Disputatio X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei

On Revelation and Knowledge of God

Quaeritur

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

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

Thesis

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

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

Locus classicus

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

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

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

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

Explicatio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Objectiones

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

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

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

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

Responsiones

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

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

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

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

Nota

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

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

Determinatio

1. Knowledge of God arises only within divine revelation.

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

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

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

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

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

Transitus ad Disputationem XI

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

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

Disputatio IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae

On the New Language of Theology

Quaeritur

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

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

Thesis

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

Locus classicus

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

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

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

"What was not assumed was not healed."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Explicatio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Objectiones

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

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

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

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

Responsiones

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

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

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

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

Nota

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

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

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

Determinatio

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

Transitus ad Disputationem X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei

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

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

Disputatio VIII: De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis et Summarium

On the Eschatological Manifestation of Truth

Quaeritur

Utrum veritas divina, quae in hoc saeculo nonnisi per interpretationem felicitatis intra modellos theologicos acceditur, in consummatione saeculorum manifestetur immediate in gloria; et utrum haec manifestatio non sit nova veritas, sed modus perfectus eiusdem veritatis quae nunc solum per fidem, per modellos, et per illuminationem Spiritus attingitur.

Whether the divine truth—which in this age is accessible only through the interpretation of felicitous predicates within theological models—will in the consummation of the ages be manifested immediately in glory; and whether this manifestation is not a new truth but the perfected mode of access to the same truth now reached only through faith, through models, and through the illumination of the Spirit.

Thesis

The speech of theology in the present age is real yet mediated; it participates through faith in divine discourse. Its truth arises only as these felicitous predicates are interpreted within the models by which God grants understanding. Its perfection will occur eschatologically, when what is now felicitously and truly spoken in the Spirit will be manifested in glory. The eschaton is not the abolition of theology but its fulfillment. It is the moment when the grammar of faith becomes the language of sight. 

Nota Bene: In this disputation “faith knows truth” always means “faith receives truth mediately through the Spirit’s interpretation of felicitous predicates within theological models.” Felicity alone does not constitute truth; it authorizes the predicates that become bearers of truth when interpreted.

Locus Classicus

1. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NA28)

ἄρτι βλέπομεν δι’ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον.

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.”

Paul marks the distinction between mediated and immediate knowing, between truth under the form of faith and truth under the form of glory. The object does not change; the mode of apprehension is transfigured.

2. Augustine, Sermon 88.6

Ipsa visio Dei finis erit desideriorum nostrorum.

“The vision of God will be the end of all our desires.”

Augustine expresses the teleology implicit in Paul. Faith awakens desire and vision consummates it. The eschatological manifestation of God is not an addition to faith but the fulfillment toward which faith has always been drawn.

3. Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q.3, a.8

Ultima et perfecta beatitudo non potest esse nisi in visione divinae essentiae.

“Ultimate and perfect beatitude can consist only in the vision of the divine essence.”

For Aquinas, the visio Dei is the perfection of participation. The finite intellect is elevated and sustained so that it may see God in God’s own light. Participation is thus not abolished in glory but brought to its final act.

From Paul through Augustine to Aquinas, a single line is traced. Faith and vision are not two different truths but two modalities of the same participation, first veiled, then manifest.

Explicatio

The eschatological manifestation of divine truth cannot be understood without the Christological and pneumatological structures already established. The finite intellect does not ascend to a vision of God by intrinsic power, nor does it apprehend divine essence through an unmediated natural capacity. Rather, the intellect beholds divine truth precisely within the medium God has appointed: the glorified humanity of the Logos. In the state of glory, mediation does not disappear but becomes perfect. The humanity of Christ, assumed by the eternal Word, becomes transparent to the divine light. This transparency constitutes the immediacy of eschatological knowledge.

Thus, the vision of God is immediate in its mode, yet Christological in its structure. The intellect sees God by the divine light, yet this light is communicated through the human nature of the Incarnate Word, now glorified. The humanity of Christ does not obstruct the vision but renders it possible. The hypostatic union becomes the metaphysical grammar of eschatological manifestation.

In the present life, theological cognition belongs to the ordo fidei. It is real knowledge, yet mediated through the grammar of faith, the models by which theology interprets divine truth, and the participatio constitutiva by which the Spirit illuminates the intellect. In this state the formula holds:

In statu viae:

T + M → FT → TC

The felicity of speech FT, when interpreted through theological modeling M, yields genuine truth-conditions TC. When interpreted through theological modeling M, these felicitous predicates FT yield mediated truth-conditions TC. Thus truth is known only through this interpretive act, and always under the form of sign.”

But in the state of glory the structure shifts. The Spirit who now mediates truth through faith will then manifest it without veil. The humanity of Christ, which now veils divine splendor for the sake of finite comprehension, will then be the instrument through which divine light is communicated without remainder. In this state the formula becomes:

In statu gloriae:

FT = TC

The felicity of speech and the truth it bears coincide, for the intellect is upheld by God to know God in God’s own light. Mediation is not removed but perfected. The sign becomes transparent to what it signifies. The sacrament becomes pure presence. Participation becomes manifestation.

This consummation does not imply that the intellect becomes infinite or that nature is absorbed into divinity. The creature remains creature. Yet the Spirit elevates the intellect into a mode of vision proportioned to divine self-disclosure, a proportion not natural but graced. The intellect sees because it is illumined; it understands because it is united; it knows because it is upheld. I

While in this vision there is no comprehension of the divine essence in itself, there is an unimpeded reception of divine truth in the medium of Christ.

The ordo theologiae therefore reaches its telos in glory. Grammar culminates in manifestation; modeling becomes sight; felicity becomes unity; truth becomes life. Theology becomes doxology. Theologia viatorum becomes theologia beatorum. The same truth known now under the form of faith will then be known under the form of glory. There is nothing added and nothing removed. There is only an unveiling. 

Thus eschatological vision is not a new truth but the same truth shining in its proper light. The Incarnation, which grounds all theological speech, becomes the light in which God is seen. The Spirit, who grants felicity in the ordo fidei, becomes the lumen gloriae in the ordo gloriae. Participation reaches its end not by ceasing but by becoming complete. And the intellect, perfected by grace, rests in the One who made it capable of divine truth.

Explicatio Analytica: De Transformatione Ordinis Cognitionis

The transition from the ordo fidei to the ordo gloriae is not merely a shift in epistemic attitude. It marks a transformation in the entire architecture of theological cognition—its grammar, its model-theoretic mediation, and its metaphysical ground. The movement is not from “indirect truth” to “direct truth” in abstraction, but from participatory cognition that remains mediated to participatory cognition perfected in the glorified Christ. Analytically expressed: cognition shifts from being hyperintensional and partial to being hyperintensional and complete.

1. Hyperintensionality: From Partial Participation to Full Manifestation

In the ordo fidei, theological predicates exhibit hyperintensional structure. Their meaning cannot be captured by extension (what they apply to) or by inferential role (how they behave in reasoning). In hyperintensional contexts, even necessarily equivalent expressions may diverge in meaning because meaning depends on more than extension or inference.

In theological speech, this “more” refers to the Spirit’s act of constituting felicity: a predicate acquires theological sense only when the Spirit authorizes it as belonging to the language of faith T and thus marks it as felicitous FT. This authorization is entirely intra-linguistic. It does not provide truth, reference, or extension. It simply determines which predicates count as legitimate modes of confessing the divine.

Thus in the ordo fidei, theological language is hyperintensionally thick because its meaning is conditioned by the mode of participation in the divine Word, not because any semantic connection to reality has yet been established. The predicates of faith belong to a grammar whose intelligibility is grounded in the Spirit’s enabling activity, but they do not yet possess truth-conditions. They become eligible for interpretation; they do not yet attain it.

In the ordo gloriae, the hyperintensional structure remains, but its opacity is removed. The predicate Deus lux est is no longer grasped through the limited and veiling modalities of present participation but through the Spirit’s lumen gloriae, which proportionates the intellect to the manifest divine presence. Hyperintensionality does not dissolve; it becomes transparent. The intellect no longer stands outside the light interpreting; it stands within the light that reveals.

Thus the eschatological movement is not from hyperintensional to extensional clarity. It is from hyperintensional opacity to hyperintensional manifestation.

2. Model-Theoretic Structure: From Interpretation to Identity

In the present age the structure of theological cognition can be represented schematically:

T → FT → (I: FT → M) → semantic content (reference, extension, truth-conditions).

The grammar of faith T yields felicitous predicates FT prior to any semantic interpretation. FT is a syntactic-pragmatic subset whose authorization belongs entirely to the Spirit’s internal governance of the theological language.

Only after felicity is established can an interpretive function I map these predicates into a theological model M. Only through this mapping do predicates acquire reference, extension, and truth-conditions.

Thus the model is indispensable not for felicity, but for any possibility of truth. Divine reality is not directly accessed by grammar; it is engaged only through a mediating interpretive structure.

In the ordo gloriae, the need for such mediation ceases—not because the intellect becomes unbounded nor because comprehension replaces apprehension, but because the model and the divine reality coincide in the glorified Christ. The resurrected Christ is the interpretive structure; He is the manifestation in whom divine meaning is perfectly given.

Thus the eschatological formula becomes:

FT + presence = manifestation,

not FT = truth, but FT enters into the presence that makes truth immediate. Interpretation is no longer a mapping; it is an indwelling. Model and reality are one.

In model-theoretic terms, the intensional distance collapses because the structure mediating divine self-presentation becomes identical to the reality presented.

3. Constitutive Causality: From Grounding to Immediate Ontological Presence

Earlier disputationes described causalitas constitutiva—divine causality as the act by which creatures receive being, intelligibility, and the very capacity for linguistic felicity. In the ordo fidei, this causality sustains the intelligibility of the world, the meaningfulness of language, theological predicates as felicitous speech, and the possibility of models that interpret such speech.

While none of this yet yields truth, it yields conditions for the possibility of truth.

In the ordo gloriae, constitutive causality is not replaced but intensified. The Spirit remains the ground of cognition, now not through the mediation of illumination but through immediate ontological presence. The Spirit does not merely authorize predicates; He becomes the light by which the intellect beholds what those predicates could only gesture toward.

Thus, in statu viae, the Spirit grants participatory access, and in statu gloriae, the Spirit grants manifest access. Participation thus becomes manifestation by removing what obscured; not by adding what was lacking.

4. Transparency and Manifestation: A Metaphysics of Perfected Signification

In the ordo fidei, every sign operates through a double movement: it points beyond itself even while concealing in part what it signifies. Sacraments grant real presence under veiled form.

In the ordo gloriae, signs do not vanish; they become transparent. The humanity of Christ—once the veil of humility—becomes the perfect sign through which divine glory is immediately manifested. The metaphysical grammar of the hypostatic union that structured theological speech in this life now structures eschatological vision in perfected form. Finite signification is not abolished; it is completed.

5. The Epistemic Structure of Vision: Apprehensio Without Comprehensio

Eschatological cognition is neither omniscience nor metaphysical fusion. It is an apprehensio immediata without a comprehensio totalis.

The intellect no longer ascends through models; it encounters divine reality directly in the medium God has given (the glorified Christ) and by the light God has given (lumen gloriae). But the intellect remains creaturely and does not comprehend the divine essence as God comprehends Himself. Vision is immediate without abolishing distinction.

6. The Formal Horizon of Theology: From Grammar to Manifestation

The eschatological transformation reveals the unity of theology’s various formal moments: grammar, felicity, modeling, interpretation, truth, causality, participation, and manifestation.

These are not sequential but teleological. Each is ordered toward the consummation in which mediated participation becomes manifest presence. Theology anticipates doxology and confession anticipates communion.

In the end, theology becomes praise, grammar becomes illumination, and faith becomes sight. The same divine reality spoken under the veil of the nova lingua is disclosed in the glory of immediate presence. The language that once reached toward God now rests in the God who reveals Himself.

Objectiones

Ob I. If in the ordo gloriae the felicitous utterance and its truth coincide, then language seems to lose its significance. For where there is direct vision, verbal mediation becomes superfluous. This appears to imply that theological speech itself passes away, contradicting the claim that signs become transparent rather than abolished.

Ob II. Participation in divine truth implies a transformation of the intellect. But if the lumen gloriae renders the intellect proportionate to divine reality, the distinction between Creator and creature seems imperiled. An intellect elevated beyond its nature appears to be divinized in essence, contrary to the metaphysical boundary of the duae naturae.

Ob III. In the ordo viae truth is mediated by models, analogies, and participatory structures. If the ordo gloriae abolishes this mediation, then the eschatological state appears to negate creatureliness itself, since creatures can know only mediately. Perfect immediacy seems incompatible with finite being.

Ob IV. If hyperintensionality reaches its consummation in eschatological manifestation, then the finite intellect seems to apprehend divine truth in its fullness. But full apprehension appears to imply full comprehension, and full comprehension of God is impossible for a creature. Thus the doctrine seems to collapse into contradiction.

Responsiones

Ad I. Although language does not disappear, its opacity does. The grammatical, sacramental, and ecclesial mediations of truth are fulfilled rather than replaced. The finite sign becomes a transparent vehicle of divine presence. Speech is not rendered irrelevant but perfected: its role shifts from indicating what is absent to manifesting what is present. The continuity of language reflects the continuity of creatureliness; its transfiguration reflects the eschatological immediacy of divine truth.

Ad II. The elevation of the intellect by the lumen gloriae does not divinize its essence but perfects its capacity to apprehend God according to a creaturely mode. The boundary of natures remains inviolable. The intellect is upheld, not transformed into divine intellect. The distance between Creator and creature remains infinite; what changes is the mode of access, not the nature of the knower.

Ad III. Mediation is not abolished but transfigured. In the ordo viae, mediation is necessary because of sin, finitude, and historical distance. In the ordo gloriae, mediation remains insofar as creatureliness remains, but its mode shifts from obscured signification to luminous manifestation. While the creature does not become unmediated, the mediation becomes immediate. Presence replaces absence and transparency replaces opacity.

Ad IV. Apprehension without comprehension is the hallmark of eschatological knowing. The intellect sees God immediately yet without circumscribing Him. Hyperintensional richness is not exhausted but is made luminous. The finite intellect apprehends God truly, not totally. The contradiction dissolves once the distinction between visio and comprehensio is maintained. The former belongs to the blessed; the latter belongs to God alone.

Determinatio

1. Eschatological knowledge retains hyperintensionality, for divine truth always exceeds finite conceptualization, yet in the ordo gloriae that excess becomes manifest rather than opaque.

2. The structure of theological cognition shifts from interpretive mediation to luminous immediacy, not by erasing creaturely limits but by perfecting participation through the lumen gloriae.

3. Language remains, but its role is transfigured: it becomes the transparent bearer of divine manifestation, fulfilling rather than abandoning its function in the ordo viae.

4. Constitutive causality is intensified, for the Spirit not only grounds being and speech but now grounds vision itself, rendering the intellect proportionate to divine presence without altering its nature.

5. Model and reality converge in Christ, who is both the interpreted and the interpreter, the content and the form. Eschatological truth is not deduced but beheld.

6. The finite intellect attains apprehensio immediata, a direct yet creaturely knowledge of God, preserving the infinite qualitative distinction while fulfilling the telos of theological desire.

Transitus ad Disputationem IX

Having now considered the eschatological horizon in which theological grammar is fulfilled, model-theoretic mediation is completed, and hyperintensional meaning reaches its consummation in divine manifestation, the inquiry must turn to the grammar itself as it exists in statu viae.

For if eschatological vision reveals the end toward which theological speech tends, then the proper structure of theological language in this life—its grammar, its logic, and its pneumatological authorization—must be understood in light of that end. The nova lingua is not an invention of faith but the temporal form of participation in divine truth.

We proceed therefore to Disputatio IX: De Nova Lingua Theologiae et Origine Significationis Revelatae, to examine the emergence, structure, and Spirit-formed logic of the language by which God is spoken before God is seen.

Breve Summarium Primi Octavi

The first eight disputationes constitute a single formal unit: an ordered ascent from language to glory.

1. Disputatio I – De Expressionibus Theologicis ut Syntacticis. Theology begins as language T: a Spirit-given grammar that orders Christian confession. Before theology can be true, it must be speakable rightly; felicity is its first condition.

1. Disputatio II – De Theologia ut Systemate Modelorum. Rightly ordered speech must be interpreted within models of reality. Theology moves from grammar to ontology as T is inserted into the world created and ordered by God.

2. Disputatio III – De Spiritu Sancto et Finitudine Felicitatis. The Holy Spirit is the boundary of discourse, distinguishing T_in from T_out. Finitude of felicity marks speech as truly authorized yet never exhaustive.

3. Disputatio IV – De Veritate Theologiae Duplex. Theology’s truth is twofold: the veritas interna (felicity within T), and the veritas externa (adequation to being). Their unity is Christ, who is both Word and Reality.

4. Disputatio V – De Relatione inter Veritatem et Felicitatem Theologicam. Felicity and truth are distinct yet inseparable—form and fulfillment of the same pneumatological act. The felicitous word is ordered toward its eventual verification.

5. Disputatio VI – De Causalitate Divina et Loquela Theologica. Divine causality grounds both being and speaking. The Spirit is causa principalissima of theological utterance; theology becomes a theophysical event rather than mere representation.

6. Disputatio VII – De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos. Participation is defined as constitutive dependence: divine perfections D_G are communicated as participated correlates D. Theosis is the ontological depth of salvation; it is a real sharing in divine life without confusion of essences.

7. Disputatio VIII – De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis. The entire ordo culminates in manifestation, for the same divine reality that is now approached through felicitous predicates interpreted within theological models will then be manifest in the immediacy of glory. Theologia is perfected as doxologia; the word of faith becomes the vision of God.

Taken together, the first octad shows that:

• Theology is scientia Spiritus: the Spirit gives its language, orders its truth, grounds its causality, enables its participation, and manifests its end.

• The movement from T → M → FT → TC → participatio → manifestatio is not a sequence of separate domains but one continuous act of divine communication embraced at different logical levels.

• The final form of theology is praise: the intellect’s assent and the soul’s joy coincide where truth and felicity are one in the sight of God.

Disputatio VII: De Participatione et Ontologia Theoseos

On Participation and the Ontology of Theosis

Quaeritur

Utrum theosis non intelligatur ut ascensus creaturae in deitatem, sed ut participatio realis in actu divino quo Deus se communicat; et utrum haec participatio fundetur in causalitate constitutiva Spiritus Sancti, per quam creaturae fiunt capaces gloriae, ita ut theosis sit consummatio illius participationis in qua creatura suum esse, intelligibilitatem, et veritatem accipit.

Whether theosis should be understood not as the creature’s ascent into deity but as a real participation in the divine act by which God communicates Himself; and whether this participation is grounded in the constitutive causality of the Holy Spirit, by whom creatures become capable of glory, so that theosis is the consummation of the participation through which the creature receives its being, intelligibility, and truth.

Thesis

Theosis is not the divinization of the creature by nature but the perfection of creaturely participation in the divine life. The same Spirit who constitutes creatures in their being and renders their speech capable of divine truth also draws them into the life of God. Participation is therefore the ontological ground of theosis, and theosis is the eschatological fulfillment of participation. The creature remains creaturely, yet becomes fully luminous with the divine life it receives.

Locus classicus

2 Peter 1:4
ἵνα γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως.
“that you may become partakers of the divine nature.”
Participation (κοινωνία) is here the formal structure of salvation.

Psalm 36:9 (Vulgate)
Quoniam apud te est fons vitae, et in lumine tuo videbimus lumen.
“For with You is the fountain of life, and in Your light we shall see light.”
Knowledge, life, and glory are received, not possessed.

Athanasius, De Incarnatione 54
Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν.
“He became human that we might be made divine.”
Theosis is grounded in the Incarnation, not in creaturely ascent.

Explicatio

The doctrine of theosis arises wherever the Church confesses that salvation is not merely the correction of defect but the communication of divine life. Yet such communication requires a metaphysical ground: the creature must be capable of receiving divine life without losing its creatureliness. Participation provides this ground. For the creature receives its being, its intelligibility, and its orientation toward truth from the constitutive causality of the Holy Spirit. There is no creaturely actuality that is not first a divine gift. This dependence is not merely extrinsic; it is metaphysical, determining the very mode of creaturely existence. The creature is constituted as a participant in the divine generosity that grants being.

Participation in being is the first movement. The Spirit grants the creature its actus essendi, by which it subsists as a real nature with determinate capacities. Participation in intelligibility is the second movement. The Spirit grants the creature a share in the light by which it is knowable. Participation in verity is the third movement. The Spirit grants to the creature a relation to truth, both as an object of knowledge and as a bearer of meaning. These movements correspond to creation, illumination, and sanctification, and together they constitute the fundamental ontology of participation. Theosis emerges when these participations reach their eschatological fulfillment.

Yet participation must be distinguished from identity. The creature does not become God; it receives from God. The divine perfections remain incommunicable in their mode. What is communicated is not the divine essence but a real share in the divine life. The causal vector is always from God to the creature:

Dg​⇒Dc​(x)

where D_G denotes a divine perfection and D_c(x) the creaturely participation of that perfection in the mode proper to x. Theosis is the maximal intensity of this causal relation. It is not a fusion of natures but the consummation of participation.

This participatory structure clarifies why theosis is Christological in origin and pneumatic in execution. In the Incarnation the divine Word assumes human nature, thereby joining divine life to creaturely existence without confusion or division. The humanity of Christ becomes the first and perfect site of theosis. Through the Spirit this communication extends to all who are united to Christ. Thus theosis is not a metaphysical privilege of a select few but the eschatological destiny of all who are incorporated into the body of Christ. Union with Christ is the formal cause of theosis; the Spirit is its efficient cause.

The nova lingua developed in Disputatio IX presupposes this participatory ontology. The reason theological predicates can bear divine truth is that language itself participates in the expressive act of the Word through the Spirit’s authorization. The Spirit who renders finite speech capable of infinite truth is the same Spirit who renders finite being capable of infinite life. The grammar of participation becomes the grammar of theosis.

Likewise, the knowledge of God described in Disputatio X presupposes the same metaphysical structure. The intellect knows God not by its own power but through illumination. Illumination is already a form of participation and anticipates the final theosis in which the intellect will know God in the unmediated light of glory. In statu viae revelation grants participation in truth; in statu gloriae participation becomes vision.

Thus theosis is not a theological addendum but the horizon that unifies the ordo theologiae. Grammar leads to modeling, modeling to felicity, felicity to truth, truth to causality, causality to participation, and participation to manifestation. Theosis is simply the name for the creature’s consummate participation in the divine life—the perfection toward which the entire theological system tends.

This consummation does not erase creaturely finitude. The creature remains finite, yet its finitude becomes wholly luminous, wholly actual, wholly alive with the divine presence. Finitude does not become infinitude; it becomes transparent. Participation does not destroy distinction; it perfects communion. Theosis is therefore the metaphysical realization of what has always been true: the creature is constituted by the divine generosity in which it eternally participates.

Objectiones

Ob I. Participation appears too weak a notion to account for the radical transformation implied by theosis. If the creature remains creaturely, how can it be said to share in divine life?

Ob II. If theosis is grounded in constitutive causality, then all creatures already participate maximally in God. Theosis becomes indistinguishable from ordinary creaturely being.

Ob III. If the Spirit communicates divine life, then the divine nature seems divisible or communicable, contrary to classical doctrine.

Ob IV. Participation seems to collapse into metaphor, lacking the metaphysical precision needed to distinguish real theosis from moral or symbolic likeness.

Responsiones

Ad I. Participation is not a weak notion but the metaphysical means by which the creature receives divine life without ceasing to be creaturely. Theosis intensifies participation without transgressing the boundary between Creator and creature.

Ad II. Constitutive causality grants creatures their being, but theosis concerns the eschatological perfection of that being. All creatures participate in God as Creator, but only the redeemed participate in God as Life and Light unto glory.

Ad III. The divine nature is not communicated in its essence but according to a mode of participation proper to the creature. The Spirit communicates not God’s essence but a real share in divine life. There is no division of deity, only extension of divine generosity.

Ad IV. Participation is not metaphorical but real, grounded in the causal procession from divine perfection to creaturely participation. Theosis is therefore not likeness by imitation but likeness by communion.

Nota

Disputatio VII stands at the center of the theological system. Constitutive causality (VI) grounds participation; the nova lingua (IX) expresses participation; revelation (X) grants knowledge through participation; manifestation (VIII) fulfills participation. Theosis is therefore the metaphysical horizon of theology: the creature drawn into God without confusion, and God present in the creature without diminution.

Determinatio

1. Theosis is the eschatological fulfillment of creaturely participation in divine life.

2. Participation arises from the constitutive causality of the Spirit, who grants being and intelligibility.

3. Theosis does not efface creaturely finitude but perfects it.

4. Participation is real, causal, and metaphysical—not symbolic or merely moral.

5. The Incarnation grounds the possibility of theosis; the Spirit accomplishes it.

6. Theosis unifies the ordo theologiae by revealing its final horizon: communion with the living God.

Transitus ad Disputationem VIII

If theosis is the consummation of participation, then participation must have a mode of historical appearance. The divine life that perfects the creature must already be manifest within history, though under signs and veils. The question now concerns the nature of that manifestation. How does divine life become visible, tangible, sacramental, and efficacious within the order of faith?

We therefore advance to Disputationem VIII: De Manifestatione Eschatologica Veritatis, where the word of faith is considered in its teleological orientation toward the vision of God.