Proemium ad Disputationes Theologicas
Why the Scholastic Form Is Employed
The scholastic form—thesis, locus classicus, explicatio, objectiones, responsiones, nota, determinatio—is not revived here as academic archaism, nor as nostalgic homage to a vanished intellectual culture. It is recovered because it uniquely embodies a logic of theological clarity and order. When rightly understood, the scholastic disputation is not the triumph of dialectic over faith but the grammar of faith’s own rational articulation.
The disputatio theologica begins in humility. It assumes that theological truth, being divine, cannot be possessed in a single act of assertion. Truth must instead be approached through the ordered interplay of affirmation, objection, and resolution. The structure itself—thesis followed by counter-statement and reconciliation—mirrors the polarity of revelation: Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus. The form of disputation therefore becomes a formal analogue of the cross, where contradiction is not suppressed but redeemed in higher unity.
Moreover, the scholastic method corresponds to the ontology of truth presupposed throughout these writings. Truth is not a mere property of propositions but participation in divine self-communication. For that reason, theology cannot be purely descriptive or expressive; it must be formally structured. The disputational form enacts that structure. It forces theology to move from surface assertion to internal coherence, from confession to understanding.
This method also allows theology to remain both rigorous and contemplative.
Rigorous, because every claim must withstand formal objection and be expressed in a grammar of precision.
Contemplative, because every resolution finally returns to the mystery of God who exceeds dialectic.
In this way, the scholastic disputatio becomes the proper vehicle for what these writings call model-theoretic theology: a discipline that seeks to relate the formal language of faith (T) to the ontology of divine being. Each disputation, while logically disciplined, remains theological in motive and eschatological in horizon. The thesis states what can be confessed; the objectiones test its intelligibility; the responsiones disclose its inner coherence; the nota unfolds its broader theological meaning; the determinatio seals the act of understanding in doxology.
Historical Continuity
The use of the disputatio situates these essays consciously within the intellectual lineage of the Church. Luther, Melanchthon, and their students at Wittenberg employed the disputationes not as scholastic mimicry but as instruments of evangelical clarity. The form was not opposed to Reformation insight; it was its chosen discipline. The Disputationes Heidelbergae (1518), Melanchthon’s Loci Communes, and the later Lutheran scholastic systems of Gerhard, Calov, and Quenstedt all employed structured reasoning to preserve the unity of truth and faith.
By retrieving this form, the Disputationes Theologicae affirm that theology’s rational vocation remains valid. The contemporary theologian, no less than the medieval master or the Reformation doctor, must think within ordered form if he is to think at all. The scholastic discipline reminds theology that truth is not spontaneous expression but participation in divine Logos. In an age of intellectual fragmentation and performative discourse, the disputatio restores theology’s proper seriousness: its commitment to clarity, coherence, and communion.
A Theological Rationale
This recovery of form also serves a deeper purpose. The model-theoretic vision that animates these disputations holds that theology’s task is to interpret faith’s formal language within the ontological reality of divine being. That interpretive process requires structure.
The disputatio provides that structure by mapping theology’s logical, semantic, and ontological movements:
from syntax (faith’s given grammar),
through semantics (modeling within being),
to truth (participation in divine reality).
The scholastic method thus becomes a theological necessity: the visible form of theology’s internal logic. Its ordered movement from assertion to resolution mirrors theology’s own participatory logic — from Word to understanding, from faith to vision.
Conclusion
The scholastic method, then, is not a relic but a realism: a structure adequate to a world in which language, thought, and being are ordered by the same divine Logos. The Disputationes Theologicae employ it to demonstrate that theology, even in an age of disintegration, can still think truthfully because the Spirit who once breathed through the schools continues to speak through the Church’s ordered speech.
To think theologically in this form is therefore itself a confession: that divine truth, though transcendent, has chosen to dwell in the grammar of human words.
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Praefatio
Deus loquitur, et fit veritas
(God speaks, and truth comes to be)
These eight disputationes explore how theology, understood as Spirit-formed discourse, bears truth. They trace the inner order of theological reason from its linguistic beginnings to its ontological and eschatological fulfillment. Each disputatio isolates one dimension of that order. Together they constitute a continuous movement—an ordo theologiae—in which language, being, and grace converge.
While the method employed is scholastic in form, it is clearly model-theoretic in aim. Following the medieval structure of thesis, objectiones, responsiones, nota, and determinatio, the disputationes develop theology’s formal and ontological logic without appeal to system or school. In what follows, I do not try to defend inherited conclusions, but rather attempt to display the structure of theological intelligibility itself: how divine speech becomes human language and how human language, by grace, becomes true.
The first three disputationes concern the formal conditions of theological discourse, theology's syntax, its modeling, and its felicity. Theology begins as a rule-governed language T, whose sentences become meaningful only when interpreted within ontological models specifying the reality to which they refer. These models are not arbitrary constructions but confessional interpretations of revelation’s given world. Within this world, speech is governed by the Spirit’s authorization, which defines theology’s felicity conditions and determines what can be said in Spiritu Sancto.
The middle disputationes (IV–VII) investigate the ontological and causal ground of theology’s truth. Truth appears in two forms: internal, as the Spirit’s realization of felicity and external, as the adequacy of theological expression to divine being. This double structure is secured by the Spirit’s causal act, through which human language participates in the being of divine truth. The Spirit’s causality is constitutive; it makes theological language to be what it is. By this act of causation, human speech becomes an instrument of divine communication, and the believer’s being is reconstituted in the form of participation, or theosis.
The final disputation VIII) carries this argument to its eschatological and linguistic horizon. The full coincidence of internal felicity and external adequacy is eschatological, for the Spirit’s authorization of language and the reality it names will one day coincide without remainder. Theology’s truth is therefore both realized and awaited, present as participation by awaiting future manifestation. The last disputatio considers the nova lingua of theology, the “strange language” that arises from the Incarnation. Drawing on Luther’s insight that faith requires a new grammar in which God speaks under opposites, this disputatio shows that theology’s form is necessarily incomplete while its logic is cruciform. The Word’s embodiment inaugurates a language that is finite in form yet infinite in meaning, a language that points beyond itself to the divine Logos who alone is Truth.
These eight disputationes together propose a theological epistemology of participation. Theology is neither empirical or metaphysical description nor pure symbol; it is rather the Spirit’s own discourse rendered through human words. Its language is formal because it is given structure by grace; its truth is real because it shares in the being it confesses. From syntax to theosis, from felicity to truth, from grammar to glory, the disputationes seek to make intelligible the single mystery of revelation: God’s Word, having entered human speech, makes human speech an instrument of divine knowledge.
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On Theological Expressions as Syntactical
Theologia primum tractatur sub ratione syntactica, qua structura locutionis ipsam formam veritatis interius constituit et praebet fundamentum posterioris interpretationis.
Theology is first treated under its syntactical aspect, wherein the structure of utterance itself constitutes the inner form of truth and provides the foundation for later interpretation.
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Thesis
Theological expressions—here denoted T, meaning the total language of faith as it is spoken, written, and confessed—must first be regarded as syntactical: governed by formation and inference rules that secure coherence before questions of meaning or truth arise. Only when this system of expressions is interpreted within a model—that is, placed in relation to what exists—do meaning and truth properly emerge.
Locus classicus
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” — Hebrews 4:12
Divine speech, according to the Apostle, is living—yet its life is not chaotic but articulated, “piercing” and discerning. The Word’s vitality is inseparable from its intelligible form.
Explicatio
Before theology can claim truth, it must possess disciplined language. Every theological expression belongs to a larger body of speech, the lingua fidei or language of faith, symbolized by T. This T is like a formal system in logic: its sentences must be well-formed, consistent, and properly related to one another before they can be said to express truth.
In logic, syntax refers to the internal structure of a language—how sentences are put together—while semantics refers to their meaning in relation to a world. Similarly, theology’s syntax orders the words of revelation before interpretation. Within this syntactical horizon, what matters is not whether a proposition is true or false but whether it can be rightly spoken—whether it fits the grammar of faith authorized by the Spirit.
For example, the statement “Christ is truly present in the Eucharist” is not yet about metaphysical presence when viewed syntactically; it expresses a well-formed confession that belongs to a network of statements derived from Scripture, creed, and liturgy. To violate that network’s grammatical order—say, by detaching the statement from the Eucharistic context or from Christ’s promise—is to lose what Luther calls felicity, the Spirit-given rightness or legitimacy of speech (bene dicere in Spiritu Sancto).
Thus, theology’s first task is grammatical. It secures the coherence of divine speech once it has entered human words. Only after this grammatical integrity is achieved can theology responsibly advance to the next level—modeling—where its expressions are related to being and thus acquire truth-conditions.
Objectiones
Objectio I. Theology cannot be merely formal, for the truth of the gospel precedes all linguistic rules. To treat theology syntactically seems to subordinate revelation to human logic.
Objectio II. Theological language is analogical and poetic. Excessive syntactical discipline risks imprisoning the living Word within human artifice.
Objectio III. Faith speaks to the heart rather than to the structure of propositions. To formalize confession is to destroy its immediacy and existential power.
Responsiones
Ad I. Syntax does not dominate revelation but serves it. The Word of God enters human speech and therefore enters grammar. To attend to the form of T is to protect revelation’s intelligibility, not to restrict its authority.
Ad II. Analogy and poetry are indeed intrinsic to theology, yet even poetry presupposes grammar. Without syntactical order, theology would lose the ability to distinguish genuine mystery from contradiction. Form is not the enemy of Spirit but its vessel; the Spirit inhabits order as much as ecstasy.
Ad III. Faith engages the heart, but confessio—the act of believing speech—is inherently linguistic. The grammar of Tbinds personal conviction to the Church’s shared confession, ensuring that faith remains communicable and accountable. Syntax is therefore the bridge between individual experience and communal proclamation, not a barrier to spiritual life.
Thus, theology’s syntactical order does not imprison the Word; it is the very threshold through which the Word enters the world intelligibly.
Nota
The study of theology as syntactical is not an idle formalism. At the Institute of Lutheran Theology and beyond, this concern for grammar defines how the Church, the academy, and public reason preserve the intelligibility of faith. Where Christian discourse forgets its grammar—whether in preaching, scholarship, or popular devotion—confession decays into sentiment and doctrine into opinion.
The renewal of theological language therefore depends upon communities capable of grammatical fidelity:
schools that teach precision in the use of sacred terms,
churches that guard the patterns of sound words handed down, and
scholars who render the faith publicly intelligible without diluting its form.
Every age must recover its grammar of belief, lest the gospel be spoken in tongues no longer understood.
Determinatio
From the foregoing it is determined that:
Like all object languages, theological discourse T is syntactical before it is semantical; its form precedes its reference.
The Spirit grants the Church a rule-governed language whose coherence must be secured prior to interpretation.
What we call FT—the felicity conditions of T—are the marks of Spirit-given coherence (consistency, entailment, and authorization).
Only when T is joined to an ontological model—a structured account of what is real—do we obtain TC, its truth conditions. In symbolic shorthand, FT + Modeling = TC,
which means: the Spirit’s authorization of speech, combined with its proper relation to being, yields theological truth.
This syntactical priority ensures both theology’s autonomy from empirical reduction and its dependence upon divine address.
To speak theologically, therefore, is to inhabit a grammar already constituted by God’s self-communication and to let that grammar shape every truthful word about God.