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 in ordine entis interpretatur et inhabitat, ut veritas divina in forma creata manifestetur; 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, through the Spirit, is interpreted within and inhabits the order of being, so that divine truth is manifested 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

“Sanctifica eos in veritate; verbum tuum veritas est.”
John 17:17

Christ does not identify truth with correct description but with the Word itself. Divine truth is not represented by language from without but participated from within. Theological modeling therefore does not construct truth but aligns finite speech to the truth that precedes and grounds it.

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. 

Modeling does not create the ontological environment in which theology speaks. That environment is already given. Language is intelligible because it inhabits teleo-spaces of meaning grounded in the Logos as objective intelligibility. Theological modeling therefore does not insert discourse into being but articulates finite forms within an intelligible order that precedes all interpretation. The Spirit’s work is not ontological fabrication but faithful alignment: rendering finite models transparent to the Logos that lures intelligibility into form.

To model theology is not to construct analogies from below but to interpret forms drawn from revelation within the teleo-spaces of participation that make meaning possible. Every theological model is a finite schema through which divine truth becomes 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 significet participationem sermonis in veritate quam nominat, intentio vero designet pneumaticam ordinationem sermonis et cognoscentis ad Deum; et utrum hae duae constituant duplicem structuram loquelae theologicae, scilicet formam significationis et actum directionis.

Whether in theology intension signifies the participation of speech in the truth it names, while intention designates the pneumatic ordering of both speech and knower toward God; and whether these two together constitute the dual structure of theological discourse, namely the form of meaning and the act of orientation.

Thesis

Theological discourse is constituted by a double ordering. By intension, language participates in divine truth. By intention, that same language is directed by the Spirit toward its divine referent. Theology remains true only where these two are held together, so that what is said of God and the act of saying it belong to one unified movement of faith.

Locus Classicus

1 Corinthians 2:16
ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν.
“We have the mind of Christ.”

Here cognition and orientation are inseparable. To possess the mind of Christ is not merely to grasp correct propositions but to be inwardly ordered by the Spirit toward God’s own knowing and willing.

Explicatio

In Disputatio XIII, theological intension was shown to be participatory. Meaning is not generated by abstraction but received through divine self-communication. Language shares in what it signifies because it is authorized by the Spirit.

Yet theology does not consist in meaning alone. Theological language is not static content but enacted confession. It is spoken toward God. This directedness is intention.

Although intensio and intentio share an etymological root in intendere, they differ in theological function. Intensio names the form of meaning, the structure by which language participates in divine reality. Intentio names the orientation of the speaker, the act by which language and knower are ordered toward God as their end.

In theology these cannot be separated. Language that participates in divine meaning but is not rightly oriented becomes formalism. Language that intends God without true participation collapses into enthusiasm. Only the Spirit holds form and direction in unity.

Formally, and then explained:

Let I(p) denote the intension of a theological predicate p, its participatory form of meaning and J(p) denote the intention with which p is uttered, its pneumatic orientation toward God.

The relation I(p) → J(p) expresses not a logical inference but a theological completion. Meaning reaches its truth only as it is drawn toward God by the Spirit. Theological truth is therefore not exhausted by semantic adequacy but fulfilled in right orientation.

Theological discourse is thus teleological. It moves from participation to communion, from meaning to invocation. To confess is not merely to signify but to be directed. Theology speaks from God and toward God in one act.

This resolves the classical tension between speculative and practical theology. Speculation concerns intensio, the contemplation of truth. Practice concerns intentio, the movement of will toward the good. In the Spirit these are one. To know God truly is already to be ordered toward God rightly.

Objectiones

Ob I. Meaning and intention are properties of individual minds. To invoke the Spirit as their cause undermines epistemic autonomy.

Ob II. Language is governed by public use, not inward intention. Pneumatological intention adds nothing to semantic explanation.

Ob III. Within the Church, intention is simply conformity to communal grammar. Divine authorization is unnecessary.

Ob IV. Intention belongs to moral willing, not to cognition. Theology confuses ethics with knowledge.

Ob V. Finite language never coincides with intention. To claim convergence through the Spirit reinstates a metaphysics of presence.

Responsiones

Ad I. Theology does not begin with the autonomous subject but with divine address. The Spirit does not override cognition but grounds it. Finite intentionality becomes genuinely God-directed only because it is first drawn.

Ad II. Public use is necessary but not sufficient for truth. The same words may be grammatically correct yet theologically empty. The Spirit distinguishes mere use from confession.

Ad III. Ecclesial grammar defines possibility, not actuality. The Spirit animates grammar, making it a living act of truth rather than a closed system of use.

Ad IV. In revelation, intellect and will are not divided. To know God is to love God. The Spirit unites cognition and desire in a single act of faith.

Ad V. Theology does not deny finitude or différance. It confesses that finitude is upheld by grace. Intension and intention converge not by closure but by participation. The Word becomes flesh without ceasing to be Word.

Nota

The dual structure of theological discourse mirrors the Incarnation. As the Word assumes human nature without abolishing it, so divine meaning assumes human intention without coercion.

Intensio secures truth. Intentio secures direction. The Spirit secures their unity.

Where intensio is isolated, theology becomes a system. Where intentio dominates, theology dissolves into affect. Only their union yields confession.

Thus theology is neither mere science nor pure devotion. It is ordered speech addressed to God, true because it participates, faithful because it intends.

Determinatio

It is determined that:

1. Theological discourse possesses a dual structure of intensio and intentio.

2. Intensio grounds participatory meaning; intentio grounds pneumatic orientation.

3. The Spirit unites these without confusion or collapse.

4. The truth of theology lies not only in what is said but in its being said toward God.

5. Theology is therefore at once contemplative and doxological.

Transitus ad Disputationem XV

Human intention has been shown to be derivative and participatory. The mind of faith intends divine truth only because it is already intended by God. If our knowing is genuinely directed toward God, this must be because divine knowing precedes and grounds it.

A deeper question therefore arises. Does God know creatures by representation or by causation? Is divine knowledge receptive, as in us, or creative, identical with being itself? How does finite cognition participate in an eternal act of knowing that does not learn but gives being?

Accordingly, we proceed to Disputatio XV: De Intentionalitate et Cognitione Divina, where it will be asked how divine knowing relates to creaturely being, and how all finite acts of understanding are grounded in that eternal cognition by which all things are known, willed, 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 fidei participat ipsam rem de qua loquitur; et utrum modeling theologicum sit interpretatio huius intensionalis structurae intra ordinem entis, per quam verbum confessionis inseritur in veritatem ontologicam a Spiritu causatam.

Whether intension in theology is not merely a mental conception but a mode of participation by which the speech of faith 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 confession is inserted into ontological truth as caused by the Spirit.

Thesis

Theological intension is participatory. The meaning of theological language does not arise from abstraction over finite instances but from participation in divine reality mediated by the Spirit. Modeling is the act by which this intensional participation is rendered intelligible within an ontological framework. Thus, theological realism is grounded not in extension but in intension ordered toward being.

Locus Classicus

Isaiah 55:11
כֵּן יִהְיֶה דְבָרִי אֲשֶׁר יֵצֵא מִפִּי לֹא־יָשׁוּב אֵלַי רֵיקָם כִּי אִם־עָשָׂה אֶת־אֲשֶׁר חָפַצְתִּי
“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall accomplish that which I purpose.”

Here the divine Word is not a sign pointing beyond itself but an efficacious act. Meaning and effect are inseparable. This unity is the archetype of all theological signification.

John 6:63
τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ λελάληκα ὑμῖν πνεῦμά ἐστιν καὶ ζωή ἐστιν.
“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Theological language lives because it is Spirit-borne. Its intension is not neutral content but living participation.

Explicatio

In philosophical logic, intension is commonly defined as conceptual content, distinguished from extension, the set of entities to which a term applies. Such a distinction suffices for empirical and formal domains. It fails in theology. Theological language does not begin with finite concepts later projected toward God. It begins with divine self-communication received in faith.

Accordingly, the intension of a theological predicate is not an internally generated concept but a participatory form. When theology confesses Deus est bonus, the predicate bonus does not derive its meaning from created goodness and then ascend by analogy. Its meaning is given from above, through participation in divine goodness itself. The Spirit is the mediating cause of this participation. Meaning is not constructed but received.

This participatory structure gives theological language its realism. Words refer because they are authorized. Predicates signify because they are grounded in divine causality. Theological intension is therefore neither subjective nor merely conceptual. It is ontologically thick. Meaning is already oriented toward being.

Modeling enters at this point. The task of modeling is not to invent reference but to interpret it. Theology does not ask whether its language refers but how it refers. Modeling is the reflective act by which theology interprets the intensional participation of its language within a structured ontology.

Formally, and then explained:

Let p be a theological predicate, I(p) denote its intensional content as given through participation in divine reality, and M(p) denote the ontological interpretation of that predicate within a theological model.

The relation I(p) → M(p) does not move from concept to reality but from participation to intelligibility. Modeling unfolds what is already given in faith. Ontology follows intension, not the reverse.

This is why theological predicates are irreducibly intensional. Their meaning cannot be exhausted by truth conditions across possible worlds or by extensions within a domain. Distinct predicates may be extensionally equivalent yet intensively distinct, because they participate in divine reality under different aspects. Creator, Redeemer, and Lord do not divide God but articulate distinct participatory relations.

Theological language thus inhabits a space of hyperintensionality. Its precision lies not in narrowing meaning but in preserving distinction without separation. Modeling safeguards this precision by making explicit the structural relations among predicates without reducing them to univocal properties.

In this sense, modeling is a theological discipline before it is a formal one. It presupposes revelation, confession, and Spirit-given participation. Logic serves theology here by clarifying structure, not by dictating content.

Objectiones

Ob I. Meaning is exhausted by extension. Intension adds nothing real and is therefore irrelevant to ontology.

Ob II. Theological language lacks empirical reference and is therefore cognitively meaningless. Modeling merely disguises nonreferential discourse.

Ob III. Meaning arises solely from use within a form of life. Formal or intensional analysis misconstrues theological grammar.

Ob IV. Extensional semantics suffices for all truth claims. Intensional modeling violates semantic adequacy.

Ob V. The truth of theology is internal to ecclesial grammar. External modeling reintroduces metaphysical realism illegitimately.

Responsiones

Ad I. Extension presupposes intension. In theology, extension cannot ground meaning because divine reality is not one instance among others. Intension names the participatory relation by which predicates signify God analogically rather than univocally.

Ad II. Empirical verification is not the measure of cognitive meaning. Theological language refers by divine causality, not by observation. Modeling makes explicit the formal conditions under which such reference is coherent.

Ad III. Use presupposes authorization. The Church speaks meaningfully because the Spirit authorizes its speech. Modeling articulates the inner logic of this authorization without denying praxis.

Ad IV. Extensional semantics fails where predicates are intensively distinct despite extensional equivalence. Theology necessarily operates at the intensional level because its referent is infinite.

Ad V. Ecclesial coherence is necessary but not sufficient for truth. Theological language claims participation in divine reality. Modeling expresses this claim formally, uniting felicity and truth.

Nota

Theological language is not descriptive in the ordinary sense. It is confessional, participatory, and performative. Yet it is not therefore noncognitive. Its cognition is grounded in participation rather than observation.

In model-theoretic terms, theology is a living model whose satisfaction conditions are secured not by the world alone but by the Spirit’s causality. Theological intension is thus sacramental in structure: a finite sign bearing infinite content.

To speak truly of God is to speak within God’s own self-giving. Modeling does not add to this gift. It renders its form intelligible.

Determinatio

It is therefore determined that:

1. Intension in theology is participatory, not merely conceptual.

2. Theological meaning is given through divine causality mediated by the Spirit.

3. Modeling interprets this intensional participation within an ontological framework.

4. Theological realism is grounded in intension ordered toward being.

5. Precision in theology arises from faithful participation, not semantic reduction.

Transitus ad Disputationem XIV

The intension of theological language has been shown to be participatory and ontologically grounded. Yet meaning alone does not exhaust theology. Theological language is not only what is meant but what is intended. It is speech directed toward God, uttered in faith, shaped by will and confession.

Meaning and intention must therefore be distinguished without separation. Theological truth is not merely modeled correctly but intended rightly. Here the intellect and the will converge. Understanding becomes invocation.

Accordingly, we proceed to Disputatio XIV: De Intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico, where it will be asked how intensional meaning relates to intentional speech, and whether theology reaches its truth not only in semantic adequacy but in the Spirit-led act of confession itself.

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.  

Disputatio III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis

On the Holy Spirit and the Boundary of Felicity

Quaeritur

Utrum Spiritus Sanctus sit ille divinus actus qui verbum et esse in vita credentis coniungit, ita ut veritas theologica, quae in Disputatione II ut correspondentia constituta est, perficiatur per participationem et communionem, et sic ipsa finita intelligentia fiat locus felicitatis divinae.

Whether the Holy Spirit is that divine act which unites word and being within the life of the believer, such that theological truth, constituted in Disputation II as correspondence, is brought to completion through participation and communion, and finite understanding thereby becomes the site of divine blessedness.

Thesis

The Holy Spirit is both the formal and causal condition of theological felicity. He is the divine source by which expressions are included or excluded from the language of faith T. The Spirit’s presence sets both the possibility and the limit of theological discourse. He authorizes what may be spoken rightly and, by the same act, defines what cannot.

Locus classicus

1. Psalm 115(116):11 LXX

Ὁ Θεὸς ἀληθής ἐστιν· πᾶν δὲ ἄνθρωπος ψεύστης.
"God is true, but every human being a liar."

Truth is predicated first of God Himself. Human speech attains truth only by participation in the divine reality.

2. John 14:6

Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή.
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

Truth is not a property Christ possesses but His very identity. In Him the correspondence of mind and reality becomes personal and incarnate.

3. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium II

Ἀλήθεια Θεοῦ ἐστιν ἡ ἐνέργεια τῆς σοφίας αὐτοῦ.
"The truth of God is the energy of His wisdom."

Truth is the active self-manifestation of divine being, not static equivalence.

Across these witnesses, truth appears as theophany. What philosophy calls correspondence, theology understands as participation: finite knowing becomes true by being drawn into the life of the Logos.

Explicatio

The first disputation established theology as a coherent language T. The second argued that this language becomes truth-bearing only when interpreted within models that relate it to the order of being God has constituted. Yet grammar and reference do not suffice. A further condition is required, for theological speech must be not only coherent and correspondent but authorized.

Authorization is not merely ecclesial or rational. It is pneumatic. The Spirit is the living rule of theological speech, determining which expressions belong within T and which fall outside it. To speak felicitously is to speak in the Spirit, under His ordering and enlivening act. These felicity conditions, denoted FT, include logical coherence, scriptural consonance, and communal reception, yet their ultimate source is the Spirit who bestows life upon doctrine.

The Spirit thus functions as the boundary condition of theology. He grants form and sets limit. He makes theology possible and protects it from presumption. The finitude of felicity does not signify defect but the determinate mode in which the infinite communicates Himself to the finite. No utterance exhausts divine truth, yet the Spirit renders human speech capable of bearing truth without containing it.

Objectiones

Ob I. Barth holds that divine revelation is an undivided act of God. To speak of a finite felicity of the Spirit’s operation introduces limitation into the divine act and makes revelation dependent on creaturely measure.

Ob II. Kant argues that any claim of union with the divine exceeds the bounds of possible knowledge. Felicity, if it refers to participation in divine truth, cannot be known or described; it is at most a moral postulate.

Ob III. Wittgenstein maintains that felicity is simply the successful performance of language within a form of life. To appeal to the Spirit adds nothing beyond communal practice. Finitude and infinitude are grammatical, not metaphysical.

Ob IV. Hegel identifies Spirit (Geist) with infinite self-realization. If Spirit is infinite, He must overcome finitude rather than inhabit it. To speak of finitude of felicity arrests the dialectic and misunderstands Spirit’s nature.

Responsiones

Ad I. Revelation is indeed infinite in source, yet its reception occurs in creaturely form. The Spirit’s act is infinite in essence but finite in mode, for divine generosity adapts truth to the measure of the creature. Finitude here is not imposed upon God but granted by Him for our sake; it is the medium of grace.

Ad II. Kant’s limits pertain to speculative cognition. Theology seeks not theoretical knowledge but participation in divine communication. Felicity is an event of the Spirit, not a cognitive achievement. The limits of reason remain, yet within those limits the Spirit communicates divine truth in a manner proportionate to the creature.

Ad III. Wittgenstein discerns rightly the communal dimension of felicity but overlooks its ontological ground. The Church’s grammar is not self-originating. It is constituted by the Spirit, whose authorization exceeds communal convention. A sentence is felicitous because the Spirit speaks through it, not because a community employs it.

Ad IV. The Holy Spirit is not Geist realized through historical self-consciousness. He is the eternal Love who indwells the finite without dissolving it. The Spirit does not abolish finitude but sanctifies it. The finitude of felicity is not a failure of dialectic but the perfection proper to creaturely participation.

Nota

Let T_in designate expressions included within the Spirit-ordered language of faith, and T_out those excluded. This symbolic division formalizes the discernment practiced throughout the Church’s history. T_in consists of expressions rendered felicitous through the Spirit’s ordering—coherent, scriptural, ecclesially received. T_out consists of expressions incoherent, contrary to revelation, or unfit for confession.

The Spirit is both grammar and breath: grammar, because He orders theological speech; breath, because He animates it. In His presence, theology becomes a living language. The finitude of felicity confesses that even Spirit-filled speech does not exhaust divine truth. The Spirit authorizes speech and guards it from overreach, ensuring that theology speaks truthfully yet humbly.

Determinatio

1. The Holy Spirit is the divine ground of theological felicity.

2. The Spirit authorizes expressions within T through both internal (coherence, entailment) and external (Scripture, confession, ecclesial life) criteria.

3. The boundary of felicity is grace, not limitation: the finite form in which divine truth becomes communicable.

4. Theology’s felicity is finite because its subject is infinite; yet within finitude, truth becomes living and participatory.

5. The Spirit renders theology a living language, finite in utterance, limitless in source.

Transitus ad Disputationem IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex

Disputatio III has shown that theological truth becomes complete only in the event of the Spirit, who unites word and being within the believer. The truth described by models must become truth lived, and the correspondence between language and reality must be transformed into communion. In the Spirit, truth ceases to be static adequation and becomes the participation of the finite in the infinite.

Yet such a pneumatic conception of truth raises a further question concerning its nature and distinction. For theology must speak not only of truth internalized in the believer but also of the outward truth of doctrine, publicly confessed and taught. The Spirit internalizes what the Word declares, yet the Church must articulate both the inward veracity of grace and the outward content of confession.

Thus theology must learn to speak of truth doubly without dividing it: as lived truth and as spoken truth, as inward participation and outward articulation. In the convergence of these two modes lies the unity of theological truth in the Logos, who is both reality and form.

We therefore proceed to Disputatio IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex.