Disputatio XVII: De Modeling et Veritate Theologica

On Modeling and Theological Truth

Quaeritur

Utrum modeling theologicum sit actus interpretationis, quo lingua fidei T per Spiritum inseritur in ordinem entis, ut veritas divina in forma creata repraesentetur; et utrum veritas theologica non sit mera correspondentia, sed participatio, ita ut modelum fiat locus in quo significatio finita communicat cum veritate infinita.

Whether theological modeling is the act of interpretation by which the language of faith T is inserted into the order of being through the Spirit, so that divine truth is represented in created form; and whether theological truth is not mere correspondence but participation, such that the model becomes the site where finite meaning communicates with infinite truth.

Thesis

Modeling in theology mediates between the formal structure of faith’s language and the reality of divine being. It is the Spirit’s interpretive act by which finite expressions are rendered adequate to divine truth. Thus, theological truth arises when the language of faith is modeled within ontological participation—when speech and being converge under the causality of the Spirit.

Locus classicus

“Your word is truth.” — John 17:17

Christ’s prayer identifies divine Word and truth as one. The Word does not describe truth; it is truth. Theological modeling, therefore, is the interpretive participation of human language in this divine Word — the act by which theology’s finite words are aligned to the infinite truth they confess.

Explicatio

The term modeling in theology designates the act of relating T, the formal language of faith, to its referent in divine reality.
Earlier disputationes established that:

• T (Disputationes I–V) is syntactical and governed by felicity,

• divine causality (VI–VII) ensures the real participation of creaturely being in God, and

• divine intentionality (X–XVI) grounds meaning and language in God’s own communicative act.

Modeling now unites these strands. It is the Spirit’s work of translation from grammar to ontology, from faith’s finite speech to divine being.

To model theology is not to construct analogies from below but to interpret forms given from above. Every theological model is a finite schema through which divine truth is made intelligible without being exhausted.

Formally (and then explained):

• Let T = the language of faith.

• Let M = the ontological model interpreting T.

• Let FT = the felicity conditions under which speech is rightly ordered.

• Let TC = the truth conditions under which that speech corresponds to being.

The structural relation:

FT + M → TC means that when faith’s language is interpreted within a Spirit-formed ontological model, its felicity becomes truth. In simpler terms: theological modeling is the Spirit’s way of making language true.

This makes theology’s truth participatory rather than merely propositional. A model does not “mirror” God as a copy but “shares” in God as a participation. Its adequacy is analogical: it communicates divine truth in finite mode.

Thus, the veritas theologica is always twofold — immanent within the model and transcendent beyond it. No model contains God, yet each true model signifies and participates in God’s truth.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. According the the logical positivist tradition of Ayer and Carnap, theological models cannot, by definition, be verified or falsified by experience. They are neither analytic nor synthetic propositions but expressions of emotion or moral attitude. Modeling such language formally only disguises its non-cognitive nature. To call theological models “true” is to misuse the word “truth.”

Obiectio II. According to George Lindbeck and post-liberal theology, 
religious language functions like grammar within a community of faith. Modeling theology in reference to divine reality reintroduces an outdated representationalism. Theological statements are true when they coherently express the community’s faith, not when they correspond to an external metaphysical domain. Truth is intra-linguistic, not ontological.

Obiectio III. The analytic realism of Alston or Swineburn would likely argue that model-theoretic semantics, by abstracting theological assertions into formal systems, actually removes them from their epistemic grounding in revelation and evidence. Theology must rest on propositional revelation and rational inference, not on semantic or metaphysical models. Modeling may aid clarity but cannot determine truth.

Obiectio IV. The process and open theism of Hartshorne might object that modeling presupposes static ontology and determinate truth conditions, but God and creation exist in dynamic relation. If the divine reality itself is temporal and evolving, theological models that aim for determinate truth are conceptually obsolete. Truth in theology should be relational and open-ended, not formalized and fixed.

Obiectio V. Postmodern constructivism, e.g., Jean-François Lyotard and Mark C. Taylor argues that all models are human constructs reflecting power, history, and language. Theological “models” therefore reveal only the imagination of believers, not divine reality. There is no metalanguage of truth, only competing narratives. To speak of Spirit-grounded modeling is to mask human construction in theological authority.

Responsiones

Ad I. Logical positivism’s verification principle undermines itself, being neither analytic nor empirically verifiable. Theological models, by contrast, are truth-apt within the ontological domain established by revelation. They are not empirical hypotheses but formal articulations of divine causality and participation. Truth here is not observational but metaphysical—an adequation between language and the divine act of being. The Spirit secures this adequation by constituting reference: the link between the finite symbol and the infinite reality it signifies.

Ad II. Post-liberal coherence captures the communal form of theology but not its referential depth. The Church’s grammar is Spirit-constituted, not self-enclosed. Modeling theology does not abandon grammar; it explicates how grammatical felicity opens onto truth.
Theological statements are true not merely because the community authorizes them but because the Spirit interprets them into ontological reality. Modeling thus bridges communal coherence (felicity) and divine correspondence (truth).

Ad III. Analytic realism is correct in affirming propositional truth, but theological propositions derive their meaning from participation, not mere correspondence. Model-theoretic structure preserves formal rigor while accommodating the transcendence of its referent.
Revelation supplies the data; modeling orders it logically and ontologically. Truth in theology is not confined to human inference but extends to divine causation: the Spirit ensures that models do not merely describe revelation but participate in its act.

Ad IV. Process theology rightly emphasizes relationality, but divine relationality is not temporal becoming; it is the eternal act of self-communication. The Spirit’s causality is continuous, not evolutionary.
Theological models do not freeze divine life into static concepts; they describe stable relations of participation within the dynamic plenitude of God. Truth in theology remains determinate because God’s being is faithful—unchanging in love though living in relation.

Ad V. Postmodern constructivism exposes the finitude of all discourse, but theology interprets this finitude as the very site of divine communication. The Spirit’s presence does not negate historical contingency but transfigures it.Theological models are indeed human in form, yet divine in authorization. Their truth is pneumatic: God speaks in and through finite structures of meaning.To deny all meta-language is itself a meta-linguistic claim; theological realism acknowledges limitation without surrendering truth. The Spirit makes human language capable of transcendence.

Nota

Modeling theology is the grammar of divine realism. It allows theology to speak truthfully of God without collapsing into empiricism or fideism. Each formal model M interprets the language of faith within an ontological environment of participation, where the believer’s predicates correspond to divine correlates:

D_G → D, where D_G denotes a divine property (e.g., goodness in God) and D its participated correlate in the believer.

This relation, mediated by the Spirit, ensures that theology’s language does not float above reality but is anchored in divine causation. Hence, modeling is not speculative construction but a mode of communion: the structured correspondence of word and being within divine speech itself.

The Church, as communitas interpretans, lives within this modeling process. Its doctrine, liturgy, and confession are the Spirit’s ongoing interpretation of divine truth into the finite forms of history.
Theology’s models thus evolve not by invention but by the Spirit’s continual translation of the one Word into ever-new horizons of intelligibility.

In this sense, the entire economy of revelation can be described as a divine modeling of truth in time — the Word becoming flesh, history, and sacrament.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Modeling in theology is the Spirit’s act of relating faith’s language T to divine being, rendering it true through participation.

2. Theological truth is participatory, not merely representational: the model is a locus of communion between finite meaning and infinite reality.

3. The multiplicity of models reflects the analogical fullness of divine truth, not its relativism.

4. The Spirit mediates all modeling, ensuring coherence between felicity (right speaking) and truth (real being).

5. Theology thus achieves realism without idolatry: its words do not replace God but share in His communication.

Transitus ad Disputationen XVIII

Theology has discerned that its language of modeling is not a mere imitation of scientific representation, but a mode of participation in divine revelation. Through analogy and symbol, models open a window into the reality they cannot contain.Yet every model discloses its own insufficiency. To signify the infinite is always to fall short of the infinite. Therefore, the more faithfully theology speaks, the more deeply it senses the silence that surrounds its words.

Hence, modeling truth leads inevitably to the recognition of transcendence. If divine reality is the act by which all meaning is given, then no finite structure can encompass it without distortion. The limits of modeling are therefore not obstacles to truth but its boundary markers, the signs where creaturely thought acknowledges its dependence on the uncreated Light.

Thus we advance to Disputatio XVIII: De Finibus Modeling Theologici et Transcendentia Veritatis, in which we ask whether theological models can ever be adequate to divine reality, how truth manifests itself beyond conceptual form, and how the transcendent Word gathers even the failure of language into the fullness of His self-disclosure.

Disputatio XIV: De Intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico

On Intension and Intention in Theological Discourse

Quaeritur

Utrum in theologia intensio designet participationem sermonis in veritate quam significat, intentio vero exprimat motum Spiritus quo sermo et cognoscens ordinantur ad Deum; atque utrum hae duae, intensio et intentio, constituant duplicem structuram loquelae theologicae—formam significationis et actum directionis.

Whether in theology intension designates the participation of speech in the truth it signifies, while intention expresses the motion of the Spirit by which both speech and the knower are directed toward God; and whether these two—intension and intention—together constitute the dual structure of theological discourse: the form of meaning and the act of orientation.

Thesis

Theological discourse is doubly ordered: by intension, which expresses the participation of language in divine meaning, and by intention, which expresses the Spirit’s orientation of that language toward its divine referent. The integrity of theology depends on the harmony of these two—form and direction—so that what theology says and why it says it coincide in one act of faith.

Locus classicus

“We have the mind of Christ.” — 1 Corinthians 2:16

The Apostle here unites cognition and orientation. To have the “mind of Christ” is not merely to possess concepts but to be inwardly directed by the Spirit toward God’s will. Theology’s truth lies not only in the content of its assertions but in the intention that animates them.

Explicatio

In Disputatio XIII, we described intension as the participatory depth of theological meaning—language sharing in what it signifies. Here we extend that insight to the act of speaking and knowing. For theology, meaning without intention is incomplete: truth must be not only known but loved.

In scholastic logic, intensio and intentio are etymologically linked: both derive from intendere, “to stretch toward.” Yet they differ by aspect. Intensio describes the form or structure of meaning—the way predicates are “stretched” around their content. Intentio describes the movement of the mind and will toward the object known.

In theology, these two are inseparable because language itself is pneumatic—it exists as motion toward God. The Spirit not only grants meaning but directs that meaning toward its divine end.

Formally, we may represent this (and then explain it):

• Let I(p) denote the intension of a theological predicate p, its form of meaning through participation in divine reality.

• Let T(p) denote the intention of that same predicate, its pneumatic direction toward God as ultimate referent.

• The relation I(p) → T(p) means: the Spirit completes meaning by drawing it toward God; the truth of theology depends not only on what a term means but on the divine orientation of its use.

Thus, theological language is teleological: it moves from signification to communion, from word to worship. To speak theologically is to let the Spirit align one’s words and will toward the divine horizon.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. In Cartesian mentalism, meaning and intention are properties of individual minds. Intension is the concept contained within thought; intention is the mind’s act of directing that concept to an object. To introduce the Holy Spirit as the cause of either collapses epistemic autonomy. Theological intention should be understood psychologically, not metaphysically.

Obiectio II. According to empiricist semantics, language functions through public usage, not inner intention. Meaning is determined by observable linguistic conventions, not by subjective acts. Theological appeals to “Spirit-inspired intention” introduce unverifiable metaphysical claims that add nothing to semantic explanation.

Obiectio III. According to Wittgensteinian use theory, within the community of faith, intention is simply conformity to use: the believer “means” what the Church means. Talk of divine authorization or participation misrepresents grammar as metaphysics. Theological statements gain their sense from practice, not from invisible intentions.

Obiectio IV. Kantian moral theology holds that intention belongs to the moral will, not to cognition. Theology confuses ethical intention—obedience to the moral law—with epistemic intention, directedness of thought. Revelation does not supply new cognitive content but moral motivation. Therefore, intention in theology should be understood ethically, not cognitively or ontologically.

Obiectio V. In postmodern deconstruction every act of meaning is contaminated by différance; intention never coincides with expression. To claim that in theology, intention and intension converge through the Spirit, is to reassert the metaphysics of presence. Divine authorization cannot close the gap between saying and meaning without abolishing the play of signification that makes language possible.

Responsiones

Ad I. Cartesian mentalism confines meaning to private consciousness, but theology begins not with the isolated mind but with the communicative act of God. The Spirit does not override cognition but grounds it: divine causality constitutes the possibility of theological intention. The human mind does not direct itself toward God; it is drawn. The Spirit is not a competitor to thought but the condition under which finite intentionality becomes genuinely God-directed.

Ad II. Empiricism rightly demands public criteria for meaning, yet the Church’s public language is itself the manifestation of divine causality. The Spirit’s work is not a hidden supplement to convention but the ontological ground of convention’s truth. Without the Spirit, the same words remain grammatically correct but theologically empty. Pneumatological intention is therefore the difference between talking about God and being addressed by God in one’s speech.

Ad III. Wittgenstein’s insight—that the grammar of faith determines the sense of theological language—is essential, but the Church’s grammar is not self-sustaining. The Spirit animates its use, converting communal form into divine act. Intention in theology is not reducible to usage; it is the Spirit’s actualization of use as confession. Grammar defines possibility; the Spirit realizes actuality.

Ad IV. Kant separates moral from cognitive intention, but in revelation the two are one: to know God is to will the good, and to will the good is to participate in God’s knowing. The Spirit unites intellect and will in a single movement of faith. Theological intention is thus both moral and epistemic—a mode of participation in divine self-knowledge.

Ad V. Deconstruction rightly reveals the instability of finite language, but theology interprets this not as nihilism but as sign of creaturely dependence. The Spirit does not erase différance but sanctifies it, making difference the very medium of communion. The Word becomes flesh not by annihilating finitude but by filling it. In theological discourse, intention and intension coincide not by closure but by grace: finite language becomes true without ceasing to be finite.

Nota

The dual structure of theological discourse mirrors the Incarnation itself. Just as the Word assumes human nature without destroying it, so divine meaning assumes human intention without abolishing freedom.

The intensio of theology ensures formal integrity: its words participate truly in divine realities. The intentio ensures final orientation: those same words are directed toward praise and communion.

We can imagine this schematically:

Intensio → Intentio → Gloria
meaning leads to direction, direction to glorification.

Thus, theology is not only a science of statements but a discipline of sanctified desire. Its language must mean truly and move rightly. Where intension is severed from intention, theology becomes formalism; where intention eclipses intension, it becomes enthusiasm. Only the Spirit holds the two in unity.

This unity also resolves the ancient tension between speculative and practical theology. The speculative intellect (intensio) contemplates truth; the practical will (intentio) seeks the good. In the Spirit, contemplation and love converge. To know God is to be oriented toward God; to be oriented toward God is already to know Him.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theological discourse possesses a double structure: intensio, the participatory form of meaning, and intentio, the pneumatic orientation of that meaning toward God.

2. These are distinct yet inseparable: the Spirit who gives form to meaning also directs it to its divine end.

3. The truth of theology lies not merely in the correctness of propositions but in the sanctity of their direction—their being spoken toward God.

4. Human reason and will participate in this double causality: reason shares in divine truth, and will shares in divine charity.

5. Thus, theology is both contemplative and doxological: to understand God rightly is already to be drawn into the praise of God.

Transitus ad Disputationem XV

Theological discourse has been shown to depend not merely upon conceptual content but upon right intention—the movement of the soul toward the reality it names. To speak truly is to will rightly; to intend God is already to be drawn into His light. Yet every human intention remains derivative, a participation in a greater act of knowing that precedes it. If the intellect of faith can intend divine truth, it must do so because divine cognition has already intended the creature.

Hence arises a deeper question: What is the nature of divine intentionality itself? Does God know creatures by representing them, or by causing them? Is the divine act of knowledge receptive, as in us, or creative, as identical with being itself? To understand our own intending, theology must first understand the primal act of divine knowing from which all finite cognition flows.

Therefore we proceed to Disputatio XV: De Intentionalitate et Cognitione Divina, wherein we examine how God’s knowledge relates to the being of creatures, whether divine cognition is analogically intentional or utterly simple, and how the human act of understanding participates in that eternal knowing by which all things are comprehended and sustained.

Disputatio XIII: De Intensione et Modeling Linguae Theologicae

On Intension and the Modeling of Theological Language

Quaeritur

Utrum intensio in theologia non sit mera conceptio mentis, sed forma participationis, qua sermo fidelis participat in ipsa re de qua loquitur; et utrum modeling theologicum sit interpretatio huius intensionalis structurae intra ordinem entis, per quam verbum fidei inseritur in veritatem ontologicam a Spiritu causatam.

Whether intension in theology is not merely a mental conception but a mode of participation by which faithful speech shares in the very reality it names; and whether theological modeling is the interpretation of this intensional structure within the order of being, through which the word of faith is inserted into the ontological truth caused by the Spirit.

Thesis

The intension of theological language expresses the way in which meaning and being coinhere through participation. Modeling is the act by which these intensional forms are interpreted within ontological structures, so that theology’s speech corresponds to divine reality. Thus, intensionality grounds the realism of theology’s models: words mean what they mean because they share, analogically, in what they signify.

Locus classicus

“My word that goes out from my mouth shall not return to me empty, but shall accomplish that which I purpose.” — Isaiah 55:11

Here the Word of God is not a sign that points to something absent, but a living act that accomplishes what it names. The divine Word is intensional in the highest sense: its meaning and its effect coincide. Theology’s task is to reflect this coincidence within the limits of human language.

Explicatio

In ordinary logic, intension refers to the content or concept of a term—what it signifies internally—while extension refers to the set of things to which it applies. In theology, however, intension cannot be reduced to mere conceptual content, for the meaning of divine terms arises from participation in the realities they signify.

When theology says “Deus est bonus” (“God is good”), the term bonus has an intension that differs fundamentally from its use in secular discourse. Its meaning is not abstracted from experience but given through participation in divine goodness itself. The Spirit mediates this participation, so that human predicates acquire analogical depth.

Let us represent this symbolically (and immediately explain):

• Let I(p) denote the intension of a theological predicate p—its interior content as informed by participation in divine reality.

• Let M(p) denote the modeling of that predicate—the interpretation of p within an ontological framework of being. The relation I(p) → M(p) expresses that theological modeling extends the meaning (intension) of language into ontology; what faith means, ontology makes real.

Hence, modeling theology is not constructing analogies externally but recognizing that the intensional life of faith’s language already participates in the realities to which it refers.

Theological predicates are therefore intensional in a deeper sense than philosophical ones: their meanings are not closed concepts but open participations. Each name of God carries within it a structural reference to divine causality. To speak truly of God is to allow the intension of language to become a site of encounter, where meaning and being converge.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Aristotle and his scholastic heirs maintain the position of Aristotelian realism, the view that the meaning of predicates is exhausted by their extension to real things. Intension adds nothing to ontology. To analyze theological predicates intensionally—as if their sense exceeded their reference—is to introduce needless abstraction. The meaning of “God is good” is simply that God instantiates goodness; no intensional layer is needed.

Obiectio II. From the standpoint of empiricist verificationalism, all meaningful statements are either empirically verifiable or analytically true. Theological predicates refer to no empirically testable properties and therefore lack cognitive meaning. Model-theoretic “interpretation” of such terms merely disguises their non-referential status under formal symbols. To construct intensional models for theology is to rationalize what is semantically empty.

Obiectio III. Following later Wittgenstein, meaning arises from use within a linguistic form of life (Lebensform). To model theological language formally or intensionally is to misunderstand its grammar. The meaning of “grace,” “sin,” or “Spirit” lies in their practical employment within worship and life, not in their reference to divine properties or in hypothetical models. Modeling theology as if it described an external reality mistakes liturgical use for scientific representation.

Obiectio IV. Contemporary analytic semantics often treats meaning extensionally, defining reference via truth conditions over possible worlds. Since divine reality is not empirically accessible or multiply realizable across worlds, theological language cannot admit of model-theoretic interpretation without violating the principle of extensional adequacy. Theology should confine itself to moral or metaphorical discourse rather than claim intensional reference to the divine.

Obiectio V. George Lindbeck’s cultural-linguistic model asserts that theological statements are true insofar as they cohere with the community’s grammar. There is no external domain into which they must be modeled. To introduce an intensional semantics for theology is to reintroduce representational realism and to confuse the performative, intra-ecclesial truth of faith with philosophical speculation.

Responsiones

Ad I. Aristotelian realism rightly grounds meaning in real being but overlooks the form of participation by which finite predicates relate to divine reality. In theology, predication is not univocal: “God is good” does not signify an extensionally shared property but an analogical relation between divine perfection and finite concept. Intensional analysis captures this formal relation—it models the way predicates point beyond their finite instantiations toward infinite fulfillment. Thus, intensional semantics safeguards the analogia fidei: a structure of participation rather than mere attribution.

Ad II. Empiricist verificationism confuses empirical access with cognitive meaning. Theological terms are cognitively meaningful within the ontology of participation: they refer not by sense-data but by divine causality. Model-theoretic interpretation supplies the formal correlate of this claim. It shows that theological language can be given structured domains and interpretation functions consistent with its own rules of felicity. Intensional models do not disguise emptiness; they make explicit the structure of theological reference within divine reality.

Ad III. Wittgenstein’s insight that meaning depends on use is valid at the pragmatic level but incomplete. Theological use is itself grounded in divine authorization. The Spirit makes the Church’s grammar not merely functional but truth-bearing. Modeling theology intensionally does not deny use; it articulates the inner logic by which use participates in divine meaning. The grammar of faith is a finite surface of an infinite semantics. Without such modeling, theology remains descriptively sociological rather than truth-apt.

Ad IV. Extensional semantics suffices for empirical domains but not for theological ones, where reference involves hyperintensional distinctions between formally equivalent but ontologically distinct predicates (e.g., “Creator” and “Redeemer”). Theology must operate at the intensional level because divine properties relate analogically, not extensionally. Model-theoretic analysis extends semantics beyond possible worlds to the domain of divine possibility, the space of God’s communicative acts. Hence, intensional modeling is not optional but necessary for theology’s realism.

Ad V. Post-liberal coherence captures the communal form of theology but lacks the means to account for its truth. Theological language does not merely describe communal life; it claims participation in divine reality. Model-theoretic interpretation provides a way to express that claim rigorously. By mapping the formal language of theology (T) into an ontological domain structured by participation, it unites communal felicity (FT) with divine truth-conditions (TC). Intensionality here serves realism: it formalizes the link between faith’s grammar and God’s being.

Nota

Intensionality in theology reveals the deep correspondence between divine and human discourse. Just as the Word of God contains within itself both meaning and being—significatio et effectus—so theological speech, animated by the Spirit, partakes in that same structure.

In model-theoretic terms, theological language is not a static set of propositions but a living model in which predicates participate in the realities they denote. When theology says “Christ is Lord,” this is not a metaphor to be verified externally; it is a confession whose intension already shares in Christ’s lordship through the Spirit.

Modeling thus performs a theological epistemology of incarnation: finite words filled with infinite content, formal structure suffused with divine causality. In this sense, modeling does not invent theology’s truth but explicates it—it unfolds the internal participation already latent in theological meaning.

Hence, to study theology’s intension is to trace how language itself becomes sacramental: a sign whose signification and grace coincide.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Intension in theology signifies participation: the inward meaning of a theological term is its share in divine reality.

2. Modeling interprets these intensional forms within an ontological framework, revealing how language and being correspond through the Spirit.

3. The Spirit is the cause of this correspondence, uniting signification (intensio) and reality (veritas) without confusion.

4. Theological precision arises not from limiting meaning but from its right participation in the divine.

5. Therefore, the intension of theology’s language is itself a locus of revelation: the Word that makes meaning also makes being, and modeling is the act by which this unity is rendered intelligible.

Transitus ad Disputationem XIV: De intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico

In considering the intension of theological language, we discerned that the meaning of theological terms cannot be exhausted by conceptual modeling. Their adequacy arises not only from logical structure but from participation in divine self-disclosure. Yet meaning, to be fully theological, must not only signify rightly but also intend rightly, that is, it must move from formal content to living reference, from concept to act.

For theology is not an inventory of divine predicates but a directed discourse of faith. What it says and how it says are bound together in the intention of the believer speaking within the Spirit. To model the divine truth is one thing; to intend that truth in the act of confession is another. Here, the intellect and the will converge in a single movement of participation: understanding becomes invocation.

Hence we advance to Disputatio XIV: De Intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico, where it is asked how the inner content (intensio) of theological concepts relates to the directedness (intentio) of theological speech, and whether true theology consists not in correct modeling alone but in that Spirit-led act in which language, will, and divine reality are gathered into one.

Disputatio X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei

On Revelation and Knowledge of God

Quaeritur

Utrum cognitio Dei oriatur ex participatione in actu ipsius revelationis, ita ut Deus cognoscatur non per discursum rationis sed in ipso actu quo se revelat; et utrum hic actus revelationis sit constitutive duplex, simul exterior in Verbo proclamato et interior in Spiritu illuminante, per quos intellectus humanus capax fit veritatis divinae.

Whether knowledge of God arises through participation in the act of divine revelation itself, such that God is known not through discursive reason but within the very act by which He discloses Himself; and whether this revelatory act is constitutively twofold—external in the proclaimed Word and internal in the illuminating Spirit—by whom the human intellect is made capable of divine truth.

Thesis

True knowledge of God does not originate in human speculation. It arises only within revelation. Revelation is not chiefly the transmission of information about God but the divine self-giving through which God becomes knowable. In this act the eternal Word addresses the human intellect externally through the scriptural and proclaimed Word, while the Holy Spirit illumines the intellect internally, enabling participation in the truth revealed.

Thus theological cognition is a participatory reception of divine self-manifestation. It is neither autonomous reasoning nor passive impression. It is the Spirit-mediated union of the knower with the truth that reveals itself. In knowing God, the intellect becomes—by grace—an organ of divine manifestation.

Locus classicus

John 17:3
Haec est autem vita aeterna, ut cognoscant te, solum verum Deum, et quem misisti Iesum Christum.
“And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

1 Corinthians 2:12
Nos autem non spiritum mundi accepimus, sed Spiritum qui ex Deo est, ut sciamus quae a Deo donata sunt nobis.
“We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand the things freely given us by God.”

Augustine, De Trinitate IX.13
Non intratur in veritatem nisi per ipsam veritatem.
“One does not enter into truth except through Truth itself.”

These witnesses articulate a single insight: revelation both discloses divine reality and creates the capacity for its reception. Knowledge of God presupposes both the presence of the revealing Word and the illumination of the Spirit.

Explicatio

The inquiry into divine revelation must begin with the recognition that God is not an object within the world whose properties may be inferred from created effects. God is known only because God gives Himself to be known. Revelation is therefore not an epistemic supplement to natural inquiry but the condition under which knowledge of God becomes possible. In revealing Himself, God not only manifests the truth but also creates the horizon within which that truth can be apprehended.

Revelation is thus a single divine act with a twofold form. Externally, the Word addresses the creature through prophetic and apostolic testimony, through preaching, and supremely in the Incarnate Son. Internally, the Spirit illumines the intellect so that what is heard may be recognized as divine truth. These two operations are inseparable. The external Word is the objective presence of revelation; the internal illumination is its subjective reception. Without the Word, illumination lacks content. Without illumination, the Word is not savingly known. Revelation occurs only in the union of these acts.

This twofold structure safeguards the intellect from both rationalism and enthusiasm. Rationalism assumes that the mind can rise to divine truth by its own power; enthusiasm imagines that divine truth can be apprehended apart from the concrete forms of God’s address. But theological cognition arises only where the Spirit joins the intellect to the proclaimed Word and thereby renders the creature capable of divine truth. This elevation does not replace natural capacities; it perfects them. The intellect does not cease to reason; rather, it reasons within a light it does not generate.

In this sense revelation is not merely epistemic but ontological. It is the act in which God is present to the creature and the creature is drawn into that presence. The intellect knows God not by forming concepts that encompass the divine essence but by participating in the self-disclosure of the One who reveals Himself. The mode of knowing corresponds to the mode of being known. Because God reveals Himself personally, the creature knows personally; because God reveals Himself freely, the creature knows by grace; because God reveals Himself truly, the creature knows in truth, though not comprehensively.

The knowledge that arises from revelation is therefore hyperintensional in character. It cannot be reduced to predicative content or inferential structure. Its meaning exceeds the natural extension of its predicates because the truths they signify are grounded in God’s own presence. To confess that Christ is Lord, or that God is Father, is to speak within a horizon opened by the Spirit’s illumination—a horizon in which the predicate receives a depth of meaning that transcends its natural usage. Revelation not only informs language; it transforms the conditions under which language signifies.

Thus theological cognition is a form of participation. The intellect does not merely receive propositions but is joined to the truth they express. This union does not dissolve the creaturely mode of knowing; it fulfills it. The intellect remains finite, yet it becomes capable of knowing the infinite according to the measure of grace. Knowledge of God is therefore neither an achievement nor an absorption. It is a gift: apprehension without comprehension, union without confusion, presence without possession.

In this way revelation gives rise to a distinctive epistemic posture: wonder before the One who reveals, receptivity to the form of His address, and obedience to the truth disclosed. The knower is not sovereign; the object is not neutral; the act of knowing is not autonomous. Each is ordered by the divine initiative. Revelation is the light in which the intellect sees, and the light by which it becomes capable of seeing. In its deepest sense, revelation is the presence of God granting Himself to be known.

Objectiones

Ob I. If theological knowledge requires interior illumination, its certainty seems to rest on a private act that cannot be publicly verified. This appears to render theology subjective.

Ob II. If the finite intellect cannot know God except through participation in revelation, natural reason appears useless for theology, contradicting the tradition that assigns reason a genuine though limited role.

Ob III. If the intellect must be elevated to know God, then its natural capacities are insufficient. This suggests that either divine knowledge is impossible for finite beings or that nature is swallowed by grace.

Ob IV. If God is known only as He reveals Himself, then God becomes both the condition and object of knowing. This unity threatens to collapse the distinction between Creator and creature.

Responsiones

Ad I. Illumination is not a private inner certainty but an ecclesial event. The Spirit illumines through the public Word, not apart from it. What is grasped inwardly corresponds to what is proclaimed outwardly. The objectivity of revelation grounds the subject’s reception.

Ad II. Reason is neither negated nor replaced. Its natural operations remain indispensable for discerning meaning, testing coherence, and receiving revelation. What reason cannot do is generate knowledge of God. Grace perfects nature; it does not annul it.

Ad III. The intellect’s elevation is not a change of essence but a participation in divine light. Nature is neither destroyed nor absorbed. It becomes proportionate to the truth it receives through a relation of communion, not through ontological fusion.

Ad IV. Revelation unites knowing and being known without collapsing them. God is both Revealer and Revealed, yet the knower remains creaturely. Participation confers intimacy, not identity.

Nota

Disputatio X marks a structural turning point. Disputatio IX showed that divine speech transforms human language by assuming it into the expressive act of the Word. Disputatio X now shows that this same divine act transforms the intellect by illuminating it with the Spirit. The possibility of theology rests on this double assumption: the Word assumes human speech, and the Spirit assumes human knowing. Revelation is thus both the manifestation of divine truth and the creation of the capacity to receive it.

This insight prepares for what follows. If knowledge of God arises in revelation, and revelation is the presence of the Revealer in the act of revealing, then the next question must concern the mode of divine presence itself.

Determinatio

1. Knowledge of God arises only within divine revelation.

2. Revelation is intrinsically twofold: the external Word and the internal illumination.

3. The intellect becomes capable of divine truth through participation in the revelatory act.

4. Theological cognition is Spirit-mediated apprehension of divine self-disclosure.

5. Reason retains its natural dignity but is perfected, not displaced, by grace.

6. To know God is to participate in His presence: apprehensio sine comprehensione, unio sine confusione.

Transitus ad Disputationem XI

If knowledge arises only where God reveals Himself, then revelation presupposes a mode of divine presence in which God is genuinely encountered within finite forms. What is this presence? How does the infinite dwell amid the finite without displacement or division?

To answer this, we proceed to Disputatio XI: De Praesentia Dei, where the ontology of divine presence will be examined.

Disputatio IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae

On the New Language of Theology

Quaeritur

Utrum nova lingua theologiae oritur ex ipso actu Incarnationis, qua Logos aeternus non solum humanam naturam sed etiam humanam loquelam assumpsit, ita ut sermo humanus in ipsa assumptionis unitate transfiguraretur; et utrum haec lingua, Spiritu Sancto vivificata, sit forma finita veritatis infinitae per quam sermo humanus non tantum de Deo dicit sed eius praesentiam realiter participat.

Whether the new language of theology arises from the very act of the Incarnation, in which the eternal Logos assumes not only human nature but the expressive and signifying powers proper to humanity, transfiguring human discourse in the unity of that assumption; and whether this language, vivified by the Holy Spirit, constitutes a finite form of infinite truth by which human speech not only speaks of God but participates in the divine presence.

Thesis

Theology speaks in a nova lingua because the Word has entered the sphere of human signification and has taken this sphere into Himself. The Incarnation is not merely an ontological union of divine and human natures. It is also the elevation of the human capacity for meaning. Ordinary speech, in itself finite, bounded, and ordered to created realities, becomes in the Spirit the site where infinite truth can appear. The nova lingua is therefore neither an esoteric jargon nor a spontaneous invention of the religious imagination. It is the linguistic form of the Incarnation itself. Human words, assumed into the expressive act of the Word, become instruments of divine self-communication. 

Locus classicus

John 1.14
Καὶ ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.
"And the Word became flesh, full of grace and truth."

This text establishes the primitive fact from which all theological language proceeds. The Logos enters flesh and thereby the historical, symbolic, and communicative structures through which flesh signifies. The Incarnation is thus an event within being and within language. The locus of human discourse becomes the locus of divine presence.

Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. 101
Quod non est assumptum, non est sanatum.

"What was not assumed was not healed."

If the expressive capacity by which human beings speak and understand belongs to human nature, then this capacity is assumed. If assumed, it is healed. If healed, it is elevated. Language does not remain outside salvation. It becomes one of the modalities through which salvation is communicated.

Augustine, Confessiones XI.6
Verbum tuum non praeterit, sed manet, et per quod omnia manent.

"Your Word does not pass away, but endures, and through it all things endure."

The eternal Word speaks all things into being and sustains all things in being. In the Incarnation the same Word speaks within history. The divine utterance that grounds the world becomes audible in human speech.

Jean-Louis Chrétien, L’arche de la parole
La parole humaine est ravivée par la venue de la Parole incarnée.

"Human speech is revived by the coming of the Incarnate Word."

The Incarnate Word does not merely use human language. The Word restores it to its original vocation as a medium of truth and presence.

The witnesses converge upon one insight. The Incarnation renders language permeable to the divine. Speech becomes a place where God may be encountered. 

Explicatio

The inquiry into a nova lingua theologiae does not arise from a desire to innovate in style but from the nature of revelation itself. Human speech is formed within the created order and is therefore proportioned to finite objects. Its predicates acquire their sense from the world of temporal, limited things. Left to itself, such language cannot bear the weight of divine truth. If God is to be spoken in human words, those words must become capable of signifying beyond their natural measure. This is not an aesthetic refinement but a metaphysical necessity, for revelation is not chiefly the transmission of information about God; it is God’s own self-giving. A language adequate to such self-giving must be conformed to the reality that gives itself.

Here ontology and semantics converge. The nature of the object revealed governs the form of the discourse that can truthfully speak it. One cannot speak the infinite with a grammar shaped exclusively for the finite. If the eternal Λόγος enters history, then the expressive powers native to history must be capacitated for divine use. The nova lingua is therefore not a distinct theological lexicon running alongside ordinary speech. It is a transformation of signification grounded in the Incarnation. Human grammar retains its recognizable form, yet its horizon expands. What once signified finite realities alone is taken up, redirected, and perfected so that it may signify the presence of God within the world.

This elevation of language is not the achievement of human ingenuity. It occurs only under the divine act by which the Word assumes human nature and the Spirit vivifies human speech. No linguistic creativity could produce predicates fit for God. The nova lingua is the fruit of participation rather than construction. Language becomes capable of God because God becomes present within language.

For clarity we may name the grammar of natural discourse Tₒ. Within this grammar contradiction marks error, absence denotes privation, weakness signifies limitation, and death terminates meaning. Tₒ is wholly proper to the created order and must never be despised. It orders finite speakers to finite realities and remains indispensable whenever theology speaks of the world as world. Yet Tₒ, precisely because it is finite, cannot speak the infinite except by negation or analogy. Its predicates receive their sense from the created order alone and therefore cannot disclose the God who exceeds that order.

When the Incarnate Word speaks, another grammar becomes possible—call it Tₙ. Within Tₙ, power appears in weakness, presence is encountered under forms of absence, glory is revealed in humiliation, and life arises from death. These are not poetical inversions. They belong to the very structure of divine self-revelation. The infinite discloses itself within the finite sub contrario—beneath what would naturally signify its opposite. Thus the grammar of the world is not denied; it is overcome from within by the reality it was never designed to contain.

The relation between Tₒ and Tₙ mirrors the Chalcedonian structure of the Incarnation. The grammars remain distinct yet united in the expressive act of the Word. Tₒ retains its integrity and is never swallowed by Tₙ; Tₙ never abolishes Tₒ but draws it into a broader horizon. This is the linguistic analogue of the communicatio idiomatum. Just as the human nature of Christ becomes the instrument of divine self-revelation without ceasing to be human, so the grammar of creation becomes the vessel of divine truth without ceasing to be the grammar of creation.

This incarnational structure reveals why theological language becomes hyperintensional. In ordinary discourse the meaning of predicates is bounded by their extension and by the inferential relations of Tₒ. But in the nova lingua, meaning is determined by participation in the reality signified. Words remain lexically unchanged, yet their ontological grounding shifts. They signify more than their natural extension could sustain because they are drawn into the expressive act of the Word. Hyperintensional density is therefore not a semantic anomaly; it is the imprint of the Incarnation upon human speech.

The nova lingua is thus both grammatical and miraculous. It is grammatical because it retains the structures of natural discourse; it is miraculous because its truth is governed by the Spirit who renders human predicates fit to bear divine meaning. Without grammar, theology collapses into enthusiasm. Without miracle, it collapses back into the limits of Tₒ. Only when grammar is perfected by miracle does it become capable of speaking God.

For this reason the Spirit stands at the center of theological felicity. A predicate becomes capable of divine truth not by conforming to natural rules alone but by being spoken in Spiritu. The Spirit does not merely guarantee the truth of what is said; the Spirit grounds the very possibility of its being said. Every theological predicate presupposes the pneumatological act that joins the finite word to the divine reality it signifies. This authorization is the felicity of theological speech. Without it the nova lingua would be impossible; with it, human utterance becomes a mode of divine self-communication.

Thus theological predication is neither univocal nor equivocal but participatory. The predicate signifies God not by indicating a property shared with creatures but by indicating a perfection creatures receive from God. Meaning is governed from above even when expressed from below. The Word assumes human speaking; the Spirit extends that assumption into every act of theological discourse. The result is a language that can speak more than it naturally means because its meaning is constituted not solely by lexical content or inferential structure but by the divine act that grounds its felicity.

The nova lingua is therefore the grammar of participation. It is the linguistic form of the Incarnation and the semantic structure of the Church’s life in the Spirit. In it the finite becomes the bearer of the infinite; human words—assumed, elevated, and vivified—become instruments of divine truth. This grammar is not a static system but the ongoing miracle through which God grants creatures to speak what they could never have spoken by nature. It is the restoration of language to its source, the return of speech to the One from whom all meaning proceeds and in whom all true signification finds its end.

Objectiones

Ob I. If theology requires a nova lingua in order to speak truthfully of God, then ordinary human language is insufficient for divine revelation. This implies that revelation cannot be immediately intelligible to natural reason, which contradicts the catholic conviction that God addresses Himself to all.

Ob II. The introduction of a new grammar risks confusing paradox with contradiction. If power is said to appear in weakness and life in death, one may easily mistake the collapse of rational coherence for the presence of mystery. The nova lingua therefore threatens theological discourse with irrationality.

Ob III. If divine predicates require the Spirit’s authorization to be applied felicitously, theological meaning becomes dependent upon an invisible act that cannot be verified by linguistic or logical criteria. The nova lingua thus undermines the possibility of shared, public theological argument.

Ob IV. By asserting that finite language may bear infinite truth, the nova lingua appears to bind the divine to the limitations of human forms. If the Word assumes human speech, divine truth seems to be constrained by the contingencies of grammar and history, thereby compromising God’s transcendence.

Responsiones

Ad I. The nova lingua does not render ordinary language obsolete. It assumes it. Human speech remains the medium of revelation precisely because it is taken up by the Word. The intelligibility of revelation depends not on the natural adequacy of language but on the divine act that renders language adequate. The Spirit does not bypass human understanding but elevates it. Thus revelation is intelligible to all, though it is received according to the measure of participation granted.

Ad II. The nova lingua retains the logical order proper to human discourse. Paradox does not signal a breakdown of reason but the incursion of a reality that exceeds finite categories. In Tₒ, weakness denotes limitation. In Tₙ, weakness becomes the site where divine power is made manifest. This is not contradiction but hyper-intensional elevation. The form remains, the content is enlarged. Mystery is not irrationality but a higher rationality grounded in participation in the divine.

Ad III. The Spirit’s authorization of theological predicates does not negate the public character of theology. It grounds it. For theology speaks not from private illumination but from the ecclesial life formed by the Word and Sacraments. The felicity of theological speech is therefore visible in its effects: it produces confession, repentance, consolation, and praise. The nova lingua is not private speech. It is the common language of the Church, whose public life attests the Spirit’s presence.

Ad IV. The assumption of human language does not bind God to finitude. It manifests God’s freedom. The Word takes on linguistic form not out of necessity but out of gracious condescension. By assuming language, God does not become limited; language becomes capacitated. Transcendence is not compromised but expressed in the act whereby the infinite communicates itself through the finite. The nova lingua is a sign of divine generosity, not divine restriction.

Nota

The nova lingua is the point at which the various trajectories of the preceding disputationes converge. The first disputation established the grammar of theological utterance. The second examined the structures by which theological meaning may be modeled. The third investigated the felicity conditions of theological speech. The fourth and fifth clarified the nature of theological truth. The sixth grounded meaning and truth in the causality of God. The seventh unfolded the ontology of participation. The eighth explored the mode of divine manifestation within the finite.

In this ninth disputation these strands are united. Language becomes the locus where causality, participation, manifestation, and truth converge. Finite speech becomes the arena of divine self-communication. The nova lingua is therefore not an ornamental feature of theology. It is the medium through which theology becomes possible at all.

Through the Incarnation human language receives a new vocation. It becomes capable of bearing divine truth. Through the Spirit it receives a new power. It becomes capable of speaking that truth in the Church. The nova lingua is thus the linguistic expression of the union between God and humanity that lies at the heart of Christian revelation.

Determinatio

1. The new language of theology arises from the Incarnation itself. In assuming human nature, the eternal Word also assumes the expressive capacities proper to that nature, elevating human speech within the order of signification. 
2. This nova lingua is sustained by the Holy Spirit, who renders finite predicates capable of bearing infinite meaning. The Spirit grants felicity to theological utterance and joins human words to the divine reality they signify. 
3. The new grammar, Tₙ, does not negate the old grammar, Tₒ. It fulfills it. Tₒ remains valid and operative within the horizon of creation, while Tₙ becomes necessary within the horizon of revelation.
4. The nova lingua is therefore not a replacement of natural grammar but its transfiguration. What belonged to the finite order is taken up and perfected so that it may participate in the expressive act of the Word.
5. In this new grammar the finite may speak the infinite without confusion, and the infinite may reveal itself within the finite without diminution. The nova lingua is the linguistic analogue of the hypostatic union.
6. Through this language theological predicates become instruments of divine self-communication. Human speech, assumed and vivified by the Word and Spirit, participates in the truth it proclaims.

Transitus ad Disputationem X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei

The nova lingua reveals that theological speech is grounded in divine causality. The Word assumes human language; the Spirit authorizes its predicates; the finite becomes capable of bearing the infinite. Yet language, however elevated, does not alone confer understanding. To speak is not yet to know. To hear the Word is not yet to comprehend it.

If the nova lingua is possible through the Incarnation, the theological intellect must be rendered capable of receiving what this language conveys. Thus we are led to inquire into the nature of revelation as an act that not only discloses divine truth but also transforms the knower. The Spirit who gives felicity to language must also give light to the intellect. We now turn to Disputatio X:  De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei.