understanding; it speaks through it. Theology is not Spirit’s self-mediation but Spirit’s indwelling of the finite as grace.

The difference between divine and human remains, yet it is precisely in this difference that communion occurs.

Ad V. Post-liberal coherence explains theology’s internal structure but cannot account for its truth. Felicity within the community (FT) requires linkage to truth-conditions (TC) that obtain in divine reality. That link is the Spirit’s causality. The Word guarantees referential content; the Spirit guarantees participation. Thus, theology is neither self-referential grammar nor speculative metaphysics but a dual act: the Word speaking, the Spirit authorizing.

Theological meaning is therefore realist because it is caused.

Nota

To speak of theology as the act of Word and Spirit is to confess that all true theology is God’s own discourse in the mode of the finite.
The Holy Spirit determines inclusion within T (the formal language of theology) and mediates the causal link between felicity and truth.
The Word provides the ontological content of that truth; the Spirit provides its efficacious form.

Hence: FT + TC = Truth of Theological Speech where FT (felicity conditions) ensure internal coherence and authorization, and TC (truth conditions) denote the real divine states of affairs modeled ontologically by T. The Spirit, as both formal and causal principle, unites these two in a single act of divine communication.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theology is not autonomous discourse but the continuing act of the divine Word communicated through the Spirit.

2. The Spirit’s causality is non-competitive and constitutive: it authorizes human language to bear divine truth.

3. The Word’s eternity is the meta-language within which all finite theological languages (Lₙ) are interpreted and fulfilled.

4. Truth in theology arises when the felicity of human speech (authorization within T) is linked, by the Spirit, to real states of divine being modeled in ontology.

5. The nova lingua theologiae is therefore incarnational: the infinite speaks within the finite, and the finite becomes transparent to the infinite.

In this union, theology ceases to be mere talk about God and becomes God’s own speaking through the creature. Theology is thus the act of Word and Spirit, an event of truth in which language itself becomes participation in divine life.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXI

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

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

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

Disputatio IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae

On the New Language of Theology

Quaeritur

Utrum nova lingua theologiae orta sit ex ipsa Incarnatione Verbi, qua Deus intravit humanam loquelam et eam in se assumpsit; et utrum haec lingua, Spiritu Sancto sustentata, sit finita forma veritatis infinitae, in qua sermo humanus efficitur instrumentum divinae communicationis.

Whether the new language of theology arises from the Incarnation of the Word itself, in which God entered human speech and assumed it into Himself; and whether this language, sustained by the Holy Spirit, is the finite form of infinite truth in which human discourse becomes the instrument of divine communication.

Thesis

Theology speaks in a nova lingua, a new language born from the Incarnation and animated by the Holy Spirit. This language is finite in form yet infinite in meaning, because divine truth now dwells within human words. The nova lingua is therefore the linguistic expression of the Incarnation itself: the Word made flesh becomes the Word made speech.

Locus Classicus

 

Καὶ ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ Πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” — John 1:14

 The Evangelist here unites ontology and logos in a single mystery: the Logos that was “in the beginning with God” becomes flesh, entering the order of signification itself. The Incarnation is not only the assumption of human substance but of human speech: divine meaning takes up finite grammar. Through this descent, language is consecrated as the very site where God’s truth may dwell—fleshly words becoming the transparent vehicles of eternal grace.

“Quod non est assumptum, non est sanatum; quod autem unitum est Deo, salvetur.”

“What is not assumed is not healed; but whatever is united to God is saved.” — Gregorius Nazianzenus, Epistula 101, ad Cledonium

Gregory’s principle, though uttered in Christological controversy, extends naturally to language: if the Word truly assumes human nature, He also assumes the full expressive capacity of that nature—its speech, its reasoning, its communicative power. The healing of humanity includes the healing of its words. Language, once fractured by sin into dispersion and ambiguity, is gathered anew in the unity of the Incarnate Logos.

 

“Le Verbe incarné est la Parole humaine par excellence; il rétablit le sens là où le langage s’était vidé de vérité.”

“The Incarnate Word is the supreme human word; He restores meaning where language had been emptied of truth.” — Jean-Louis Chrétien, L’arche de la parole (1998)

Chrétien, speaking as a phenomenologist of revelation, sees in the Word made flesh the renewal of speech itself. The divine Logos does not abolish human discourse but redeems it from interior decay, giving words once again the power to reveal rather than conceal being. Every genuinely theological utterance participates in this restoration—it is a fragment of redeemed language, resonant with the Word that speaks in and through it.

From John through Gregory to Chrétien, a single theological trajectory unfolds: the Incarnation is an event of language. The eternal Word enters not only the history of flesh but the history of words, sanctifying human discourse as a vessel of divine presence. In Christ, being and meaning coincide—the reality of God is spoken into the syntax of creation. Thus the nova lingua theologiae, the new language of theology, is not a human invention but a participation in the Incarnate Logos Himself: language reborn through grace to bear the truth of God in the grammar of the world.

Explicatio

Theology’s language is not simply inherited from the old world but is reborn through the Word made flesh. In the old grammar of reason, contradiction signified error; in the new grammar of faith, contradiction becomes revelation. The nova lingua is thus a theological grammar where God is known sub contrario, under the sign of what appears its opposite.

Luther called this transformation a “new grammar” (nova grammatica), for one must learn to say that God is hidden in weakness, that death is life, that the cross is glory. This is not mere rhetoric but a new logic of being. In the nova lingua, the syntax of heaven passes into the phonemes of earth.

Formally, we can describe the change in this way: Let Tₒ denote the old language (the grammar of nature and reason) and Tₙ the new language (the grammar of faith). The transition Tₒ → Tₙ represents the Spirit’s act of translating finite speech into a vessel of divine meaning. This arrow does not mark replacement but transfiguration: what was merely human becomes theophanic through grace.

The nova lingua therefore bears within itself an inherent tension; it is simultaneously grammatical and miraculous. It possesses rules of form and order (syntax) yet overflows them through divine content (semantics). New wineskin is needed to hold new wine. To speak theologically is to live within this paradox of incarnation: finite speech filled with infinite truth.

Objectiones

Ob I. If theology requires a nova lingua, it implies that ordinary human language is inadequate to speak of God, making revelation unintelligible to natural reason.

Ob II. A “new grammar” seems to introduce irrationality into theology, reducing faith to paradox and contradiction.

Ob III. If God assumes human language, divine truth becomes bound to history and culture, losing universality.

Responsiones

Ad I. Ordinary language is not destroyed but assumed. The nova lingua transforms the old. The Incarnation does not render reason obsolete; it fulfills it, giving speech a deeper telos. The words of faith remain human, but their authorization comes from the Spirit, not from philosophical sufficiency.

Ad II. The new grammar is not irrational but hyper-rational. It is an order of meaning higher than human logic can generate. Paradox is not nonsense; it is sanctified tension, revealing the finite’s openness to the infinite. The “contradictions” of faith are signs that reason has touched mystery.

Ad III. The Word’s entry into history does not limit truth but universalizes it. By assuming particular speech, God redeems all speech. The universality of the gospel is secured precisely in its historical concreteness: the eternal speaks within the temporal.

Nota

The nova lingua of theology is not merely new vocabulary but new being-in-speech. It marks the union of divine causality and human language. To speak in this language is already to participate in God’s self-communication.

Its structure mirrors the Incarnation:

• Finite form: human grammar, word order, syntax.

• Infinite content: divine meaning, given by the Spirit.

• Mediating act: the Spirit’s authorization (felicity) that makes the finite capable of bearing the infinite.

Thus, each true theological statement is a microcosm of the Word made flesh. The finite (word) does not contain the infinite (God), yet it truly conveys it, because the Spirit joins them without confusion or separation.

The nova lingua does not function as a metalanguage standing above the old order of speech but as a new object language born within it. Through the Spirit, the old grammar of reason is inverted into the new grammar of faith. What was formerly sign of absence becomes sign of presence; what once denoted defeat now names victory. The nova lingua thus transforms rather than transcends the old: it is human speech re-created in the form of divine contradiction.

This linguistic participation is not accidental to theology; it is its very essence. Theology exists only because divine communication has entered human speech.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. The nova lingua of theology arises from the Incarnation, where divine meaning assumes human form.

2. This new language is finite in grammar yet infinite in signification, sustained by the Spirit’s act of authorization.

3. The grammar of faith (Tₙ) both fulfills and transfigures the grammar of reason (Tₒ), producing a linguistic structure in which opposites become sites of revelation.

4. The Spirit functions as the mediating cause of this transformation, making theological language both truthful and efficacious.

5. Theology’s nova lingua is thus the ongoing miracle of Pentecost—the continual creation of meaning whereby human words, caught up in grace, speak the infinite Word.

Transitus ad Disputationem X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei

The new language of theology has shown that divine speech does not merely signify but brings forth what it declares. In it, words are not passive instruments of representation but active vehicles of communication; they are the finite forms through which infinite meaning becomes manifest. The verbum theologicum thus participates in the performative power of the Verbum divinum: it both reveals and effects, both declares and gives.

Yet this new mode of divine speech raises a deeper question concerning its reception. If the Word speaks through human language, how does the human intellect hear? If divine utterance is creative and efficacious, how does it become understanding in the one to whom it is spoken? The problem of theological language thus opens into the mystery of revelation and knowledge. The act that communicates truth must also illumine the mind that receives it, for revelation without cognition would be a light shining in darkness without being apprehended.

The Incarnate Word, who assumes human speech, also assumes the conditions of human knowing. Revelation, therefore, is not an external testimony appended to reason but the transformation of reason itself through participation in divine light. The same Spirit who causes right speech about God now causes right knowledge of God: the one who animates the tongue also illumines the intellect. In revelation, the utterance that creates understanding becomes the very act of divine self-communication, and knowledge becomes the creature’s participation in that self-manifesting act.

We therefore advance to Disputationem X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei, wherein it will be asked whether revelation imparts knowledge by external testimony or by internal participation; how the finite intellect, addressed by the infinite Word, can truly know the One who speaks; and whether divine self-disclosure is received as a message among others or as the very event by which human understanding is gathered into the eternal knowing of God.