Disputatio VI: De Causalitate Divina et Loquela Theologica

On Divine Causality and Theological Speech

Quaeritur

Utrum causalitas divina non sit externa actio super mundum, sed interna ratio tam essendi quam loquendi; cum Spiritus Sanctus, qui est amor subsistens, causet non solum esse rerum sed etiam recte loqui de Deo, ita ut omnis loquela theologica sit ipsa participatio in causatione divina.

Whether divine causality is not an external action upon the world but the interior ground both of being and of speaking; since the Holy Spirit, who is subsistent love, causes not only the existence of creatures but also the right speaking of God, such that every theological utterance is itself a participation in divine causality.

Thesis

The causality of the Spirit encompasses both the order of being and the order of speech. The God who causes creatures to exist also causes them to be spoken truly. Theology therefore does not merely represent divine acts; it participates in them through the Spirit, who is at once the cause of creaturely being and the cause of felicitous theological utterance.

Locus classicus

1. Philippians 2:13
   ὁ θεὸς ἐστιν ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν
   “It is God who works in you both to will and to act.”

2. Augustine, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio 17.33
   Non enim per solam gratiam fit ut faciamus, sed etiam ut velimus.
   Grace alone happens gives not only action but willing.

3. Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum II
   Ἡ θεία ἐνέργεια πάντα κινεῖ ἀκινήτως
   “The divine energy moves all things while itself unmoved.”

4. John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa II.12
   Ἡ τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐνέργεια διδοῖ τὸ εἶναι καὶ τὸ λέγειν
   “The energy of the Spirit bestows both being and speech.”

These witnesses confess a single truth: divine causality grounds both existence and utterance. Theology speaks truly only where it moves within this causal order.

Explicatio

The preceding disputationes have shown that the language of faith T possesses syntactical coherence, pneumatological felicity, external reference, and a duplex truth fulfilled in Christ. Yet each of these presupposes a deeper act: the divine causality by which creatures exist, by which discourse becomes meaningful, and by which theological predication is rendered capable of bearing truth. The Spirit therefore stands not merely at the terminus of theological speech—as the one who authorizes its felicity—but at its origin, as the giver of being, intelligibility, and communicability.

This causality must be distinguished in its two modes. The causalitas essendi bestows upon creatures their existence, structure, and intelligible form. Finite beings possess agency, powers, and determinate natures only because the Spirit continuously sustains them in being. Without this underlying act, there would be no world for theology to describe and no agents capable of entering into divine address.

The causalitas loquendi, however, concerns the possibility of theological discourse. It is the Spirit who grants the form and coherence of theological grammar, who opens human speech to divine reference, and who renders predicates proportionate to the perfections they name. Human words are not naturally fitted to signify the living God. They become fitted only as the Spirit draws them into the expressive act of the Word. Thus theological language is not an autonomous human construction but a finite participation in the divine act that grants both being and meaning. Theological predication arises from this double causality: creatures exist through the Spirit, and speech signifies through the Spirit.

Let D_G denote a divine perfection and D_c its creaturely participation. The relation

$$D_G \Rightarrow D_c$$

does not express metaphor or analogy derived from below but a real ontological procession: the divine perfection constitutes the creaturely participation. Likewise, when we write D_c(x), we signify that the creature x participates in that perfection according to its finite mode. The predicate is possible because the Spirit mediately communicates the divine perfection into the created order and simultaneously authorizes the linguistic act by which that perfection is spoken.

This dual procession—into being and into speech—grounds what may be called theophysical predication: finite words moved by the same divine act that grants creatures their form and intelligibility. Theological assertions therefore are not merely descriptive; they participate in the ontological generosity by which God renders Himself speakable. Every predicate is suspended from this causality: the reality signified is given by the Spirit, and the capacity to signify is granted by the same Spirit. Thus theological discourse is neither an epistemic construction nor a linguistic projection but a mode of participation in the divine causality that constitutes beings and makes truth-intelligibility possible.

Explicatio analytica — De causalitate constitutiva

Modern analytic philosophy isolates different explanatory functions of causality: counterfactual dependence (Lewis), event-causation (Davidson), grounding (Fine, Schaffer), and truthmaking (Armstrong). These roles illuminate how one fact, event, or entity may depend upon another. Yet each framework presupposes a structured world in which modal space exists, events have efficacy, facts possess determinacy, and states of affairs sustain propositions. Divine causalitas constitutiva is not one cause within this framework but the condition for the framework itself. It is the causality that makes these explanatory roles possible at all.

1. Counterfactual dependence

Lewisian counterfactuals require a modal landscape: a space of possible worlds against which “had A not occurred, B would not have occurred” can be meaningfully evaluated. But the structure of the possible is not self-sustaining. Modal order presupposes the creative act by which the Spirit constitutes the actual world and its modal neighbors. Without this underlying act, counterfactual comparisons would lack metaphysical footing. Divine causality therefore underwrites the very intelligibility of counterfactual reasoning.

2. Event-causation

Davidson interprets causation as an extensional relation among events, while causal explanation belongs to the intensional domain of description. Yet for events to serve as genuine secondary causes, creatures must possess agency and powers. These cannot arise from within the created order alone. Agency presupposes the Spirit’s continuous bestowal of esse, which confers upon finite beings their efficacy. Finite events cause because the Spirit causes them to be capable of causing. Divine causality does not replace creaturely causality; it constitutes it.

3. Grounding.

Grounding concerns the relation by which one fact obtains in virtue of another. It is often regarded as more basic than efficient causation because it orders the metaphysical hierarchy of dependence. But grounding relations require a field of determinate facts in which they can operate. The Spirit’s actus essendi establishes this field. Divine causality is not a ground among grounds; it is the ground of grounding—the act by which creatures possess natures, properties, and relations susceptible to grounding analysis.

4. Truthmaking

Truthmaker theory holds that true propositions require robust ontological correlates that make them true. In theological terms, divine causality supplies both the res and the verbum: the reality that grounds the proposition and the linguistic capacity by which that reality is predicated. The same constitutive causality that grants existence to creatures also grants reference and semantic stability to theological speech. A proposition about God has a truthmaker because God grants both the state of affairs that makes it true and the linguistic participation that allows it to be truly said.

Taken together, these analytic models reveal that divine causality is not an instance of any of these relations but the transcendental condition for their intelligibility. The Spirit constitutes the world in which counterfactuals can be assessed, events can act, facts can ground, and states of affairs can make propositions true. This causality is not subsequent to the created order; it is the ontological generosity that gives the created order its very capacity to be causally intelligible.

Thus causalitas constitutiva is the deepest presupposition of theology, grounding both being and discourse. It is the Spirit’s act that makes creatures exist, makes them intelligible, and makes theological predication possible. Every true statement about God is therefore a finite participation in this causality: a word that signifies because the Spirit first gives the reality signified and then grants the capacity to signify it.

Objectiones

Ob I. According to Aristotelian naturalism, human speech belongs to the domain of secondary causes. To attribute it to divine causality dissolves human agency.

Ob II. Nominalist voluntarism holds that theological language is an act of obedience to divine decree, not a participation in divine causality.

Ob III. If God directly causes every act, occasionalism follows; if humans act, divine causality must withdraw. The position is internally inconsistent.

Ob IV. Analytic semantics grounds meaning in convention and intention, not metaphysical causality. Divine causality is irrelevant to linguistic content.

Responsiones

Ad I. Primary and secondary causes do not compete. Divine causality grants the creature its power to act. The theologian truly speaks, yet speaks by the Spirit who enables the act without supplanting it.

Ad II. Nominalism protects divine sovereignty but denies divine presence. The Spirit’s causality is participatory: human signs remain human yet become transparent to divine reality through the Spirit’s enabling.

Ad III. The dilemma assumes univocity between divine and creaturely causation. Divine causality is in esse: it grounds the being of secondary causes and their efficacy. God causes the act to be the creature’s act.

Ad IV. Semantic theories describe proximate mechanisms of meaning but cannot secure theological reference. The Spirit grounds the determinacy of divine predicates and authorizes their truth.

Nota

To relate causality and language is to secure theology’s realism. If to be is to act, then truthful speech must itself be an act grounded in God. Felicity thus appears as the linguistic form of divine causality, for the Spirit does not merely permit theological utterance, He empowers it. A felicitous word is causal because it proceeds from divine causality and tends toward its fulfillment in divine truth.

Without causal participation, theological predicates become abstractions. With participation, they become acts of communion—finite words bearing the life of God.

Determinatio

1. Divine causality operates both in the order of being and the order of speech.

2. The Holy Spirit is the principal cause of every felicitous theological utterance.

3. Theology speaks truly only where it is divinely caused.

4. Felicity is the linguistic manifestation of this causality and truth is its ontological fulfillment.

5. The Spirit binds ontology and discourse in a single causal order, causing both what is spoken and what is spoken of.

Transitus ad Disputationem VII: De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos

Divine causality has now been shown to ground creaturely existence and theological utterance alike. The Spirit who causes creatures to be and words to signify is the Spirit who renders creation capable of participating in God. To be is already to participate; to speak truly is to participate knowingly.

Thus the next question concerns the nature of this participation: how the Spirit constitutes real union without confusion, and how creaturely life is elevated into communion with the divine. We therefore proceed to Disputatio VII: De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos.

Disputatio IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex

On the Twofold Truth of Theology

Quaeritur

Utrum veritas theologiae duplicem habeat formam: internam, quae consistit in felicitate Spiritu data intra linguam fidei T, et externam, quae consistit in adaequatione huius linguae ad esse divinitus constitutum; et utrum hae duae veritates, distinctae sed ordinatae, in Christo, qui est simul Verbum et Res, suam unitatem reperiant.

Whether the truth of theology possesses a twofold form: an internal truth, consisting in Spirit-given felicity within the language of faith T, and an external truth, consisting in the adequation of that language to the reality constituted by God; and whether these two forms of truth, distinct yet ordered, find their unity in Christ, who is both Word and Reality.

Thesis

Theology bears a double truth—internal, arising from the Spirit-authorized felicity of its language, and external, arising from the correspondence of that language to divine reality—yet these two modes of truth converge without confusion in Christ, the unity of Word and being.

Locus classicus

1. John 14:6

Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

Christ does not possess truth but is truth; in Him the form of saying and the form of being coincide.

2. 1 Corinthians 11:23

Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἐλάβον παρὰ Κυρίου ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν.

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you."

The pattern of theological speech is reception and handing-on; its internal form mirrors divine giving.

3. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata V.14

Λόγος ἐστιν ἐνδιάθετος καὶ προφορικός.

"The Word exists inwardly and outwardly."

The distinction between conceived and uttered word anticipates theology’s twofold truth.

4. Augustine, De Trinitate XV.11

Forma sermonis, sicut et forma rerum, a Verbo Dei derivatur.

"The form of speech, like the form of things, derives from the Word of God."

Truth in language and truth in being share a single archetype.

5. Thomas Aquinas, Super Ioannem 1.1

Per Verbum Dei fit omnis creatura.

"By the Word of God every creature comes to be."

The Word who orders speech also orders being; the twofold truth flows from one act.

Explicatio

The previous disputations distinguished theology as a language T, authorized by the Spirit (veritas interna), and interpreted within models that relate its expressions to being (veritas externa). Yet theology’s full truth requires seeing how these two dimensions mutually inform one another.

Internal truth is the truth of felicity: speech consonant with Scripture, confession, and Spirit-guided practice. Symbolically this is FT, the felicity conditions of T. These guarantee that theology speaks rightly, though not yet that what it says obtains.

External truth arises when these authorized expressions are interpreted within being M, producing TC, the truth conditions through which God’s Word is fulfilled in reality.

Neither dimension alone suffices. Internal truth without external fulfillment is coherence without ontology; external truth without internal authorization is speculation without confession. Theology is true when FT and TC converge—when the Spirit who authorizes speech also mediates its correspondence to divine reality.

This duplex truth is not two truths but one truth in two modes, unified in Christ, the Logos who is both Order of speech and Fulfillment of being.

Objectiones

Ob I. Aquinas defines truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei; theology must therefore have a single truth grounded in God, not a duplex truth divided into internal and external.

Ob II. Nominalism holds that theological truth is the expression of divine will in language; there is no ontological adequation beyond God’s decree. A second truth adds unnecessary metaphysics.

Ob III. Kant restricts truth to the conditions of possible experience. Theology may speak morally but cannot claim objective correspondence to divine being; the distinction between internal and external truth confuses the bounds of cognition.

Ob IV. Lindbeck and cultural-linguistic theology insist that truth is intralinguistic coherence within a community’s grammar; any appeal to ontological truth reintroduces representationalism.

Ob V. Constructivist views claim that truth is a linguistic production. To posit a duplex truth merely multiplies fictions and masks theology’s constructed nature.

Responsiones

Ad I. Aquinas’s realism is upheld, not denied. Internal truth concerns the ordered form of theological knowing; external truth concerns its ordered relation to being. The Spirit unites these: He renders theology’s intellect true in form and true in conformity.

Ad II. Nominalism preserves divine freedom but dissolves divine intelligibility. The duplex truth expresses two modes of one divine will: will communicated in speech and will enacted in being. The Spirit bridges both without compromising God’s sovereignty.

Ad III. Kant’s limits pertain to speculative cognition, yet revelation exceeds speculation by divine initiative. The duplex truth preserves the integrity of human cognition (internal) while affirming the Spirit’s capacity to join language to reality (external) without collapsing phenomena and noumena.

Ad IV. Post-liberal grammar is necessary but insufficient. Theology is indeed a rule-governed language, but a sacramental one: its grammar mediates what it signifies. The duplex truth formalizes this sacramentality.

Ad V. Constructivism rightly notes the historicity of speech but errs in denying the priority of divine speech. The duplex truth affirms that theology is indeed constructed (internal) but constructed in participation with a reality not of its own making (external).

Nota

The twofold truth may be pictured as a circuit rather than a division.

• Internal truth (FT): the Spirit orders language so that it may be spoken in faith.

• External truth (TC): the Spirit orders reality so that what is spoken in faith corresponds to what God has done.

Theological statements are therefore true twice: in the Spirit’s ordering of speech, and in the Spirit’s ordering of being. Christ unites both by being simultaneously Verbum and Res: the eternal Word and the fulfillment of what the Word says.

Determinatio

1. Theology has an internal truth grounded in Spirit-given felicity.

2. Theology has an external truth grounded in correspondence to divine reality.

3. These two truths are ordered modes of one truth, not two competing truths.

4. Christ, the Logos, is the unity of verbum and res.

5. The Spirit mediates the conjunction of internal and external truth, ensuring both form and fulfillment.

Transitus ad Disputationem V: De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam

Having established the duplex nature of theological truth, we now face the deeper question of their relation. For if internal truth arises in the Spirit’s felicity and external truth in the adequation of language to divine reality, then truth and blessedness cannot be separated. The same Spirit who renders speech felicitous also grants joy in truth, and the believer’s delight becomes the living confirmation of what theology teaches.

Yet dangers remain. A theology concerned only with external correspondence risks aridity; one concerned only with internal felicity risks collapsing truth into experience. Only where veracity and beatitude meet does theology attain its proper fullness: a truth that is confessed, enacted, and enjoyed.

Thus we proceed to Disputatio V: De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam, wherein we inquire how truth and felicity stand as form and act, how blessedness perfects truth, and how the Spirit unites the clarity of doctrine with the joy of divine participation.

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.

Disputatio II: De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum

On Theology as a System of Models

Quaeritur

Utrum theologia, ut veritatem habeat, interpretanda sit intra systema modelorum, quibus expressiones syntacticae linguae fidei referuntur ad statum rerum a Deo constitutum; ita ut veritas theologica non sit mera congruentia signorum, sed consonantia inter linguam divinitus datam et esse divinitus productum.

Whether theology, in order to bear truth, must be interpreted within a system of models through which the syntactical expressions of faith’s language are related to states of affairs constituted by God; such that theological truth is not mere congruence of signs but the harmony between divinely given language and divinely created being.

Thesis

Theology, once established as a coherent formal language T, becomes truth-bearing only when its expressions are interpreted within models—structured accounts of reality that specify what exists and how what exists stands in relation to God. Modeling joins theology’s syntactical order to ontological reference and shows how speech about God corresponds to being as given by God.

Locus classicus

1. Scriptura Sacra — Psalm 32(33):6 (LXX)

Ἐν λόγῳ Κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν,

καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν.

"By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host."

Here divine speech and divine constitution coincide. Creation is the world shaped by a speaking God.

2. Scriptura Sacra — John 1:1–3 (NA28)

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος… πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν.

"In the beginning was the Word… all things came to be through Him, and without Him not one thing came to be."

The Logos is not only divine speech but the personal ground of all existence.

3. Athanasius — Contra Gentes 40.2

Ἐκ τοῦ Λόγου καὶ τῆς Σοφίας ἡ σύστασις τῶν ὄντων ἐγένετο·

ὁ γὰρ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐποίησεν τὰ πάντα.

"From the Word and Wisdom came the constitution of beings; for it was the Word of God who made all things."

Athanasius insists that creation bears the rational imprint of the eternal Logos.

4. Augustine — De Trinitate VI.10.12

In Verbo Dei sunt rationes omnium creaturarum.

"In the Word of God are the reasons of all creatures."

Creation’s intelligibility derives from the inner intelligibility of the divine Word.

5. Thomas Aquinas — Summa contra Gentiles II.24

Quod in Deo est ratio omnium, hoc in rebus est veritas omnium.

"What in God is the reason of all things, that in creatures is the truth of all things."

Aquinas expresses the same principle: the world’s truth is participation in God’s inner reason.

These witnesses affirm a single truth: Verbum et esse unum sunt in Deo.

The Word and being coincide in God, and theology models truth only by retracing this coincidence.

Explicatio

If Disputatio I showed that theology must first be grammatically coherent, Disputatio II shows that coherence alone does not yield truth. A language of faith, no matter how precisely ordered, remains incomplete until it is interpreted within an ontological environment. Syntax without reference is empty form.

In logic, a model assigns meanings to expressions so that sentences may be said to be true or false. In theology, a model is not merely a semantic device but a structured description of the world as it stands before God. Let T denote the language of faith and M the model that depicts the divine order of creation, redemption, and consummation. To interpret T in M is to connect theological expressions to the realities that God has constituted.

For example, the confession “Christ is risen” is modeled not by symbolic reformulation but by the ontological affirmation that the crucified Jesus truly lives, an event located within God’s causally ordered world. Modeling theology is therefore not speculation added to confession but the faithful translation of divine acts into the grammar of being. It enables theology to say not only what is believed but what is.

Objectiones

Ob I. Kant limits theoretical knowledge to phenomena shaped by human categories. To model theology in relation to divine reality exceeds possible knowledge and reinstates pre-critical metaphysics.

Ob II. Heidegger argues that ontological structures conceal Being and reduce God to a highest being. To model God within being risks onto-theology and suppresses divine mystery.

Ob III. Logical empiricism insists that only empirically verifiable claims or tautologies have meaning. Theological models are unverifiable and thus cognitively meaningless.

Ob IV. Post-liberal theology maintains that religious meaning arises solely from communal grammar. Modeling introduces an external reference foreign to theology’s intratextual logic.

Ob V. Process thinkers hold that divine–world relations are dynamic and evolving. Static models distort the relational becoming of God and world.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant’s boundary concerns epistemic access, not ontological structure. Revelation transcends these limits by grounding knowledge in divine communication. Modeling does not violate the Critique but extends it analogically: it interprets faith’s language within the world constituted by God’s Word. The Spirit mediates where pure reason cannot.

Ad II. Heidegger rightly warns against reducing God to a being among beings. Yet Christian confession does not speak of a highest entity but of the Word through whom all being is constituted. Modeling does not capture God within being but depicts being as participation in God’s creative utterance.

Ad III. Verificationism collapses under its own criterion, which is itself unverifiable. Theological models are verifiable within theology’s own domain, where truth is pneumatic rather than empirical. Their adequacy is tested by coherence with revelation and by the Spirit’s witness in the Church.

Ad IV. Post-liberal grammar rightly highlights communal practice but risks enclosure. Scripture and creed speak not only about communal life but about divine reality. Modeling makes explicit the ontological reference implicit in Christian confession.

Ad V. Process thought recognizes genuine relationality but mistakes relation for mutability. Theological models can articulate relation without surrendering divine immutability. They describe the world’s participation in God’s eternal act, not God’s evolution.

Nota

Modeling is the bridge between theology’s formal order and its truth. If FT denotes theology’s felicity conditions, then modeling furnishes its truth conditions, TC. The formula is simple:

FT + Modeling = TC.

The Spirit who authorizes theological language also mediates its rightful interpretation within reality. Modeling is not an imposition upon faith but a clarification of faith’s inherent realism. It permits theology to speak with intellectual rigor while preserving its confessional depth.

A theological model is not a cage for divine mystery but the intelligible space where divine truth becomes shareable. Through models the Church’s speech becomes not only meaningful but true.

Determinatio

1. Theological language T is incomplete until it is interpreted within models that reflect divine reality.

2. Modeling joins the syntax of faith to the ontology of creation, grounding reference in God’s act of speaking.

3. The Holy Spirit mediates both the felicity of T and the adequacy of its interpretation.

4. The plurality of models reflects the richness of divine truth refracted through creation.

5. Theology’s coherence and its truth converge where divine language meets divinely ordered being.

Thus theology becomes truth-bearing only where the Word that speaks is joined to the world that answers.

Transitus ad Disputationem III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis

The second disputation has shown that theological truth emerges where the grammar of faith meets the structure of reality. Yet correspondence, though necessary, is not sufficient for the fullness of truth. For truth in theology is never merely structural. It is participatory. It depends not only on language and ontology but on the divine act that unites them in the life of the creature.

Theological models describe how the Word’s intelligibility is refracted into the order of creation, but they cannot themselves actualize the unity they depict. The bond between sign and reality must be effected by the Spirit, who brings coherence to completion through a living union. Without the Spirit, theological truth remains static; with the Spirit, it becomes event, communion, and joy.

Thus arises the next inquiry: how does the Holy Spirit mediate the correspondence between divine Word and created understanding? How does the Spirit transform finite cognition into participation in divine truth? These questions lead us to Disputatio III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis.

Prooemium ad Partem I: De Intelligibilitate et Participatione; Disputatio I: De Expressionibus Theologicis ut Syntacticis

Prooemium ad Disputationes Theologicas

Why the Scholastic Form Is Employed

The scholastic disputation is retrieved here not from nostalgia but from theological necessity. Its form—thesis, locus classicus, explicatio, objectiones, responsiones, nota, determinatio—exposes the ordered movement by which theology advances from confession to understanding. The disputation never replaces revelation. It receives revelation in the only manner proper to finite reason: through articulated structure. The form refuses both the spontaneity that mistakes immediacy for truth and the skepticism that dissolves language into indeterminacy.

The grammar of the disputation mirrors the polarity of revelation itself. Divine truth appears as verbum incarnatum, at once hidden and manifest, transcendent and given. The structure of assertion, challenge, and resolution reflects this pattern. Contradiction is not suppressed but taken up into higher clarity. The method resonates with the ontology presupposed throughout these disputations, namely that truth is participation in God’s own act of self-communication. Because divine truth gives form, theology must receive that form in an ordered manner.

The disputatio is therefore both rigorous and contemplative. It is rigorous because it holds every claim accountable to logic and coherence. It is contemplative because every resolution gestures beyond itself to the mystery that grounds understanding. Within a model-theoretic theology, where T denotes the language of faith and its ordered expressions, the disputation provides the visible structure of theology’s movement from syntactical integrity to semantic interpretation and finally to truth. Its parts guide the mind toward the intelligibility that revelation both grants and commands.

Praefatio ad Partem I: De Intelligibilitate et Participatione

Deus loquitur, et fit veritas

Theology begins with divine speech. When God speaks, the world becomes intelligible, and the human being is summoned into understanding. This first part investigates how the rational order of creatures participates in the light of the Word, and how the intelligibility of creation becomes the primordial witness to divine presence. This is not a matter of analogy between finite thought and divine ideas; it is the communication of light itself, the light that shines in the darkness and renders both knowledge and faith possible.

Accordingly, theology must first ask how mind and world are ordered to the divine utterance. Without this ontological participation, neither human discourse nor human truth can endure before God. Part I therefore lays the foundation for all that follows, showing that intelligibility itself is a gift of participation in the Word who speaks creation into being.

Concerning the Expressions of Theology as Syntactical

Quaeritur

Utrum theologia, secundum rationem syntacticam considerata, in ipsa structura locutionis veritatem suam formet, ita ut ordo sermonis sit forma interna veritatis quae posteriorem interpretationem fundat.

Whether theology, considered under its syntactical aspect, forms an inner structure of truth in its very mode of utterance, such that the order of discourse becomes the internal form upon which interpretation depends.

Thesis

Theological expressions, denoted T, the total language of faith as spoken, written, and confessed, must first be regarded as syntactical. They are governed by rules of formation and inference that secure coherence prior to questions of meaning or truth. Only when this linguistic system is interpreted within a model—related to what is real—do meaning and truth properly emerge.

Locus classicus

1. Scriptura Sacra — Hebrews 4:12 (NA28)
Ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ἐνεργὴς… κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας.
For the word of God is living and active… discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

2. Scriptura Sacra — Isaiah 55:11 (MT)
כֵּן יִהְיֶה דְבָרִי בַּאֲשֶׁר יֵצֵא מִפִּי… וְהִצְלִיחַ אֲשֶׁר שְׁלַחְתִּיו
So shall my Word be that goes forth from my mouth… it shall accomplish that which I purpose.

3. Augustinus — Confessiones XIII.12.13
Loquitur Verbum tuum nobis in libro tuo…
Thy Word speaks to us in Thy Book…

4. Luther — WA 39/I, 175.12–15
Das Wort Gottes ist nicht stumm, sondern lebendig und kräftig.
The Word of God is not mute, but living and mighty.

5. Thomas Aquinas — ST I, q. 34, a. 1 ad 3
Verbum importat ordinem ad id quod per ipsum manifestatur.
The Word implies an order toward that which is manifested through it.

Together these witnesses affirm that divine speech is ordered, intelligible, and life-giving. Theology begins not in silence but in structured hearing, where divine form enters human words.

Explicatio

Before theology may speak truthfully, it must speak coherently. Every theological utterance belongs to the larger body of discourse that constitutes the lingua fidei, designated T. As in logic, syntax concerns the structure of expressions, the rules by which sentences are formed, related, and inferred. Theological syntax orders the words of revelation prior to their interpretation. Within this initial horizon the question is not truth or falsity but whether a sentence may be rightly spoken at all.

To say “Christ is truly present in the Eucharist” is not yet to advance a metaphysical account of presence. It is to give voice to a confession that stands within a network of scriptural, creedal, and liturgical statements. Detached from that network, the assertion loses its felicity—its Spirit-given rightness or authorization. The first task of theology is therefore grammatical: to preserve the coherence of divine speech once it has entered human language. Only then may theology inquire into meaning, reference, and truth.

Objectiones

Ob I. Barth holds that revelation precedes all linguistic form; syntax makes divine address dependent on human categories.

Ob II. Wittgenstein argues that meaning is use within a communal practice; formal syntax abstracts theological speech from the Church’s form of life.

Ob III. Derrida contends that signs are marked by indeterminacy; a fixed divine grammar reinstates metaphysics of presence.

Ob IV. Schleiermacher claims that religion arises from inner feeling and precedes propositional articulation; grammatical form distorts this immediacy.

Ob V. Empiricists argue that theological statements lack empirical content; to ascribe logical syntax is to treat them as propositions when they are not.

Responsiones

Ad I. Revelation indeed precedes human form, yet it comes clothed in words. Syntax does not construct revelation; it receives the order in which revelation becomes communicable. The Spirit who grants the Word grants also the grammar by which the Church speaks it intelligibly.

Ad II. Theology agrees that language is rule-governed, but the rules of the lingua fidei are Spirit-given rather than conventionally negotiated. Formal clarification does not abstract from the Church’s life; it renders explicit the structures that sustain it across ages and cultures.

Ad III. Deconstruction uncovers the instability of self-grounded signs. Theology does not claim such autonomy. Its signs refer because the Logos grounds signification. Grammar here is not metaphysics of presence but participation in the divine act that makes meaning possible.

Ad IV. Experience without grammar dissolves into private intuition. The Spirit orders confession as well as ignites faith. Syntax renders the truth communicable and guards the unity of the Church’s speech.

Ad V. Verification is not the limit of meaning. Theological sentences belong to a different order of reference, one determined by divine address rather than sensory data. Syntax marks the structure of this order.

Nota

Attention to theological syntax is foundational for the renewal of Christian speech. Where grammar erodes, proclamation withers into sentiment and doctrine into opinion. Communities of faith therefore require institutions that teach precision in sacred terms, churches that guard the patterns of sound words, and scholars who articulate the faith without compromising its form. To forget the grammar of belief is to lose the idiom in which the gospel may be heard.

Determinatio

It is determined that:

1. Theological discourse T is syntactical before it is semantical.

2. The Spirit grants a rule-governed language whose coherence must be secured prior to interpretation.

3. The felicity of T, denoted FT, is the Spirit-given integrity of speech.

4. Truth conditions arise only when T is placed within a model of reality: TC = FT + Modeling.

5. Theology’s autonomy from empirical reduction is preserved, even as its dependence on divine address is affirmed.

To speak theologically is to inhabit a grammar constituted by God’s self-communication and to let that grammar guide every truthful word.

Transitus ad Disputationem II: De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum

In this first disputation theology has been examined in its syntactical aspect. The structure of discourse was shown to be the internal form by which divine speech becomes intelligible in human words. Yet syntax alone cannot yield truth. It orders expression but does not determine its relation to what is real. If theology is to speak truthfully about God and creation, its language must be joined to an ontology that gives the world its structure.

Hence the next question arises naturally: how does T, the language of faith, touch reality? If divine speech grounds both meaning and being, then theological discourse must be interpreted within a system of models that reflect the order God establishes. Theologia non est mera locutio; est interpretatio verbi ad mundum. We therefore proceed to Disputatio II: De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum, where the relation between divine language and created being will be examined.

Why ATS Accreditation?

I am sometimes asked, "Why did you seek Association of Theological Schools (ATS) accreditation for ILT's Christ School of Theology? You already had Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) accreditation. Why wasn't that enough? 

While I have many friends at ABHE, gaining ATS accreditation was a very important step for us at the Institute of Lutheran Theology (ILT). According to the ABHE website, the following ABHE schools offer some type of doctorate: 

• American Evangelical University
• Beulah Heights University
• Bridges Christian College and Seminary 
• California Prestige University 
• Calvary University 
• Carolina Christian College 
• Columbia International University 
• Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary 
• Family of Faith Christian University 
• Georgia Central University 
• Henry Appenzeller University 
• Huntsville Bible College 
• International Reformed University and Seminary 
• Lancaster Bible College 
• Luther Rice College and Seminary 
• Mid-South Christian College 
• Midwest University 
• Northwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
• Moody Bible Institute 
• Olivet University
• South Florida Bible College and Theological Seminary 
• Texas Baptist Institute and Seminary 
• Universidad Pentacostal Mizpa 
• Veritas College International Graduate School 
• Wesley Bible Seminary 
• World Mission University 

Outside of Moody Bible Institute and perhaps Lancaster Bible College, it is unlikely that most reading this, particularly most Lutherans, have heard of many of the other schools above. Although there are no doubt wonderful faculty and students at these institutions, they have not in general gained academic notoriety.  Part of this is due to the credentialing of their faculty. Of schools approximately our size, about 47% of regular and adjunct faculty at ABHE schools have terminal degrees.  

Now consider the following truncated list of ATS schools that are approved to offer a PhD. 

• Boston University
• Brite Divinity
• Calvin Theological Seminary 
• Catholic University of America
• Chicago Theological Seminary 
• Columbia Bible Seminary 
• Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
• Dallas Theological Seminary
• Drew University Theological Seminary 
• Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary 
• Graduate Theological Union
• Iliff School of Theology
• Kairos University 
• Knox College 
• Luther Seminary 
• Lutheran School of Theology Chicago
• McMaster Divinity School 
• Princeton Theological Seminary 
• Trinity College Faculty of Divinity
• Union Theological Seminary
• United Lutheran Seminary 
• University of Chicago Divinity School 
• University of Notre Dame Department of Theology 
• Villanova University Department of Theology 
• Westminster Theological Seminary 
• Wycliffe College 

Most people reading this has no doubt heard of the majority of these schools, five of which are Lutheran (including are Christ School of Theology). Almost all faculty in ATS institutions have terminal degrees.  

So, to which list ought ILT's Christ School of Theology be compared? 

We are Lutheran and 93% of our regular, adjunct and visiting faculty have PhDs. (When checking us out on the ATS website, always search 'Christ School of Theology at ILT'. We have been ATS-accredited for over a year. Find us here at the ATS site.)  Clearly, our faculty credentialing points to a deeper affinity with ATS than ABHE. 

In addition, Lutherans are accustomed to having their theological schools accredited by ATS who accredits 228 institutions in the USA and 263 total in North American.  (ABHE, by comparison, lists 117 accredited schools.)  A majority of the faculty at Lutheran seminaries in North America have been trained at ATS-accredited institutions, while very few if any hold PhDs from ABHE institutions. (Realize that both Harvard and Yale Divinity schools belong to ATS, but while both institutions offer PhDs, they do not do so through their divinity schools so are hence not on the PhD list.) 

The Institute of Lutheran Theology mission is to "preserve, promote and propagate the classical Christian tradition from a Lutheran perspective." To accomplish this, it must train not only pastors, but teachers of those pastors. This can be done only by providing the type of theological education found in our nation's best theological schools. While we could be credible perhaps training pastors in the Lutheran tradition without ATS accreditation, we cannot be credible training the teachers of those pastors. If we want to preserve and promote the Christian tradition, we must know it deeply, and this demands that the competitive set to ILT's theological programming be those schools offering ATS-accredited programming. 

It takes a very long time to build reputation in the accreditation world. ABHE is a very good accrediting agency, but it does not yet enjoy the reputation of ATS. While one might argue that the schools of ATS are more faithful to Scripture than the schools of ATS, this assertion would engender much opposition among ATS members whom I know. So what does ATS' reputation add for ILT? 

1) ATS-accreditation gives ILT's Christ School of Theology the opportunity to receive major grants from theological grant agencies, most of which do not provide grants to non-ATS school. ILT's Christ School of Theology has in the 2024-25 academic year been so far awarded an ATS Lead forward grant for $25,000 and a $50,000 Phase I Pathways grant from Lilly, and has other significant grant applications pending.   

2) ATS-accreditation allows us to build strategic partnerships that likely otherwise would not happen. We have made two new strategic partnerships in 2024-25, one with Global Methodists issuing in the Center for Wesleyan Studies, and one with members of the LCMS eventuating in the Center for Missional and Pastoral Leadership.  Stay tuned for updates on this front! 

3) ATS-accreditation allows us to attract a cadre of very accomplished faculty who might otherwise not associate with us. It is not unusual now to encounter faculty hoping to connect with us with PhDs from Chicago, Princeton, and Harvard, and with very significant publication records. 

4) ATS-accreditation allows us to pursue corporate and institutional gifts not otherwise available to us, and to fundraise in other areas of the world. ATS-accreditation is recognized around the world, and so it grants us more credibility with foreign donors.  

5) ATS-accreditation allows ILT and its Christ School of Theology to carry out global aims through possible reciprocity agreements with non-North American accreditation agencies which would allow ILT operations in regions of the world that might otherwise be closed to us. 

6) Finally, some students will only embark on study with us if we are ATS-accredited. I personally had discussions with four whom ultimately opted to study at ILT who nonetheless claim that the would not nave considered study here were we only ABHE-accredited. 

It is indeed a new day at ILT's Christ School of Theology. We are hoping to increase student enrollment by 25% from fall 2024 to fall 2025.  Browse our programming as well at our new Center for the Word and Christ College!  

What will the Institute of Lutheran Theology Become?

Some of you ask about the future of the Institute of Lutheran Theology and what we are doing now to actualize that future.

The Institute of Lutheran Theology began in humility. We were without adequate funding, had no faculty, and very definitely unaccredited. We had decided to do education online, but online programs were often dismissed by the academy as not sufficiently rigorous. At best, we were thought about as a well-intentioned group dedicated to "training a few Lutheran pastors."

Slowly we have been changing people's perceptions of us. While we had acquired a very good faculty by the end of 2011, we still were "unaccredited." After getting ABHE accreditation, we were disparaged as being "online" and only accredited by an "undergraduate accrediting agency." After theological education moved towards online education after Covid and ABHE became recognized by the USDE for its graduate programs, we still were charged for not having "ATS accreditation -- the gold standard for theology."

After receiving ATS accreditation last March, successfully bringing new partners to the table, and further developing our PhD program, we are sometimes now charged with "creating scholars, not pastors." While our "Center for Congregational Revitalization" initiative clearly counts against this, people continue to wonder about us, and what we want to accomplish.

Here is what we want to accomplish:

• Working through the creation of strategic partnerships, we shall grow the Christ School of Theology five-fold in the next decade, making us one of the largest (or largest) Lutheran seminary in the English-speaking world.

• Grow our current PhD program of 35 students to 125 excellent PhD candidates by 2034, making the Christ School of Theology the de facto center of Reformation-based theological education in the English-speaking world.

• Grow our undergraduate Christ College in ways of excellence so that the conferral of a degree from Christ College is highly-valued in the academic world. We shall grow Christ College in ways consonant with the overall developmental trajectory of the Christ School of Theology.

• Develop ILT's Center for the Word by developing its "centers," e.g., the Center for Congregational Revitalization, a Center for Wesleyan Studies, a Center for Pastoral Leadership and Mission, a Center for Forde Studies, etc. Being Lutheran means connecting with others taking seriously the classical Christian tradition.

• Establish a true "Institute of Lutheran Theology" at our Center for the Word, an Institute that shall connect important Lutheran theological emphases to the three audiences of which Edward Farley spoke: The Church, the Public, and the Academy. Through the Institute we shall perform the research necessary to engage deeply the contemporary intellectual and cultural horizon, seeking to disseminate the results of our research through journals, monographs, and podcasts.

We shall not ask our wonderful individual and congregational donors to bear all of the costs of this developmental trajectory. Instead, we shall apply for and procure appropriate grants to help make this possible. We just received one from ATS, and finished another grant application with Lilly that we believe shall be funded as part of the effort to apply for a major Lilly grant in late spring. We will be applying for InTrust and Templeton grants within the next couple of months as well.

We ask for your prayers along the way. God called ILT into being, and I think He has rather big plans for us. We have the right technology for our time and scholars who are now with us, or who soon will be with us, to make this possible.

At the end of the day, we simply want to get the Good News of Jesus Christ proclaimed with passion and creativity in pulpits throughout the world. To do this means we shall have to disrupt the industry some, and that we will have to create a cadre of theological teachers and researchers recognizing the centrality of preaching "not cleverly devised fables," but the universal significance of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Make no mistake: truth is at issue. We shall partner with any and all of those who are called to such preaching and for whom truth is at issue.