Disputatio XV: De Intentionalitate et Cognitione Divina

On Intentionality and Divine Knowing

Intentionalitas divina est ipse actus in quo Deus seipsum cognoscit et omnia in se cognoscit. Cognitio Dei non est receptio specierum ab extra, sed expressio sui ab intra. Hic actus intentionalis est causa et exemplar omnis cognitionis creatae, quae participatione in eo subsistit.

Divine intentionality is the very act in which God knows Himself and, in knowing Himself, knows all things. God’s knowledge is not reception of external forms but inward self-expression. This act of divine intentionality is both the cause and exemplar of all created knowing, which subsists by participation in it.

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Thesis

All true knowledge, whether divine or human, is intentional—ordered toward what is known. But in God, this intentionality is identical with His being: God’s act of knowing is His act of being. Divine intentionality is therefore the archetype of all meaning and the ground of theology’s possibility, for to know anything is to share, analogically, in God’s self-knowing Word.

Locus classicus

“In your light we see light.” — Psalm 36:9

The Psalmist confesses that all seeing and knowing derive from God’s own luminosity. Knowledge is not an independent human capacity but a participation in divine self-manifestation. To see truth is to see by the light of God’s intentional act.

Explicatio

Intentionality (intentionalitas) refers to the directedness of consciousness or intellect toward something—every act of knowing is “about” or “toward” an object. In finite creatures, this relation presupposes distance: the knower reaches toward what is other.

In God, however, no such distance exists. God’s knowing is not a movement toward the other but the eternal act by which the divine essence expresses itself perfectly. The Father knows Himself in the Son—the eternal Word—and this knowing is not representation but generation. The Son is the divine cognition, the expressed image of the Father’s being.

Thus, divine intentionality is both intra-divine and creative:

• Intra-divine, because the Word is the Father’s perfect knowing of Himself.

• Creative, because in knowing Himself as the source of all possibles, God simultaneously knows all things that can participate in Him.

We may represent this (and then explain it):

• Let K_d(G, x) mean “God knows x in Himself.”

• Then ∀x K_d(G, x) is true not by enumeration but by identity: God’s self-knowledge includes all things insofar as they are possible reflections of His own essence.

• Thus, God does not look outward to know the world; rather, creatures are known inwardly as ideas within the divine self-understanding.

From this it follows that divine knowing is the ground of all creaturely intelligibility. Because the Logos is the eternal intentional act of divine cognition, all created acts of knowledge are participations in that single eternal knowing.

Human intentionality, described in Disputationes XIII–XIV, is therefore analogical: our knowing is a finite echo of God’s own self-directed awareness. When we know truth, we share—through the Spirit—in the eternal act of divine knowing.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. If God’s knowledge is identical with His being, then the act of divine knowing must imply at least a distinction between knower and known, subject and object. But every such distinction entails composition. To say that God knows Himself therefore introduces multiplicity into the divine essence, violating the doctrine of simplicity. A self-reflexive intellect presupposes relational structure incompatible with pure unity.

Obiectio II. If God knows all things only in knowing Himself, then creatures have no independent intelligibility before Him. Divine omniscience would consist solely in self-knowledge, leaving the world unknown except as a moment within the divine idea. This collapses creation into God’s self-contemplation and destroys the reality of the world’s distinct existence.

Obiectio III. If human knowing participates in divine knowing, then human intellect would seem infallible and divine in nature. Yet experience shows human knowledge to be fragmentary, fallible, and historically conditioned. To attribute participation in divine intellect to human understanding risks either exaggeration (making humanity semi-divine) or contradiction (since finite minds err).

Obiectio IV. Modern epistemic autonomy grounds knowledge in human cognitive structures: intuition, perception, and conceptual synthesis. To claim that knowing depends on divine participation undermines epistemic autonomy and reintroduces theological dependence where rational explanation suffices. Human reason should not require ontological participation in God to explain its cognitive powers.

Obiectio V. According to Kant, knowledge is restricted to phenomena structured by the mind’s categories; the noumenal (including God) remains inaccessible. To speak of participation in divine knowing is to assert immediate cognition of the noumenal, a claim both irrational and impossible within the bounds of reason. Theology, if it is to remain credible, must confine itself to moral faith, not speculative participation in divine intellect.

Responsiones

Ad I. The distinction between knower and known in God is not ontological but relational. The divine act of knowing is identical with divine being; its internal differentiation occurs as personal relation, not composition. The Father knows Himself perfectly in the Son—the eternal Word—while the Spirit proceeds as the mutual love of that knowing and being. Divine simplicity is not barren homogeneity but plenitude: a unity so absolute that relation itself subsists without division.

Hence, divine knowledge implies no multiplicity of essence but the fullness of personal self-relation within the one divine act. God’s knowing is identical with His being because His being is inherently self-communicative.

Ad II. God knows creatures in Himself precisely as their cause. To be known “in God” is not to be confused with God but to be eternally comprehended within His creative intellect as possible and actual participations in the divine essence. Divine knowledge, therefore, is neither abstract speculation nor passive observation; it is constitutive causality. God knows all things by knowing His own power to communicate being. The distinctness of creatures is not diminished by being known in God; rather, it is guaranteed. For a creature to be known by God is for it to have a determinate essence within the divine will—an intelligible possibility grounded in infinite reason.

Ad III. Human knowing participates in divine knowing analogically, not univocally. The likeness is formal, not quantitative. Our intellect mirrors the structure of divine cognition—intentionality, unity of form and act, and the orientation toward truth—but only within the conditions of finitude. The Spirit mediates this participation, illuminating reason without abolishing its limits.

Human knowledge is thus genuinely participatory yet remains fallible. It bears the image of divine knowing as the mirror bears light: truly, yet not completely. Illumination does not equal infallibility; it grants proportion between finite intellect and the truth that transcends it.

Ad IV. Epistemic autonomy describes the operational independence of human reason, not its ontological ground. Theology does not deny the integrity of natural cognition but interprets its source. The mind’s capacity for universality, abstraction, and truth cannot be self-generated; it presupposes participation in the divine intellect, the lumen intellectus agentis that grounds intelligibility itself. Divine participation does not replace cognitive faculties but enables them to be what they are. Without such participation, autonomy collapses into self-enclosure and skepticism.

Ad V. Kant’s restriction of knowledge to phenomena is a valid description of unaided reason, but revelation introduces another mode: participation in the divine act of knowing through the Spirit. This is not an empirical extension of cognition into the noumenal but a transformation of the knowing subject. The believer knows God not as object but as communion—cognitio Dei per participationem. This participatory knowing transcends the subject–object relation and manifests the restoration of intellect in grace.

Thus, theology does not violate the limits of reason but transfigures them. The Spirit does not abolish critical reason; He fulfills it by grounding it in divine light.

Nota

To understand divine intentionality is to see that truth is not a property of propositions but an act of God. Truth exists because God’s self-knowing is perfect; all finite truths are echoes of that primal intelligibility.

Theology therefore begins and ends in divine cognition. The nova lingua (Disputatio IX) is intelligible because God Himself speaks intelligibly. Revelation (Disputatio X) is participation in the act of divine knowing. Creation’s intelligibility (Disputatio XI) is the imprint of divine intentionality upon being. Providence (Disputatio XII) is the continual expression of divine knowing in time. Intension and intention (Disputationes XIII–XIV) reflect within language and spirit the very structure of this divine self-knowledge.

In this light, the Son as Logos may be called intentio Patris perfecta—the perfect intention of the Father. All finite acts of cognition, all human search for truth, exist within the horizon of this eternal act.

We might express the relation symbolically (and then immediately explain it):

K_h ⊂ K_d, meaning: human knowledge (K_h) is contained within divine knowledge (K_d) as participation within plenitude. This is not spatial inclusion but ontological dependence: to know truth at all is to share, however finitely, in God’s own act of knowing.

Thus, divine intentionality is both the metaphysical cause of all knowledge and the theological horizon that gives it meaning.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Divine intentionality is identical with God’s being; God knows Himself and all things in the single eternal act of the Word.

2. The Son, as Logos, is the perfect expression of this divine knowing—the intentional act in which all intelligibility subsists.

3. All creaturely knowledge is participatory, sharing analogically in the form of God’s own cognition through the illumination of the Spirit.

4. Truth is not independent of God but the temporal reflection of His eternal self-understanding.

5. Hence, theology as scientia Dei in nobis is grounded in divine intentionality: to know truthfully is to think within the light by which God knows Himself.

Disputatio XIV: De Intensione et Intentione in Discurso Theologico

On Intension and Intention in Theological Discourse

In theologia, intensio designat participationem sermonis in veritate quam significat; intentio autem exprimit motum Spiritus quo sermo et cognoscens ordinantur ad Deum. Utraque, intensio et intentio, constituunt duplicem structuram loquelae theologicae: formam significationis et actum directionis.

In theology, intension designates the participation of speech in the truth it signifies, while intention expresses the motion of the Spirit by which speech and knower are directed toward God. Together, intension and intention constitute the dual structure of theological discourse: the form of meaning and the act of orientation.

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Thesis

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

Locus classicus

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

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

Explicatio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Objectiones

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

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

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

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

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

Responsiones

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

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

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

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

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

Nota

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

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

We can imagine this schematically:

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

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

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

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

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

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

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

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

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

Disputatio XIII: De Intensione et Modeling Linguae Theologicae

On Intension and the Modeling of Theological Language

Intensio in theologia non est mera conceptio mentis, sed forma participationis, qua sermo fidelis participat in re ipsa de qua loquitur. Modeling theologicum est interpretatio huius intensionalis structurae intra ordinem entis, quo verbum fidei inseritur in veritatem ontologicam causatam a Spiritu.

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

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Thesis

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

Locus classicus

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

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

Explicatio

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

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

Let us represent this symbolically (and immediately explain):

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

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

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

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

Objectiones

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

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

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

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

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

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Responsiones

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

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

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

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

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

Nota

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

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

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

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

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

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

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

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

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

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

Disputatio XII: De Providentia et Continuatione Causalitatis Divinae

On Providence and the Continuity of Divine Causality

Providentia Dei est continua causalitas, qua Deus non solum mundum creavit ex nihilo sed ipsum conservat et gubernat in esse. Haec causalitas non est actio extrinseca sed praesentia interna, qua Spiritus Sanctus perpetuo coniungit Verbum creatum et creatorem, ut universum manere possit intelligibile et bonum.

Divine providence is the continuous causality by which God not only created the world from nothing but also sustains and governs it in being. This causality is not an external intervention but an inner presence, whereby the Holy Spirit perpetually unites the created word and the Creator, so that the universe may remain intelligible and good.

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Thesis

Providence (providentia) is the ongoing act of divine causality by which the world persists and moves toward its end in God. Creation is not a completed event but a continuous relation; the same Word that brought all things into being sustains them in being. The Spirit mediates this continuity, causing creatures to act freely while remaining within the scope of divine purpose.

Locus classicus

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” — Colossians 1:17

Here Paul speaks not of a distant deity but of the Logos as the ongoing bond of being. Creation’s coherence is not self-sustaining; it abides in Christ’s continuous causality. Providence, therefore, is the persistence of creation’s dependence upon divine Word and Spirit.

Explicatio

In Disputatio XI, we affirmed that the world’s intelligibility arises from its creation by the Word. We now consider how that intelligibility endures. If creation were a single, past act, the world would dissolve into nothingness the moment divine attention ceased. Providence is therefore creation continued—the abiding act of God’s causality by which the creature’s being remains actual.

To clarify this theologically:

• Let C(x) denote that x is a creature, and E(x) that x exists.

• The relation ∀x (C(x) → E(x) because D(x)) means: for every creature x, its existence is caused and sustained by divine causality D(x).

• This symbol does not refer to an occasional miracle but to the metaphysical structure of existence itself: creatures exist because God continuously wills and causes them to exist.

Providence therefore implies not intervention but continuation. God’s causal activity is in esse, not merely in fieri: He does not push the world forward and then withdraw; He is the cause of its very being at every moment.

The Spirit (Spiritus Sanctus) mediates this ongoing causality by joining divine intention to creaturely action. Through the Spirit, the will of God becomes the vitality of creation. Hence, the world’s ongoing order—its stability, intelligibility, and teleology—is nothing less than the temporal manifestation of providence.

Divine causality in providence operates in three modes:

1. Conservatio – preservation of being (keeping creatures in existence).

2. Concursus – cooperation with secondary causes (working through creaturely action).

3. Gubernatio – direction of all things to their end (ordering the whole to divine goodness).

These three are distinct in concept but one in divine act.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. According to deistic naturalism, if divine causality is continuous and all-encompassing, every event and choice is predetermined by God’s will. The doctrine of providence, so conceived, annihilates contingency and renders creaturely freedom illusory. What appears as secondary causation is but divine efficiency extended through nature, leaving no genuine autonomy to creatures.

Obiectio II. Conversely, deistic autonomy holds that if God truly endowed the world with natural laws and rational freedom, continuous divine causality is unnecessary. To say that God must sustain creation at every instant implies a defect in the creative act. A perfect Creator would make a world capable of independent persistence—self-sufficient once brought into being.

Obiectio III. With regard to the problem of evil, if providence extends to all things, then evil too must fall within divine causality. Either God causes evil directly—contradicting His goodness—or He merely permits it—contradicting His omnipotence. The notion of providence as continuous divine causation thus seems incompatible with both divine holiness and power.

Obiectio IV.  Epicurean or Existential Indifference opines that the world exhibits randomness, suffering, and moral ambiguity. If divine providence truly governs all things, its presence should be evident. The apparent absence of order suggests either that providence is a projection of human meaning or that divine causality, if real, is indistinguishable from blind natural process.

Obiectio V.  Modern process and evolutionary theology maintains that divine causality evolves with the world. God persuades rather than determines, luring creation toward novelty. To call providence a continuous causality of preservation is to freeze the dynamism of divine–world interaction into static ontology. True providence must be relational and temporal, not immutable and timeless.

Responsiones

Ad I. Determinism confuses divine causality with mechanical compulsion. God’s causality is not competitive with creaturely causality but constitutive of it. The Spirit enables the creature to be a genuine cause. Divine providence grounds contingency rather than abolishes it: because God continuously gives being, the creature’s free act truly is its own. Were God not present in every act, freedom would dissolve into chaos or nothingness. Continuous causality, far from destroying freedom, makes it possible.

Ad II. Deism misconstrues perfection as detachment. Dependence is not imperfection but participation. A self-sustaining world would be a second god, not a creation. The Spirit’s conserving causality does not repair a defect but expresses the fullness of divine generosity—the ever-renewed “Let there be.” Providence means that creation never stands apart from its source; it is God’s ongoing communication of being. The world’s endurance is not independence but grace prolonged.

Ad III. Providence encompasses evil without authoring it. God’s causality provides the being of every act, but the privation of good within those acts arises from finite freedom. The Spirit does not cause the defect but permits it for a greater teleological order in which love overcomes disorder. Evil’s inclusion within providence does not indict God but magnifies His redemptive wisdom: the same continuous causality that sustains freedom redeems its misuse.

Ad IV. The apparent randomness of nature reveals not the absence but the subtlety of providence. Divine causality is not always manifest as intervention but as intelligibility itself—the order by which events cohere. The Spirit’s presence is discerned not in spectacle but in the persistence of meaning, beauty, and moral orientation amid flux. Providence is not an empirical hypothesis but a metaphysical condition: without it, the world’s very intelligibility would collapse into noise.

Ad V. Process thought rightly emphasizes dynamism but mistakes temporality for becoming in God. Divine causality is eternally active yet temporally manifest. The Spirit’s governance is not static but vivifying: God’s constancy is the ground of change. Providence is not a closed determinism but an open teleology—an eternal act that gives time its direction. The world evolves precisely because divine causality continuously bestows being and novelty in one act of faithful presence.

Nota

Providence (providentia) and creation (creatio) are two aspects of one divine motion: creatio continua. The divine Word, who once spoke being into existence, continues to speak it every moment. This uninterrupted act is not temporal repetition but eternal presence. God’s causality, though immanent, remains transcendent; it permeates all finite operations without becoming one among them.

From a model-theoretic viewpoint, we can describe the relation between divine and creaturely causation as cross-sorted dependency. In formal terms (and then explained):

• Let the domain of divine properties be Dᴳ, and that of creaturely states be Dᶜ.

• A function f: Dᴳ → Dᶜ indicates that each creaturely act derives its being from participation in a divine causal correlate.

• This is not an efficient sequence but an ontological dependency: divine causality constitutes finite efficacy without displacing it.

Thus, providence is the metaphysical condition under which creation remains intelligible and free simultaneously. Without it, the world would be a self-enclosed mechanism; with it, the world is a living communication.

The Spirit’s presence within providence ensures that divine causality is not mechanical necessity but personal faithfulness. God does not merely sustain the cosmos as a machine; He accompanies it as a promise. Every moment of being is a continuation of the creative “Let there be,” renewed through the Spirit’s fiat.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Providence is the continuous act of divine causality (creatio continua) by which all things are preserved, governed, and perfected in God.

2. The Spirit mediates this causality, joining divine intention to creaturely action without competition or coercion.

3. Continuous causality affirms that dependence upon God is not a limitation but the very structure of creaturely freedom.

4. Evil and disorder do not originate in divine causality but are permitted within its teleological order for the sake of greater good.

5. The doctrine of providence completes the theology of creation: the world’s existence and intelligibility are not static products but living effects of God’s eternal act.

Disputatio XI: De Creatione et Intellegibilitate Mundi

On the Creation and Intelligibility of the World

Mundus est creatus per Verbum Dei, et propterea in ipso est ratio et ordo intelligibilis. Intellegibilitas mundi non est proprietas naturalis aut autonomus logos, sed participatio in ipsa ratione divina, per quam omnia facta sunt. Spiritus Sanctus est causa per quam haec participatio manet viva et cognoscibilis.

The world was created by the Word of God, and therefore within it lies reason and intelligible order. The intelligibility of the world is not a natural property or autonomous logic but participation in the divine reason through which all things were made. The Holy Spirit is the cause by which this participation remains living and knowable.

__________

Thesis

Creation is intelligible because it proceeds from the divine Word. The order of reason in the world reflects the eternal Logos by which it was created and in which it is sustained. The Spirit preserves this intelligibility as the ongoing mediation between divine wisdom and creaturely understanding.

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

This verse reveals that creation is not a brute event but an act of speech: God’s Word gives being; His Spirit gives life and understanding. The world, therefore, bears a rational and linguistic structure because it originates in divine utterance.

Explicatio

In previous disputations, revelation and knowledge were shown to occur as acts of divine self-communication. Creation is the cosmic expression of that same principle. To create “by the Word” is to bring forth being through meaning.

The intelligibility of the world (intelligibilitas mundi) is not an afterthought but the imprint of divine reason (ratio divina) within creation itself. The divine Logos does not merely impose order externally; He is the internal ground of all order. Hence, the world is not a mute mechanism but a spoke reality—a creation articulated in the very act of divine utterance.

To express this symbolically (and then immediately explain):

• Let C(x) mean “x is a creature,” and L(x) mean “x participates in the Logos.”

• The theological claim ∀x (C(x) → L(x)) can be read: “For every creature x, to be created is to participate in the Logos.”

• This does not mean that creatures possess divinity, but that their very structure reflects divine rationality.

• The world’s coherence, its capacity to be known, is therefore the sign of its origin in divine speech.

The Spirit (Spiritus Sanctus), proceeding from the Father through the Word, maintains this participation dynamically.
The Spirit is not merely a past cause of order but the ongoing agent of intelligibility: He makes the world not only ordered but understandable. Thus, creation’s rational form is continually animated by pneumatological presence.

Objectiones

Obiectio I. Autonomous Rationalism holds that if the world’s intelligibility depends upon divine participation, then human reason is heteronomous. Science and philosophy must be autonomous to retain credibility. To posit that intelligibility is “borrowed” from divine Logos is to undermine the independence of human knowledge and reduce rational inquiry to theology.

Obiectio II. To claim that the Logos is the inner rationality of creation risks a pantheistic collapse of the Creator and creature into one order of being. If all order, ratio, and structure in the world are divine, then the world itself becomes divine in substance. The distinction between participation and identity vanishes, and theology slides toward pantheism.

Obiectio III. The natural world exhibits randomness, entropy, and moral indifference (empirical chaos). Disease, suffering, and death pervade the biological order. If creation truly participates in the divine Logos, these features appear inexplicable or scandalous. The presence of irrationality and evil in nature seems to contradict the claim that the world is inherently intelligible.

Obiectio IV. According to scientific naturalism, science explains intelligibility through natural law and mathematical regularity without invoking divine speech. The assumption of an underlying Logos is unnecessary. Order arises from self-organizing processes, symmetry breaking, and evolution. To ascribe intelligibility to divine participation is to import metaphysics where empirical explanation suffices.

Obiectio V. Postmodern hermeneutic skepticism claims that language and reason are historically contingent human constructs. To say that the world itself is “linguistic” or “spoken” is a metaphor, not an ontology. Meaning is produced by interpreters, not embedded in being. The idea of the cosmos as divine utterance confuses human interpretation with the structure of reality itself.

Responsiones

Ad I. Autonomy in reason does not mean isolation from its source. Human rationality is genuine precisely because it participates in the divine Logos. The dependence of intelligibility on God is not servitude but vocation: reason becomes most itself when illumined by its origin. The sciences retain autonomy in their proper domain, but their very capacity for intelligibility is derivative—a finite echo of the Word through whom all things were made. Participation in the Logos grounds freedom, it does not annul it.

Ad II. Participation does not imply identity but communion across an ontological distinction. The Logos is present in creation as cause, not as substance. The world’s order reflects divine wisdom without exhausting or containing it. To speak of creation as “worded” does not mean that it is the Word, but that its being bears the trace of the Word’s utterance. The infinite remains transcendent even while immanent in the finite. Thus, the doctrine of participation preserves both dependence and distinction.

Ad III. Chaos and disorder mark creation’s finitude, not its absence of divine order. The Logos grants intelligibility even to imperfection: finitude includes the potential for failure, limitation, and conflict. Yet these apparent irrationalities become meaningful within the teleological horizon of providence. The cross remains the archetype: what appears as negation of order is, in divine wisdom, the means of a higher reconciliation. Creation’s intelligibility, therefore, is not the denial of mystery but the assurance that mystery itself is ordered to meaning.

Ad IV. Scientific explanation presupposes the intelligibility it cannot generate. The discovery of order through empirical method already assumes that the world is rationally structured and consistent—a condition theology explains as participation in the divine Logos. Natural law, symmetry, and mathematics are not self-originating; they are the formal vestiges of divine reason. Theology does not compete with science but interprets the precondition of its success. The Logos is the ground of intelligibility that science explores but cannot explain.

Ad V. Postmodern skepticism rightly observes that human language mediates all understanding, but it errs in treating meaning as purely subjective. The world is intelligible because it is spoken—not by humans first, but by the divine Word. The analogy between creation and language is not metaphorical but metaphysical: both are acts of signification. The Spirit mediates this relation by translating divine speech into created order and human comprehension. Thus, while interpretation is human, meaning is divine. The cosmos is not a text we invent but a text we inhabit.

Nota

The doctrine of creation through the Word entails a profound theological epistemology. The human capacity to know the world is itself a participation in the divine act of speech. To understand is to retrace, in thought, the creative grammar by which God called things into being.

Thus, the sciences—when rightly ordered—are not profane but theological activities: they read the grammar of creation written by the Logos. This is why the world is intelligible at all: its being is linguistic before it is material. Every true discovery is a translation of the Word’s creative logic into human comprehension.

The Spirit’s role is central. Without the Spirit, intelligibility would decay into abstraction. The Spirit causes the correspondence between human reason and divine reason—the very possibility that meaning in the world can meet meaning in the mind. We might say that the Spirit is the hermeneutical bond of creation: the one who makes the world readable and reason receptive.

Therefore, creation’s intelligibility is neither self-explanatory nor imposed from outside.It is an ongoing relation of divine communication: the Logos speaks, the Spirit interprets, the creature understands.

Determinatio

From the foregoing it is determined that:

1. Creation is not a silent fact but a spoken act: esse arises from dicere.

2. The intelligibility of the world derives from its participation in the divine Logos, not from autonomous rational structure.

3. The Spirit preserves and animates this intelligibility, making the world perpetually communicative to human reason.

4. Human knowledge of creation is itself participatory—an act of re-speaking what God has already said in being.

5. The doctrine of creation and intelligibility thus completes the movement begun in revelation: the world is revelation extended into matter, speech made visible, and intelligibility the trace of God’s continuing Word.