Disputatio IV: De Veritate Theologiae Duplex

On the Twofold Truth of Theology

Veritas theologiae duplicem habet formam: internam, quae consistit in felicitate Spiritu data intra linguam fidei (T), et externam, quae consistit in adaequatione huius linguae ad esse divinitus constitutum. Hae duae veritates, distinctae sed ordinatae, in Christo, qui est Verbum et Res, uniuntur.

We might speak of the truth of theology as twofold: internal truth, which consists in Spirit-given felicity within the language of faith T, and external truth, which consists in the adequation of that language to the reality constituted by God. The two are distinct but ordered to one another, and they find their unity in Christ, who is both Word and Reality.

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Thesis

Theology possesses both an internal and an external truth.

• Internal truth (veritas interna) refers to the coherence and felicity of theological speech as governed by the Spirit within the community of faith.

• External truth (veritas externa) pertains to the correspondence or adequacy of that speech when interpreted within being, its fulfillment in the order of reality that God creates and sustains.
  Together they form a single movement from faith’s language to God’s reality and back again.

Locus classicus

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” — John 14:6

In this saying, Christ names Himself not merely as speaker of truth but as Truth itself. The theological word thus possesses two dimensions: it is true in faith because it participates in Christ’s own utterance, and it is true in being because Christ Himself is what the Word declares.

Explicatio

In previous disputations, theology was described as a formal language T, authorized by the Spirit, and interpreted within models that link language to being. Here we consider what it means to say that such theological expressions are true.

In logic, truth is often defined by correspondence: a sentence is true when what it says obtains in the world. In theology, that notion must be qualified. Theology’s words do not first describe and then verify; they participate in divine speech.

To express this participation, we distinguish between two levels of truth:

1. Internal truth (veritas interna) occurs within the system of theological language itself. We might say that a tatement is internally true when it is felicitous, when it coheres with Scripture, doctrine, and Spirit-guided discourse. For instance, “Christ is Lord” is internally true because it is consonant with the grammar of faith T as the Spirit has given it.

   Symbolically, we may call the internal measure of this truth FT, the felicity conditions of T. These conditions ensure that theology speaks rightly, even before modeling connects it to being.

2. External truth (veritas externa) arises when the same expression is interpreted within a model of reality M, yielding what we earlier called TC, or truth conditions. These are the states of affairs, the real relations, events, or properties through which God’s Word is fulfilled in the world.

   In simple terms: FT + Modeling = TC. That is, when Spirit-given felicity joins ontological adequacy, the statement is true in both faith and fact.

This distinction does not divide truth into two different kinds but shows its two dimensions. Internal truth without external fulfillment is mere coherence; external truth without inner authorization is unfettered speculation. Only when the Spirit unites both does theology achieve full truth.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Thomas Aquinas maintains that truth is the adequation of intellect and thing (adaequatio intellectus et rei). Theology, insofar as it concerns divine things, must therefore have a single, objective truth grounded in God’s being. To posit a “double truth” in theology would divide divine reality from its cognition and collapse truth into mere human interpretation.

Obiectio II. Late medieval nominalism holds that theological statements possess truth only insofar as they express the divine will revealed in Scripture. There is no ontological correspondence beyond God’s voluntary decree. To speak of an “ontological truth” in addition to a “formal” or linguistic one is to reintroduce metaphysical realism against the simplicity of God’s sovereignty.

Obiectio III. For Kant, all human knowledge is conditioned by the forms of intuition and categories of the understanding. “Theology” may express moral faith but cannot claim objective correspondence to the divine. Any “double truth” distinguishing linguistic coherence from ontological reality confuses the distinction between phenomena and noumena. The only truth theology can have is practical, not ontological.

Obiectio IV. George Lindbeck and others argue that theological truth resides within the coherence of a community’s grammar. There is no “ontological truth” to be accessed beyond the language of faith. To posit a second, deeper truth is to reintroduce the very representationalism Lindbeck rejects. Theological truth is singular and intralinguistic; there is no duplex veritas.

Obiectio V. From a constructivist or deconstructive standpoint, all claims to “truth” are historically contingent linguistic performances. A “double truth” merely multiplies illusions. Theology’s so-called ontological truth is only a higher-order fiction meant to stabilize its discourse. Truth is produced, not revealed.

Responsiones

Ad I. Thomistic realism correctly grounds truth in the relation between intellect and being, yet theology’s intellect is not autonomous but pneumatic. Its formal truth, the coherence and intelligibility of theological language, is secured within the human domain. Its ontological truth, the correspondence of that language to divine reality, is effected by the Holy Spirit, who bridges word and being. These two aspects are not contradictory but correlative; the Spirit makes the formal act of saying coincide with the divine act of being.

Ad II. Nominalism preserves God’s freedom but severs divine willing from ontological intelligibility. The “double truth” of theology does not undermine divine sovereignty; it clarifies its modes of manifestation. God’s will becomes present formally in the human act of confession and ontologically in the reality the confession names. The Spirit unites both, ensuring that what is truly said in faith corresponds to how God truly is, and without collapsing divine causality into human speech.

Ad III. While Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena limits knowledge to the conditions of human sensibility, theological truth concerns divine communication. The Spirit renders finite intellects proportionate to divine truth without violating their transcendental structure. The duplex truth of theology honors both sides: the formal truth proper to human language and the ontological truth granted by divine participation. Revelation transforms the limits of reason into avenues of communion.

Ad IV. Post-liberal theology rightly emphasizes the communal and grammatical dimensions of faith, but its refusal of ontological reference renders theology self-enclosed. The double truth affirms that grammar and reality are distinct yet related: theological statements are formally true as expressions within a rule-governed practice, and ontologically true insofar as that practice participates in divine being through the Spirit. The grammar of faith is sacramental; it mediates what it signifies.

Ad V. Constructivism dissolves truth into performance, yet it inadvertently testifies to a real difference between the act of speaking and what the act seeks to convey. The duplex truth acknowledges that difference while grounding it in divine causality. The Spirit authorizes human constructions as instruments of revelation, preserving their historical finitude while ensuring participation in the eternal. Theological truth is neither illusion nor production but participation in a Word that precedes every word.

Nota

Picture the unity of these two truths as a circle rather than a line. Theological language begins with T, the grammar given by the Spirit. Within T, internal truth arises through faithful speech. This language is then modeled into reality M, producing external truth as divine being answers divine word. The resulting adequacy returns again to renew T, forming a continual exchange between language and being, grace and truth.

When theologians write FT + Modeling = TC, they are not composing an equation but naming a semantic reality: felicity (Spirit-authorized speech) joined to modeling (Spirit-interpreted being) yields theological truth. It is a symbolic shorthand for Luther’s claim that God’s Word is true because it does what it says.

Christ Himself is this coincidence of internal and external truth, the Word that is also the world’s fulfillment. To confess that “the Word became flesh” is to say that God’s internal Word (eternally spoken) has become externally real in history.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theology possesses both an internal truth (felicity within the Spirit-governed language of faith) and an external truth (adequacy to divine reality).

2. These two are ordered, not opposed: internal truth grounds theology’s faithfulness, external truth secures its realism.

3. Christ, as both Word and Reality, is the unity of these two modes of truth.

4. The Spirit mediates their conjunction, ensuring that the truth of faith is neither abstract nor speculative but living and enacted.

5. Hence, theology’s veracity is neither purely linguistic nor purely ontological; it is incarnational, the meeting of speech and being in the Spirit of Christ.

Disputatio III: De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis

On the Holy Spirit and the Boundary of Felicity

Spiritus Sanctus est ille qui determinat fines sermonis theologicis, discernens inter locutiones quae intra linguam fidei (T) feliciter cadunt et eas quae extra eam iacent. Finis felicitas non est defectus, sed confessio quod sermo de Deo manet in gratia eius dependens.

The Holy Spirit determines the boundaries of theological speech, discerning between utterances that fall felicitously within the language of faith T and those that lie beyond it. This boundary of felicity is not a defect but a confession that all speech about God remains dependent upon grace.

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Thesis

The Holy Spirit is the formal and causal condition for theological felicity; it is the divine source by which expressions are included within or excluded from the language of faith. The Spirit’s presence sets both the possibility and the limit of theological discourse: it authorizes what can be said rightly, and by that very act, defines what cannot.

Locus classicus

“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” — 1 Corinthians 12:3

Saint Paul reminds us that even the simplest confession of faith is not a human achievement but a divine act. True speech about God depends upon the Spirit who enables it; theology’s grammar is itself pneumatological.

Thesis

The Holy Spirit is the formal and causal condition for theological felicity; it is the divine source by which expressions are included within or excluded from the language of faith. The Spirit’s presence sets both the possibility and the limit of theological discourse: it authorizes what can be said rightly, and by that very act, defines what cannot.

Explicatio

In the previous Disputationes, theology was described first as a language T and then as interpreted through models that connect it to being. But not only does every language require grammar and meaning, it requires authorization as well. Someone must say when speech is fit to be uttered.

In theology, that authorizing agent is not the Church alone, nor is it human reason. It is the Spiritus Sanctus, the Holy Spirit, who determines which expressions belong within T, the Church’s living language of faith.

When we speak of felicity, we mean the condition under which a statement can be rightly spoken in the Spirit. In formal terms, we call these the felicity conditions of T, written FT. These include internal order (logical consistency, coherence, and entailment) and external authorization (the Spirit’s activity discerned through Scripture, confession, and ecclesial life).

The Spirit thus functions as the boundary condition of theology. Like a grammatical rule that both permits and prohibits, the Spirit allows speech that participates in divine life and excludes speech that contradicts it.

To say that theology has a finitude of felicity is to acknowledge that its authorized speech, though real and truthful, nonetheless remains partial. No expression in T exhausts divine truth, for the Spirit never ceases to exceed the words He inspires.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Karl Barth and other revelation theologians maintain that the act of divine self-disclosure is infinite in origin and scope. To speak of a finite felicity of the Spirit’s operation is to divide the one act of revelation into infinite and finite parts, reducing divine grace to creaturely measure. If the Spirit is truly God, then His activity cannot be characterized as finite without denying His divinity.

Obiectio II. Immanuel Kant would argue that felicity, insofar as it implies union with the divine, cannot be an object of theoretical knowledge. Human reason is bounded by phenomena; divine reality remains noumenal and inaccessible. “Theological felicity” can therefore be at most a moral or regulative idea, guiding action but not describing an ontological state wrought by the Spirit.

Obiectio III. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein, felicity pertains to the successful performance of language within a given form of life. To call a theological utterance “felicitous” means that it fits the grammar of the believing community. Finitude and infinitude are grammatical categories, not metaphysical ones. The Spirit adds nothing beyond the community’s own rule-governed practices of meaning.

Obiectio IV. From a Hegelian standpoint, Spirit (Geist) is infinite self-consciousness realizing itself through the overcoming of finitude. If the Holy Spirit is truly Spirit, then its work in human life must sublate finitude rather than affirm it. To insist on the “finitude of felicity” is to arrest the dialectical movement of Spirit toward the Absolute, leaving theology mired in limitation and incompleteness.

Responsiones

Ad I. The Spirit’s operation is infinite in essence but finite in mode. The same act that is infinite in God becomes finite in the creature through the very generosity of divine condescension. Finitude here does not denote defect but form—the determinate condition under which the infinite communicates itself. The Spirit’s work is not measured by human limits but expressed through them. The finitude of felicity is the medium by which divine reality becomes communicable and effective within history.

Ad II. Kant’s critique of speculative reason rightly identifies the limits of human cognition, yet theology does not seek theoretical knowledge of God but participation in divine communication. Felicity is not a concept but an event: the Spirit’s act of rendering finite speech and understanding proportionate to divine truth. Within this act, finitude becomes the very space of grace. The theological subject remains bounded, but those bounds are filled with divine presence; the finite becomes transparent to the infinite.

Ad III. Wittgenstein correctly locates felicity within the use of language, but he omits its ontological ground. The Church’s grammar is not self-originating; it is constituted and sustained by the Spirit’s act. The felicity of theological language is thus not merely communal correctness but pneumatological authorization. A sentence is felicitous not because the Church says so but because the Spirit speaks through it. Finitude here names not the limit of meaning but the site where divine meaning takes flesh in human words.

Ad IV. Hegel’s dialectic perceives rightly that Spirit and finitude are related, but wrongly that their relation can be expressed as sublation. The Holy Spirit does not abolish finitude but indwells it. The infinite does not return into itself through the finite; it abides with the finite as love. The finitude of felicity thus expresses the perfection proper to creaturely participation—the creature remains itself yet becomes radiant with divine life. Spirit’s infinity is shown not by transcending finitude but by transforming it into communion.

Nota

The distinction between inclusion and exclusion in T may be described symbolically as T_in and T_out.

• T_in designates those expressions that the Spirit renders felicitous, language consistent with Scripture, creed, and the ongoing life of the Church.

• T_out refers to expressions that fail these tests, either through contradiction, incoherence, or lack of spiritual authorization.

This symbolic division simply formalizes what theologians have always practiced in discernment. The Spirit is both the “grammar” and the “breath” of theology: grammar, because He gives order; breath, because He gives life.

To put it differently, the Spirit is the condition of theological intelligibility. Without Him, theology would become a dead syntax,  correct perhaps in structure but devoid of life. With Him, speech about God becomes participation in the very life it names.

Thus, the finitude of felicity marks theology’s humility. It confesses that human language, even when sanctified, cannot contain the infinite. The Spirit authorizes theology’s words and simultaneously guards them from presumption.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. The Holy Spirit is the divine ground of theological felicity; He is the One who renders certain expressions speakable within faith.

2. The Spirit’s authorization has both internal criteria (coherence, consistency, right entailment) and external criteria (Scriptural consonance, ecclesial reception, discernible fruits).

3. The boundary of felicity is not a limitation imposed from without but the inner grace by which human speech remains ordered to God.

4. To say that theology is finite in felicity is to acknowledge that its language, though true, is never exhaustive of divine mystery.

5. The Spirit’s dual act of including and excluding establishes theology’s form as a living language: finite in utterance, infinite in source.

Disputatio II: De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum

On Theology as a System of Models

Theologia, ut veritatem habeat, interpretanda est intra systema modelorum, quibus expressiones syntacticae linguae fidei referuntur ad statum rerum a Deo constitutum. Sic veritas theologica est consonantia inter linguam divinitus datam et esse ab eodem Deo productum.

For theology to bear truth, it 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. Theological truth is thus the harmony between divinely given language and divinely created being.

Locus classicus

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” — Psalm 33:6

In this verse, divine speech and divine creation coincide. The Word that speaks is the same power that brings everything into being. In theological modeling, we rediscover this coincidence: truth arises when language and reality meet in the act of God.

Thesis

Theology, once established as a formally consistent language T, becomes truth-bearing only when its expressions are interpreted within models, structured descriptions of reality that specify what exists and how what exists relates to God. Accordingly, modeling connects theology’s syntactical order to ontological reference, showing how speech about God corresponds to being as given by God.

Explicatio

If Disputatio I taught that theology must first be syntactically consistent and coherent, Disputatio II teaches that coherence alone does not suffice for truth. A language of faith, no matter how precise, remains incomplete until it is interpreted, until it is “modeled” within an ontological environment. 

In the language of logic, a model is a way of assigning meaning to expressions so that sentences can be true or false. In theology, a model serves a similar role but in a more profound sense: it is a structured account of the world as it stands before God. To say that theology requires modeling is to say that the words of faith must point beyond grammar to existence.

Let T again represent the language of faith: its prayers, confessions, and doctrines. Let M stand for a model, a depiction of the real order of creation, redemption, and consummation. To “interpret T in M” means that theological expressions are linked to the realities they describe. For example, the statement “Christ is risen” in T is modeled in M by the ontological claim that the crucified Jesus truly lives, an event and state of affairs that obtains within God’s causally ordered creation.

Theological modeling, then, is not speculation added to faith but the faithful translation of what God has done into the structures of thought and being. It allows the Church’s language to be both confessional and truthful, to say not merely what is believed but what is.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Immanuel Kant maintains that theoretical knowledge is limited to phenomena structured by the categories of human understanding. Theology, if it is to remain rational, must confine itself to moral postulates and practical reason. To speak of “models” relating faith’s language to divine reality exceeds the bounds of possible knowledge and reintroduces metaphysics.

Obiectio II. Following Martin Heidegger, phenomenology exposes ontology itself as the history of metaphysical forgetfulness. To “model” God within any structure of being risks reducing the divine to a presence among beings, an onto-theological idol. Authentic theology should remain apophatic, letting Being speak rather than constructing models.

Obiectio III. Logical empiricism and early analytic philosophy (e.g., A.J. Ayer, the early Carnap) hold that statements are meaningful only if empirically verifiable or tautological. Theological models cannot be tested or falsified; they are, therefore, pseudo-propositions disguised as metaphors.

Obiectio IV. Cultural-linguistic theology (e.g., George Lindbeck) argues that religious language functions like grammar within a community’s form of life. To “model” theology implies an external reference to a shared reality, contrary to the communal coherence that actually gives theology meaning. Theology should interpret its grammar, not seek models beyond it.

Obiectio V. In Whitehead and Hartshorne’s process thought, God and world form a single dynamic continuum. To construct fixed “models” is to freeze divine becoming into static metaphysical forms. A truly relational theology must renounce models in favor of open-ended process description.

Responsiones

Ad I. Kant rightly insists upon the limits of speculative reason, but theology operates within a different horizon. The limits Kant identifies are epistemic, not ontological. Revelation transcends those limits by grounding knowledge in divine communication rather than human intuition. Modeling theology does not transgress the Critique but extends it analogically: it interprets faith’s language within the structure of being already constituted by the divine Word. The Spirit mediates between language and ontology where pure reason cannot.

Ad II. Heidegger’s concern to avoid onto-theology guards a genuine danger, yet his alternative leaves God silent within the withdrawal of Being. Christian theology confesses not an abstract presence but a personal act—the Word made flesh. Modeling theology does not capture God within being but describes being as participation in God’s speaking. The model functions not as enclosure but as vessel, transparent to the mystery it bears.

Ad III. Empiricist verification collapses under its own criterion: its principle is itself unverifiable. Theological models, by contrast, are verifiable within the domain of faith’s ontology—through coherence with revelation, consistency with confession, and transformative efficacy in the believer. Their truth is pneumatic, not laboratory truth. Theology’s models are judged by whether the Spirit bears witness within them.

Ad IV. Post-liberal theology rightly recovers the communal and grammatical dimensions of faith, yet it risks self-enclosure. Modeling does not impose external realism upon the Church’s grammar but explicates its inherent referential capacity. Scripture and creed speak not merely about communal practice but about divine reality. Theological models make explicit the ontological assumptions that faith already lives by implicitly.

Ad V. Process thought perceives the dynamic relation between God and world but mistakes relationality for mutability. The theological model can express relation without surrendering divine immutability: it portrays creation’s participation in God’s eternal act. Models are not static mechanisms but formal patterns of dependence—diagrams of divine causality.

Nota

To model theology is to seek understanding within faith. It is to recognize that divine revelation, though sovereign and gracious, speaks into a world structured by God’s own rational order. Modeling translates theological language from the level of grammar into the level of ontology, from how we may speak to what there is to be spoken of.

Thus, if T represents the syntactical system of theology and FT its felicity conditions (the rules that make its speech rightly ordered), modeling is the process by which these expressions are joined to TC, their truth conditions. In short:

FT + Modeling = TC. In words: the Spirit’s authorization of language (felicity) combined with its right interpretation within reality (modeling) produces theological truth.

A model is not a cage for divine mystery but the space where divine truth becomes shareable. It lets theology speak with both rigor and reverence, preserving the realism of faith without collapsing it into mere symbol or sentiment.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Theological language T, though divinely authorized, remains incomplete without ontological modeling.

2. Modeling interprets the syntax of faith in light of divine reality, ensuring that theology’s words correspond to what God has made and done.

3. The Holy Spirit is both the author of T and the mediator of its interpretation, guaranteeing that modeling remains participatory, not autonomous.

4. The plurality of models signifies the richness of divine truth as refracted through creation, not its fragmentation.

5. Theology’s formal coherence and ontological adequacy converge in modeling, where speech about God is joined to being before God.

Disputatio I: De Expressionibus Theologicis ut Syntacticis, cum Proemio et Praefatione

Proemium ad Disputationes Theologicas

Why the Scholastic Form Is Employed

The scholastic form—thesis, locus classicus, explicatio, objectiones, responsiones, nota, determinatio—is not revived here as academic archaism, nor as nostalgic homage to a vanished intellectual culture. It is recovered because it uniquely embodies a logic of theological clarity and order. When rightly understood, the scholastic disputation is not the triumph of dialectic over faith but the grammar of faith’s own rational articulation.

The disputatio theologica begins in humility. It assumes that theological truth, being divine, cannot be possessed in a single act of assertion. Truth must instead be approached through the ordered interplay of affirmation, objection, and resolution. The structure itself—thesis followed by counter-statement and reconciliation—mirrors the polarity of revelation: Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus. The form of disputation therefore becomes a formal analogue of the cross, where contradiction is not suppressed but redeemed in higher unity.

Moreover, the scholastic method corresponds to the ontology of truth presupposed throughout these writings. Truth is not a mere property of propositions but participation in divine self-communication. For that reason, theology cannot be purely descriptive or expressive; it must be formally structured. The disputational form enacts that structure. It forces theology to move from surface assertion to internal coherence, from confession to understanding.

This method also allows theology to remain both rigorous and contemplative.

• Rigorous, because every claim must withstand formal objection and be expressed in a grammar of precision.

• Contemplative, because every resolution finally returns to the mystery of God who exceeds dialectic.

In this way, the scholastic disputatio becomes the proper vehicle for what these writings call model-theoretic theology: a discipline that seeks to relate the formal language of faith (T) to the ontology of divine being. Each disputation, while logically disciplined, remains theological in motive and eschatological in horizon. The thesis states what can be confessed; the objectiones test its intelligibility; the responsiones disclose its inner coherence; the nota unfolds its broader theological meaning; the determinatio seals the act of understanding in doxology.

Historical Continuity

The use of the disputatio situates these essays consciously within the intellectual lineage of the Church. Luther, Melanchthon, and their students at Wittenberg employed the disputationes not as scholastic mimicry but as instruments of evangelical clarity. The form was not opposed to Reformation insight; it was its chosen discipline. The Disputationes Heidelbergae (1518), Melanchthon’s Loci Communes, and the later Lutheran scholastic systems of Gerhard, Calov, and Quenstedt all employed structured reasoning to preserve the unity of truth and faith.

By retrieving this form, the Disputationes Theologicae affirm that theology’s rational vocation remains valid. The contemporary theologian, no less than the medieval master or the Reformation doctor, must think within ordered form if he is to think at all. The scholastic discipline reminds theology that truth is not spontaneous expression but participation in divine Logos. In an age of intellectual fragmentation and performative discourse, the disputatio restores theology’s proper seriousness: its commitment to clarity, coherence, and communion.

A Theological Rationale

This recovery of form also serves a deeper purpose. The model-theoretic vision that animates these disputations holds that theology’s task is to interpret faith’s formal language within the ontological reality of divine being. That interpretive process requires structure.
The disputatio provides that structure by mapping theology’s logical, semantic, and ontological movements:

1. from syntax (faith’s given grammar),

2. through semantics (modeling within being),

3. to truth (participation in divine reality).

The scholastic method thus becomes a theological necessity: the visible form of theology’s internal logic. Its ordered movement from assertion to resolution mirrors theology’s own participatory logic — from Word to understanding, from faith to vision.

Conclusion

The scholastic method, then, is not a relic but a realism: a structure adequate to a world in which language, thought, and being are ordered by the same divine Logos. The Disputationes Theologicae employ it to demonstrate that theology, even in an age of disintegration, can still think truthfully because the Spirit who once breathed through the schools continues to speak through the Church’s ordered speech.

To think theologically in this form is therefore itself a confession: that divine truth, though transcendent, has chosen to dwell in the grammar of human words.

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Praefatio

Deus loquitur, et fit veritas
(God speaks, and truth comes to be)

These eight disputationes explore how theology, understood as Spirit-formed discourse, bears truth. They trace the inner order of theological reason from its linguistic beginnings to its ontological and eschatological fulfillment. Each disputatio isolates one dimension of that order. Together they constitute a continuous movement—an ordo theologiae—in which language, being, and grace converge.

While the method employed is scholastic in form, it is clearly model-theoretic in aim. Following the medieval structure of thesis, objectiones, responsiones, nota, and determinatio, the disputationes develop theology’s formal and ontological logic without appeal to system or school. In what follows, I do not try to defend inherited conclusions, but rather attempt to display the structure of theological intelligibility itself: how divine speech becomes human language and how human language, by grace, becomes true.

The first three disputationes concern the formal conditions of theological discourse, theology's syntax, its modeling, and its felicity. Theology begins as a rule-governed language T, whose sentences become meaningful only when interpreted within ontological models specifying the reality to which they refer. These models are not arbitrary constructions but confessional interpretations of revelation’s given world. Within this world, speech is governed by the Spirit’s authorization, which defines theology’s felicity conditions and determines what can be said in Spiritu Sancto.

The middle disputationes (IV–VII) investigate the ontological and causal ground of theology’s truth. Truth appears in two forms: internal, as the Spirit’s realization of felicity and external, as the adequacy of theological expression to divine being. This double structure is secured by the Spirit’s causal act, through which human language participates in the being of divine truth. The Spirit’s causality is constitutive; it makes theological language to be what it is. By this act of causation, human speech becomes an instrument of divine communication, and the believer’s being is reconstituted in the form of participation, or theosis.

The final disputation VIII) carries this argument to its eschatological and linguistic horizon. The full coincidence of internal felicity and external adequacy is eschatological, for the Spirit’s authorization of language and the reality it names will one day coincide without remainder. Theology’s truth is therefore both realized and awaited, present as participation by awaiting future manifestation. The last disputatio considers the nova lingua of theology, the “strange language” that arises from the Incarnation. Drawing on Luther’s insight that faith requires a new grammar in which God speaks under opposites, this disputatio shows that theology’s form is necessarily incomplete while its logic is cruciform. The Word’s embodiment inaugurates a language that is finite in form yet infinite in meaning, a language that points beyond itself to the divine Logos who alone is Truth.

These eight disputationes together propose a theological epistemology of participation. Theology is neither empirical or metaphysical description nor pure symbol; it is rather the Spirit’s own discourse rendered through human words. Its language is formal because it is given structure by grace; its truth is real because it shares in the being it confesses. From syntax to theosis, from felicity to truth, from grammar to glory, the disputationes seek to make intelligible the single mystery of revelation: God’s Word, having entered human speech, makes human speech an instrument of divine knowledge.

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On Theological Expressions as Syntactical

Theologia primum tractatur sub ratione syntactica, qua structura locutionis ipsam formam veritatis interius constituit et praebet fundamentum posterioris interpretationis.

Theology is first treated under its syntactical aspect, wherein the structure of utterance itself constitutes the inner form of truth and provides the foundation for later interpretation.

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Thesis

Theological expressions—here denoted T, meaning the total language of faith as it is spoken, written, and confessed—must first be regarded as syntactical: governed by formation and inference rules that secure coherence before questions of meaning or truth arise. Only when this system of expressions is interpreted within a model—that is, placed in relation to what exists—do meaning and truth properly emerge.

Locus classicus

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” — Hebrews 4:12

Divine speech, according to the Apostle, is living—yet its life is not chaotic but articulated, “piercing” and discerning. The Word’s vitality is inseparable from its intelligible form.

Explicatio

Before theology can claim truth, it must possess disciplined language. Every theological expression belongs to a larger body of speech, the lingua fidei or language of faith, symbolized by T. This T is like a formal system in logic: its sentences must be well-formed, consistent, and properly related to one another before they can be said to express truth.

In logic, syntax refers to the internal structure of a language—how sentences are put together—while semantics refers to their meaning in relation to a world. Similarly, theology’s syntax orders the words of revelation before interpretation. Within this syntactical horizon, what matters is not whether a proposition is true or false but whether it can be rightly spoken—whether it fits the grammar of faith authorized by the Spirit.

For example, the statement “Christ is truly present in the Eucharist” is not yet about metaphysical presence when viewed syntactically; it expresses a well-formed confession that belongs to a network of statements derived from Scripture, creed, and liturgy. To violate that network’s grammatical order—say, by detaching the statement from the Eucharistic context or from Christ’s promise—is to lose what Luther calls felicity, the Spirit-given rightness or legitimacy of speech (bene dicere in Spiritu Sancto).

Thus, theology’s first task is grammatical. It secures the coherence of divine speech once it has entered human words. Only after this grammatical integrity is achieved can theology responsibly advance to the next level—modeling—where its expressions are related to being and thus acquire truth-conditions.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Karl Barth and the dialectical theologians contend that theology begins with divine self-revelation, not with the formal analysis of language. To start with syntax is to subordinate the immediacy of God’s address to human categories of logic and grammar. If God speaks, the structure of that speech must be received, not constructed.

Obiectio II. According to the later Wittgenstein, meaning is determined by use within a “form of life.” Theological expressions, therefore, have sense only within the lived practice of the Church. To formalize them syntactically is to abstract them from their communal context and distort their function. Theology should describe language-games, not engineer systems.

Obiectio III. Jacques Derrida and postmodern theorists insist that language is characterized by indeterminacy and différance: every sign refers to another sign, never to stable presence. A divinely ordered syntax would reinstate the metaphysics of presence. Theology should dwell within the play of meaning, not claim a fixed grammar of divine speech.

Obiectio IV. Friedrich Schleiermacher and the liberal theological tradition maintain that theology arises from the inward feeling of absolute dependence. Faith expresses itself symbolically but resists propositional form. To impose syntactical order upon religion is to betray its essence as life and feeling.

Obiectio V. Analytic and empiricist philosophers of religion argue that theological statements, lacking empirical verification, are not propositions in any meaningful sense. To speak of a “syntax” of faith’s language is to confer logical structure upon utterances that are neither factual nor falsifiable.

Responsiones

Ad I. The dialectical theologian rightly insists that revelation precedes all theological discourse, yet revelation comes clothed in human words. Syntax, in this sense, is not construction but preservation. The Spirit who gives the Word also gives the grammar by which the Church may speak it intelligibly. To attend to syntax is to attend to the order of revelation’s communicability, not to impose alien form upon it.

Ad II. Wittgenstein’s insight that meaning is rule-governed and communal remains invaluable; nevertheless, theology’s “form of life” differs from empirical practice in that its rules are Spirit-given, not conventionally negotiated. Formal analysis of theological syntax does not abstract language from life but clarifies the divine order that sustains it across times and cultures. The lingua fidei is a living grammar, not a sociological dialect.

Ad III. Deconstruction rightly unmasks the instability of autonomous sign systems, yet theology never claimed autonomy for language. Its signs refer not because they are self-grounding but because they are Spirit-grounded. Theological syntax confesses the presence of the Logos who anchors signification within grace. The Spirit’s rule of speech secures openness to mystery without collapsing into chaos.

Ad IV. The liberal tradition’s appeal to inner experience perceives an essential dimension of faith, but experience without grammar quickly dissolves into solipsism. The Spirit who kindles faith also orders confession. Syntax renders faith communicable; it enables the Church to speak one faith with many tongues. Grammar, in theology, is the sacramental form of life’s interior truth.

Ad V. Empiricism confuses the scope of verification with the scope of meaning. Theological sentences are not empirical hypotheses but covenantal assertions within a distinct order of reference. Their syntax marks that order. The absence of empirical reducibility does not entail meaninglessness; it reveals participation in a different ontology—one defined by God’s speech, not by sensory data.

Nota

The study of theology as syntactical is not an idle formalism. At the Institute of Lutheran Theology and beyond, this concern for grammar defines how the Church, the academy, and public reason preserve the intelligibility of faith. Where Christian discourse forgets its grammar—whether in preaching, scholarship, or popular devotion—confession decays into sentiment and doctrine into opinion.

The renewal of theological language therefore depends upon communities capable of grammatical fidelity:

• schools that teach precision in the use of sacred terms,

• churches that guard the patterns of sound words handed down, and

• scholars who render the faith publicly intelligible without diluting its form.

Every age must recover its grammar of belief, lest the gospel be spoken in tongues no longer understood.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Like all object languages, theological discourse T is syntactical before it is semantical; its form precedes its reference.

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

3. What we call FT—the felicity conditions of T—are the marks of Spirit-given coherence (consistency, entailment, and authorization).

4. Only when T is joined to an ontological model—a structured account of what is real—do we obtain TC, its truth conditions. In symbolic shorthand, FT + Modeling = TC,
   which means: the Spirit’s authorization of speech, combined with its proper relation to being, yields theological truth.

5. This syntactical priority ensures both theology’s autonomy from empirical reduction and its dependence upon divine address.

To speak theologically, therefore, is to inhabit a grammar already constituted by God’s self-communication and to let that grammar shape every truthful word about God.

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.