Disputatio XLII: De Principio Sufficientis Rationis et Participatione Intellectus

On the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Participation of Intellect

Quaeritur

Utrum principium sufficientis rationis sit lex logica universalis tantum, an etiam signum participationis intellectus creati in ratione divina; et utrum negatio huius principii, ut apud van Inwagen et metaphysicos analyticos recentiores, tollat ipsam intelligibilitatem creationis.

Whether the Principle of Sufficient Reason is merely a universal logical law, or also a sign of the created intellect’s participation in divine reason; and whether the denial of this principle, as in Van Inwagen and other contemporary analytic metaphysicians, abolishes the intelligibility of creation itself.

Thesis

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is not a mere regulative maxim of thought but a metaphysical expression of the intellect’s participation in divine intelligibility. In its strong sense, it is the formal imprint of the divine Logos within reason itself for it claims that nothing exists without a reason in God’s wisdom. To deny the PSR is not to defend freedom, but to sunder the bond between intellect and being. The Spirit of Understanding (Spiritus Intelligentiae) is the living mediation through which the created mind, in seeking reasons, reflects the inexhaustible rational plenitude of its Creator.

Locus Classicus

G. W. Leibniz, Monadologie, §§31–32 (1714):

“Aucun fait ne saurait être vrai ou existant, aucune énonciation véritable, sans qu’il y ait une raison suffisante pourquoi il en soit ainsi et non pas autrement.”
(“No fact can be real or existing, no statement true, unless there is a sufficient reason why it should be so and not otherwise.”)

Spinoza, Ethica, I, prop. 11, schol.:

“Deus sive Natura ex sola necessitate suae naturae existit et agit.”
(“God, or Nature, exists and acts solely from the necessity of His own nature.”)

Peter van Inwagen, “The Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God” (1988):

“Not every truth has an explanation. Some things just are, and that is the end of the matter.”

Explicatio

The principium sufficientis rationis has traversed the entire history of metaphysics as both a law of thought and an ontological postulate.  In its strong form (Leibnizian–Spinozist), it affirms that for every fact or existent, there must be a reason why it is so and not otherwise, a reason ultimately grounded in divine necessity.  In its weak form (empiricist–Kantian), it is restricted to the domain of possible experience and accordingly becomes a principle of explanation, not of being.  In its moderate form (Aquinas, Wolff, contemporary metaphysical realism), it expresses the participation of created reason in the divine Logos, without collapsing contingency into necessity.

The denial of the PSR, exemplified by van Inwagen’s defense of “brute facts,” aims to preserve freedom and divine sovereignty by positing the inexplicable as metaphysically possible. Yet such denial undermines the very conditions of intelligibility, for if something is without reason, thought itself loses its foundation. A world containing “brute facts” is one in which the Logos is silent.

Theologically, the PSR expresses the Spirit’s inner witness to divine intelligibility in the act of understanding. The finite mind, in seeking sufficient reasons, manifests its participatio in ratione divina. To reason at all is already to echo the divine act of creation, in which being and meaning coincide.

Thus, the PSR is not merely a formal rule of inference but a metaphysical participation in God’s own self-understanding. Its strength is not coercive but luminous because the created intellect cannot but seek the reason of things, being formed as it is in the image of divine understanding.

Objectiones

Ob. I. The modern empiricism of David Hume and the contemporary naturalists argue that the PSR exceeds empirical warrant. Regularities can be observed, but “reason why” is an anthropomorphic projection; causality is habit, not necessity.

Ob. II. Kant held that the PSR is a principle of the Verstand, valid only within the realm of possible experience. Applied beyond phenomena, it yields antinomies. Hence, it is regulative, not constitutive.

Ob. III. Van Inwagen and other analytic metaphysicians contend that not every truth has an explanation. Some facts are “brute,” including free choices and the existence of God. Requiring a reason for everything annihilates freedom and reduces reality to mechanism.

Ob. IV. Sartre and Camus view the absence of sufficient reason as the condition of human freedom. The world is absurd, and meaning is not discovered but created by the self.

Ob. V. Certain theological voluntarists hold that God’s will is ultimate reason. To require a reason for the divine will is to subordinate God to rational necessity. Divine freedom transcends reason.

Responsiones

Ad I. Empiricism confuses the order of discovery with the order of being. That some reasons are hidden does not imply that none exist. The PSR concerns the intelligible ground of reality, not the limits of observation. Hume’s skepticism dissolves not causality but confidence in reason itself.

Ad II. Kant rightly confines the PSR within the phenomenal for critical purposes, but his very act of limitation presupposes its universality. To deny constitutive status to the PSR is already to presuppose that reality conforms to rational form, and this is an implicit metaphysical affirmation.

Ad III. The appeal to “brute facts” is a confession of explanatory despair, not a defense of freedom. Freedom is intelligible only as participation in the divine act of rational self-determination. A choice without reason is not free but arbitrary, and arbitrariness is impotence, not liberty.

Ad IV. Existentialist revolt against reason mistakes alienation for authenticity. The absurd arises not from being but from the will’s refusal to inhabit intelligibility. To assert meaning against the void is still to affirm the PSR implicitly; it is to claim the will to reason in spite of chaos.

Ad V. Divine will is not irrational but supremely rational, identical with divine wisdom. To require no reason beyond God is not to deny the PSR but to fulfill it: Deus est ratio sui. The PSR terminates not in logical deduction but in the subsistent Reason that is God Himself.

Nota

The principium sufficientis rationis stands at the heart of metaphysical realism. In its deepest sense, it is not a law imposed upon being but the trace of divine rationality within it. As the mind seeks sufficient reasons, it participates in the infinite coherence of the Logos. The PSR thus binds ontology and epistemology within the act of the Spirit: it is the metaphysical form of the intellect’s communion with God.

Modern denials of the PSR -- whether they be empiricist, analytic, or existentialist, -- arise from the fragmentation of reason’s participation in the divine. The task of theology is therefore not to reconstruct the PSR as an abstract axiom, but to recognize it as a participation in the eternal Reason by which all things are and are known.

Determinatio

1. The PSR may be distinguished in three senses:

   • Strong (Leibnizian–Spinozist): Every fact has a sufficient reason, grounded in divine necessity.

   • Moderate (Thomistic–Classical Realist): Every contingent being has a reason for its existence in God, but not all reasons are necessitating.

   • Weak (Kantian–Empiricist): The PSR is only a principle of empirical order, regulative for experience.

2. Theology adopts the moderate form: participation without collapse.

   • Contingency is preserved, but reason remains grounded in divine wisdom.

3. The PSR is therefore not merely a rule of logic (ratio cognoscendi), but an ontological participation (ratio essendi) in the divine act of understanding.

4. To deny the PSR is to deny that being is intelligible; and to deny intelligibility is to deny the Logos.

Transitus ad Disputationem XLIII: De Necessario Fundamento Contingentiae

The preceding disputation has established that the Principium Sufficientis Rationis is not a mere law of inference but a participation of finite reason in the divine Logos. It thus binds the act of thinking to the act of being and reveals in the search for “why” the trace of eternal Wisdom itself.

Yet the moment the PSR is affirmed ontologically, a tension arises:
If every being has a sufficient reason, is there room for contingency? Must all that is be necessary, as Spinoza contended, or can the contingent subsist within the sphere of intelligibility without dissolving into determinism?

The theological task is to interpret contingency not as absence of reason but as mode of reason, as a form of divine intelligibility expressed as finite freedom. For in creation, necessity does not abolish contingency but gives it foundation; and the contingent, rightly understood, is not the irrational remainder of the divine but the radiant overflow of divine plenitude.

We therefore advance to Disputationem XLIII: De Necessario Fundamento Contingentiae, in which it will be asked whether contingency is grounded not in the negation of necessity but in its participation, so that the freedom of creatures is the temporal and finite reflection of divine rational love.

Disputatio XXVII De Essentiis Dispositionalibus

On Dispositional Essences

Quaeritur

Quaeritur utrum necessitas legum naturae possit sufficienter explicari per essentias dispositionales ipsarum rerum, an vero talis explicatio tandem recidat in naturalem essentialismum sine fundamento ontologico, qui rursus ad participationem infiniti redigitur.

It is asked whether the necessity of natural laws can be adequately explained by the dispositional essences of things themselves, or whether such an explanation ultimately collapses into an unfounded natural essentialism that once again requires participation in the Infinite.

Thesis

Dispositional essentialism seeks to ground the laws of nature in the intrinsic powers of entities. Accordingly, each thing, by virtue of what it is, behaves as it does. Laws are thus expressions of essence, not external constraints. Yet finite essence itself requires grounding for its actuality and coordination. Therefore, the appeal to dispositional essences displaces but does not resolve the need for an infinite ground of law.

Locus Classicus

“In him we live and move and have our being.” — Acts 17:28

The early Fathers, having read Paul in light of Hellenic metaphysics, interpreted this as a declaration that all powers and movements within creation presuppose divine causality. For example, Basil of Caesarea (Hexaemeron I.5) taught that “every natural power is the gift of divine energy,” and Aquinas affirmed that “omnis operatio naturae est actus Dei in natura” (ST I.105.5). Thus, even when power is intrinsic to a creature, its being and operation participate in the act of the Creator.

Explicatio

Dispositional essentialism emerged in late twentieth-century metaphysics as a reaction against both Humean regularity and Armstrong’s relational realism. Philosophers such as Brian Ellis, C. B. Martin, and Stephen Mumford argued that laws do not govern things from without but that the flow from within from the very essences or natures of entities. Accordingly, an electron repels another not because a law commands it, but because repulsion belongs to its nature. The behavior is thus essential and not contingent.

In this view, every natural property is dispositional; it is defined by its powers and tendencies. To possess a charge, mass, or spin just is to manifest appropriate dispositions under suitable conditions. Laws of nature are thus derivative descriptions of the necessary behaviors of these dispositional essences. Therefore, there are no separate laws or external principles, but only powers whose exercise constitutes the order of nature.

This approach elegantly restores necessity to the finite without invoking extrinsic governance. But the question remains: Whence the unity of this system of powers? If every essence carries its own necessity, what guarantees the coherence of those necessities across the totality of the world? Why do distinct powers not conflict or dissolve into chaos? While the finite essence, to be actual, must exist and operate within a coherent totality of being, that totality cannot itself be one of the powers. Rather, it must be the condition of their coexistence and harmony.

Hence, while dispositional essentialism succeeds in moving the locus of necessity inward—from external law to internal essence—it fails to remove the need for ontological participation. While essence, in so far as it is essence, is an intelligible structure of being, powers, however intrinsic, can only be participatory modes of a deeper enabling act.

Obiectiones

Objiectio I. According to Ellis in 2001, the essence of each natural kind explains its behavior. Thus, no further metaphysical foundation is required, and to demand more is to mistake explanation for regression.

Objiectio II. Martin argued in 2008 that disputations constitute causal grounds for their manifestations. Since power is primitive and self-explanatory, the world’s order is the network of powers acting according to their natures.

Objiectio III. Mumford in 2004 argued that laws are supervenient on dispositional essences, and hence add nothing ontologically to them. Thus, the finite order is self-sufficient so long as it consists of stable powers and their mutual tendencies.

Objiectio IV. Naturalistic Metaphysics claims that to appeal to an Infinite act is unnecessary duplication. If dispositions suffice for explanation, positing divine participation is a metaphysical surplus.

Objiectio V. Sometimes the theological tradition assumed that grounding the powers of things directly in the infinite may risk erasing natural causality. But the integrity of secondary causes requires that creatures possess genuine powers of their own.

Responsiones

Ad I. While essence may explain behavior, it does not explain existence. To say “the electron repels because it is its nature to repel” still leaves unasked why such a nature exists at all. Essence is formal cause and being is act. The latter cannot be derived from the former without reference to a self-sufficient act of existence.

Ad II. Power cannot be self-explanatory, for power is always power to act.The actuality of its exercise depends on a larger order within which it operates. Without a unifying act of being, powers remain mere potentialities without coherence.

Ad III. Supervenience explains correspondence but not causation. That laws supervene on essences tells us that essence and law covary, not why such correlation obtains. The dependence relation itself requires grounding.

Ad IV. Appealing to the infinite is not an additional move but a natural completion in the order of explanation.The Infinite is not another entity among the powers but the act in which all finite essences receive their actuality and unity. Without such an act, the multiplicity of powers lacks ontological coherence.

Ad V. Participation does not abolish finite agency but founds it. Creatures possess true powers because the infinite communicates actuality to them. Their independence as secondary causes is secured by the divine act that continuously sustains them in being.

Nota

Dispositional essentialism rightly perceives that the necessity of nature arises from within things themselves. It holds that each being acts according to what it is, and thus, its tendencies are not imposed from without but flow from its essence. The very intelligibility of this insight, however, betrays its limit, for the intrinsic power of a thing explains its manner of acting, not its capacity to act at all. Accordingly, the essence that disposes toward activity still requires an act that gives it existence and coherence.

Hence, the metaphysical question beneath dispositional essentialism is not why things act as they do, but why there are things capable of acting at all. To say that the stone falls because it has mass, or that the charge repels because it is charged, presupposes the ontological act by which stone and charge subsist. Clearly, while the essence disposes, only the act sustains.

The theological transformation of this view is participation. On this view, every finite power is a communicated potency; it receives from the Infinite Act not only its existence but its coordination with all others. The unity of law in the world, that is, the harmony among dispositions, is thus the reflection of the divine unity that gathers all powers into a single order of being. Nature’s lawfulness is the shadow of grace: finite essences cooperate because they share in one act of creation.

Dispositional essentialism, therefore, contains a veiled confession:
to affirm inner necessity is already to acknowledge the immanence of the divine act within creation. The Spirit is the bond that makes powers conspire toward intelligibility, and the Logos is the act through which each essence becomes dispositional at all. Necessity, properly understood, is participation in the divine constancy by which all things are held in being.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Dispositional essentialism internalizes necessity but does not abolish dependence. Thus, finite essences are intelligible structures whose actuality presupposes a unifying act of being.

2. The unity of natural order cannot arise from a plurality of isolated powers. Coordination among dispositions requires an ontological ground transcending them.

3. Essence without act is impotent. The existence and operation of every power presuppose an act that is not itself one power among others. They thus presuppose an infinite act of being.

4. The participation of finite essences in the Infinite corresponds to the metaphysical structure of creation. As Augustine said, “Omne bonum quod habet creatura, habet participando” (De Diversis Quaestionibus 83.46). Powers are real and finite, and their actuality is participatory.

5. Hence, dispositional essentialism, though the most promising finite account, nonetheless points beyond itself. Its truth lies not in rejecting participation but in clarifying the mode of it: each finite power is a share in the creative act that sustains and orders all powers.

Therefore, the necessity of natural law is neither imposed from without nor self-generated from within. It arises from the participation of dispositional essences in the infinite act of being, in the Word through whom all powers subsist and in the Spirit who continuously actualizes their operation.

Transitus ad Disputationem XXVIII

The unity of nature cannot be secured from within the multiplicity of powers. The next disputation therefore asks whether finite systems, even when internally coherent, can ever be complete in themselves. 

We proceed to Disputatio XXVIII: De Systemate Incompleto et Veritatis Factore Infinito, in which the Gödelian structure of dependence reveals that every finite necessity presupposes an infinite act of truth.

Prooemium ad Partem II: De Lingua et Modeling Theologico; Disputatio XVI: De Lingua et Intentionalitate

Prooemium ad Partem II: De Lingua et Modeling Theologico

I. The Turn from Ontology to Language

The first part of these disputations concluded that all created intelligibility depends upon participation in the divine Logos. Yet theology itself, being a rational and linguistic enterprise, must now examine how this participation is mediated through language and logic. For the theologian not only contemplates being, but also must speak it. Thus the question arises: how can finite discourse bear infinite truth?

This question marks a decisive shift from the metaphysical participation of things to the semantic participation of words. As ontology described the creature’s being-in-relation to God, semantics must describe the word’s being-in-relation to the Word. The grammar of theology becomes, in this light, a site of participation: human language, drawn into the Logos, utters more than it contains.

II. From Syntax to Semantics

Every formal language, whether mathematical or theological, possesses two dimensions.  Syntax concerns the internal relations of signs, their form and structure, and their combinations and rules of well-formedness.  Semantics pertains to the relation of those signs to what they signify, their truth or reference (meaning).

In theology, these correspond to two moments of the Spirit’s work: (1) to the syntactic or felicitous moment, wherein speech is rightly ordered and confessio consonant with Scripture, and (2) to the semantic or truth-bearing moment, wherein such speech is united to divine reality itself. While felicitous language is internally coherent, true language is ontologically participant. The Spirit unites these moments, so that the felicity of confession may become the veracity of participation.

III. The Model-Theoretic Analogy

Model theory, in logic and mathematics, formalizes precisely this distinction. A theory is a set of sentences closed under logical consequence, and a model is a structure in which those sentences are true. The relation between theory and model parallels that between theological confession and divine reality. For just as a theory may be consistent yet unrealized, so too theological discourse may be felicitous yet untrue unless it participates in the divine model, in the Verbum incarnatum in whom all truth is fulfilled. The Löwenheim–Skolem results show that no single model can exhaust a theory. Analogously, no finite theology can exhaust the truth of God. Yet the divine reality provides, so to speak, the intended model of all theological language.

IV. Theological Modeling

To “model” in theology is therefore not to invent but to interpret: to construct structures of discourse that may participate analogically in divine truth. The theologian, like the logician, proposes forms; but unlike the logician, he prays that the Spirit make those forms real. The faith that justifies is itself the condition of modeling, for it opens the finite intellect to participation in the infinite referent.

Thus the enterprise of this part is to trace the grammar of such modeling: how the Word authorizes the word, how felicity becomes truth, and how theology may be at once formal, rational, and yet wholly dependent upon divine causality.

The following disputations, therefore, proceed from language and intentionality (XVI–XVIII) to modeling and meta-language (XIX–XX), and finally to truth and participation (XXI–XXVII). Together they seek to exhibit theology as the living analog of divine speech—a discourse whose truth lies not in itself but in the Word to whom it is joined.

“Verbum Dei non est vox, sed virtus; non sonus aurium, sed opus in cordibus.”
— Martinus Lutherus, WA 10/3.11

The Word of God is not a sound, but a power; not a voice in the ears, but a work in the heart.

Praefatio ad Partem II: De Lingua et Modeling Theologico

Verbum dicitur, et fit intellectus

(The Word is spoken, and understanding comes to be)

In hac secunda parte Disputationum, theologia in seipsam reflectitur: ab ontologia transit ad linguam, a participatione essendi ad participationem significandi. Quod prius in creatione apparuit ut lux essendi, nunc in loquendo manifestatur ut lux intelligendi. Nam sicut omnia per Verbum facta sunt, ita etiam omnis intellectus per Verbum illuminatur.

Lingua theologica non est instrumentum extrinsecum veritatis, sed locus in quo ipsa veritas habitat. Ibi Verbum aeternum inter verba humana seipsum insinuat et manifestat. Theologus, dum loquitur de Deo, non agit ut artifex signorum, sed ut minister Verbi: per ipsum loquendi actum participat in lumine quod ultra verba manet.

Haec pars igitur quaerit quomodo veritas divina fiat intelligibilis in sermone humano; quomodo Spiritus, auctor verbi, ordinet grammaticam fidei ad res divinas; et quomodo structura sermonis ipsam Trinitatis logicam revelet, in qua esse, intelligere, et dicere unum sunt. Dum theologia linguam suam contemplatur, ipsa incarnationem Verbi in humanitate linguae percipit.

In this second part of the Disputationes, theology turns inward upon itself: it moves from ontology to language, from participation in being to participation in meaning. What appeared in creation as the light of being now appears in speech as the light of understanding. For as all things were made through the Word, so also every act of understanding is illumined by the Word.

Theological language is not an external instrument of truth but the very dwelling place of truth itself. There, among human words, the eternal Word insinuates and manifests itself. The theologian, in speaking of God, acts not as an artisan of signs but as a minister of the Word: through the very act of speech, he participates in the light that transcends all speech.

This part therefore seeks to understand how divine truth becomes intelligible within human discourse; how the Spirit, author of speech, orders the grammar of faith toward divine realities; and how the structure of discourse reveals the logic of the Trinity, in which being, understanding, and speaking are one. In contemplating its own language, theology perceives the Incarnation of the Word within the humanity of speech itself.

On Language and Intentionality

Quaeritur

Utrum lingua humana non sit systema signorum ex se ortum, sed instrumentum Spiritus, per quod intentio divina in mundum intrat; et utrum ipsa intentionalitas in loquela sit participatio in actu Verbi divini, quo Deus seipsum communicat et creaturam ad se convertit.

Whether human language is not a self-originating system of signs but an instrument of the Spirit through which divine intention enters the world; and whether intentionality within speech is a participation in the act of the divine Word, by which God communicates Himself and turns the creature toward Himself.

Thesis

Language is the created mirror of divine intentionality. Every act of speaking presupposes orientation (intentio) toward meaning and toward another. In theological speech, this orientation participates in God’s own act of self-expression—the divine Word speaking through the Spirit. Human language, therefore, is not merely conventional but ontological: it is the created form of divine communicability.

Locus classicus

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” — Matthew 12:34

Speech arises from inner intention. Yet in theological terms, the human heart is itself a site of divine indwelling: the Spirit who dwells within directs language toward truth. Thus, speech is the outward expression of inward intentionality, and when sanctified by the Spirit, it becomes the medium of divine communication.

Explicatio

In Disputatio XV, we saw that divine knowing is intentional self-expression—God’s knowledge is His act of being. Here we turn to human language as the finite reflection of that act: a medium through which intention becomes communication.

Intentionality (intentionalitas) in theology does not mean psychological aim but ontological directedness—the structure by which word and meaning, subject and object, stand in relation.
Every genuine act of language includes three relations:

1. the speaker’s intention toward meaning (intentio ad significationem),

2. the word’s intension toward what it signifies (intensio ad rem), and

3. the listener’s reception within shared understanding (communicatio in Spiritu).

This triadic structure mirrors the Trinitarian pattern of divine communication:

• the Father as speaker and origin of meaning,

• the Son as the Word in which meaning is expressed,

• the Spirit as the bond who makes that meaning present and understood.

Hence, human language is intrinsically theological. It is possible only because the Creator has already established communication within Himself.

To formalize this (and then immediately explain it):

• Let L denote the total system of human language.

• Let I_d represent divine intentionality, and I_h human intentionality.

• The relation I_h ⊂ I_d signifies that human intentionality is contained within and derives from divine intentionality—not by necessity but by participation.

• This inclusion is not spatial but ontological: the capacity to mean at all is a gift of divine self-communication.

Thus, whenever we speak, we enact—however faintly—the structure of God’s own Word. When speech becomes theological, the relation deepens: the Spirit unites human intention with divine intention, transforming language into communion.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. According to contemporary analytic epistemologists like Alvin Plantinga or William Alston, if human language were to participate in divine intentionality, then all speech would be divinely inspired, including lies and nonsense. But we experience constant error, ambiguity, and falsehood. To attribute divine participation to every utterance erases the distinction between revelation and distortion. Language must remain a human phenomenon, fallible and natural, not an extension of divine intentionality.

Obiectio II. For figures like Saussure, Wittgenstein, John Searle, 
to give language ontological weight confuses sign and being. Words are social conventions—arbitrary symbols whose meaning derives from communal use, not metaphysical grounding. Modern linguistics and speech-act theory show that language functions pragmatically; to posit an ontological Logos beneath it is to re-mythologize semantics and import metaphysics into empirical linguistics.

Obiectio III. Gordon Kaufman and Catherine Keller would argue that the claim that language mirrors the Trinity introduces an unnecessary metaphysical speculation. The triadic analogy of speaker, word, and listener reflects a bygone metaphysical framework. Contemporary theology should emphasize symbol and narrative, not Trinitarian ontology. The human structure of communication tells us nothing reliable about God, only about our religious imagination.

Responsiones

Ad I. Participation is not identity. All speech derives its capacity for meaning from divine intentionality, but not all speech conforms to it.
Falsehood arises not from divine presence but from human resistance to it—the distortion of participation through disordered will.The Spirit is the measure of felicity: speech becomes inspired not by mere utterance but by alignment of intention with truth. Hence, linguistic participation is universal in capacity but selective in realization. The possibility of falsehood confirms, rather than contradicts, divine grounding—only what derives from truth can be falsified.

Ad II. Modern linguistics rightly observes that words are conventional in form, yet convention presupposes an ontological ground of communicability. For meaning to be shared, there must exist an order in which being and understanding are mutually convertible: verum et ens convertuntur. This metaphysical foundation is the Logos, the eternal ratio that makes semantic convention possible. The Spirit mediates between sign and being, ensuring that human language, though arbitrary in sign, is real in significance. Language thus participates ontologically not in its sounds or syntax but in its capacity to make being present through meaning.

Ad III. The analogy between Trinitarian communication and human language is not speculative but structural. Every act of communication involves (1) a speaker, (2) a word uttered, and (3) a hearer in whom that word is received. This triadic form is not an invention of theology but an imprint of the Creator’s image upon creation. Modern theologians who reduce Trinitarian speech to symbol overlook the metaphysical unity of meaning and relation: communication exists because God is communicative being. To speak is to participate in divine communion; the Spirit is the living bond between speaker and hearer, word and understanding. Thus, Trinitarian analogy is not an optional metaphor but the ontological grammar of all meaning.

Nota

The relationship between language and intentionality reveals the deepest unity of theology’s two realms: speech and being.
Just as divine intentionality (intentionalitas divina) grounds all knowing, so it also grounds all saying. Language exists because God is communicative; its very structure presupposes a world created by speech and ordered toward meaning.

The Spirit is the living link between divine intention and human language. He causes meaning to be intended rightly—that is, to be directed toward truth and love rather than self-expression or domination. Thus, theological speech is not merely propositional but relational: it restores language to its true vocation as communio.

This insight also explains the possibility of revelation as language.
Because language participates in divine intentionality, it can serve as the medium of God’s self-disclosure without distortion. The Word of God does not bypass human speech; it fulfills it. In this sense, all language is sacramental in origin—it signifies because God first signified the world into being.

Symbolically (and then explained), we can express this as:

D → L → R,

where D is divine intention, L is language, and R is revelation.
This sequence means: divine intentionality flows into language as its form, and through language revelation becomes possible. Thus, language is the mediating bond between divine self-communication and human reception.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Language is grounded in divine intentionality; its power to mean derives from the communicative nature of the Creator.

2. Human speech, though finite and conventional, participates in the structure of divine Word—speaker, word, and listener forming an analogical trinity.

3. The Spirit mediates between divine and human intention, aligning finite language with infinite meaning and making revelation possible.

4. Error and falsehood arise when human intentionality turns away from this divine orientation, severing communication from its source.

5. Theology, as scientia loquens Dei, thus culminates in the recognition that language itself is a site of grace: the place where divine intentionality becomes audible in the world.

Transitus ad Disputationem XVII

Language has revealed itself to be the outward form of intentionality,
the finite manifestation of the soul’s directedness toward truth. In theology, however, speech aspires beyond communication, for it seeks to express the divine reality itself. But such expression cannot be immediate; it occurs through models, analogies, and ordered likenesses that mediate between the uncreated and the created. Theology therefore stands between silence and assertion, crafting conceptual structures whose purpose is not containment but participation.

Yet this raises a decisive question. If theology speaks by modeling, what is the nature of truth in such models? Do they depict or disclose, represent or reveal? Is their adequacy measured by correspondence to divine reality, or by their capacity to let that reality speak through them? In short, what constitutes veritas theologica, truth as spoken by and within faith?

Therefore we proceed to Disputatio XVII: De Modeling et Veritate Theologica, wherein we examine how theological models mediate between human understanding and divine mystery, whether truth in theology is formal correspondence, participatory presence, or performative disclosure, and how every true model, by grace, becomes a transparent window into the eternal Word it seeks to name.

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.