The terms defined in this glossary are not speculative inventions or arbitrary neologisms. Many are rooted in existing etymology, recovered from classical, scholastic, or biblical usage, and systematized within a coherent theological-ontological framework. Where terms such as instantiation, essentiation, or exempliation have historically lacked formal precision—or have been flattened by secular metaphysics—this framework re-establishes their meaning by grounding them in the double divine prerogative: God alone defines what may be (auctoritas essendi) and brings it into being (auctoritas instantiandi).
Some terms may appear rare or underutilized in modern discourse, but each has been carefully restored and refined for conceptual clarity. This glossary is not an exercise in linguistic novelty, but a recovery of necessary distinctions that have been lost through centuries of ontological drift. These entries reflect a commitment to ontological accountability, epistemic humility, and moral clarity.
Affective Presupposition An assumption smuggled into discourse through emotional tone, narrative framing, or social urgency. It bypasses reason by exploiting the hearer’s moral intuitions, empathy, or fear of exclusion—especially effective in typophoric rhetoric.
Algorithmic Scaffolding The structural constraints imposed by digital platforms that shape not only what is visible or promoted, but what feels relevant, sayable, or socially valuable. These scaffolds manufacture perceived liberty while silently curating ideological conformity.
Analogy A relational mode of reference in which meaning is conveyed through proportion or resemblance without collapsing categories; foundational to biblical language about God.Example: “God is a rock” conveys permanence, not material composition.
Anaphatic (from anaphasis, “ascent”)That which is referenced typologically, through structural boundary or limitation. Corresponds to ontological types—realities that cannot be exhausted by instantiation but are defined by divine limits.
Anaphytic Expression A term from Van Til’s theology referring to the delimiting boundaries of an object—corresponds to the ontological type.Example: Humanity’s created limitations define its anaphytic structure.
Apex Suppression The final evasion pattern in bandwidth-restricted knowledge systems, where truth is rendered inert—no longer able to confront, recalibrate, or disclose. Rather than being received as gift, truth is treated as a construct or endpoint, terminating the possibility of realignment. This suppression signifies full resistance to divine prerogative.
Arminian Framework A theological system emphasizing human freedom and conditional election. Articulated in the Five Articles of the Remonstrance (1610), it affirms:– Conditional Election: God chooses based on foreseen faith;– Unlimited Atonement: Christ died for all, though only believers are saved;– Total Depravity (offset by prevenient grace): Grace enables the sinner to respond freely;– Resistible Grace: The offer of salvation may be accepted or rejected;– Conditional Perseverance: Believers may fall away through persistent unbelief. The framework is synergistic—salvation involves both divine initiative and human response. While sharing some key affirmations—particularly the resistibility of grace and moral responsibility—this relational-biblical framework reorients prevenient grace as divine moral confrontation, not merely enablement. It grounds accountability not in restored capacity but in the inescapable presentation of ontological truth revealed by God.
Aseity The attribute of God whereby He exists from Himself—self-existent, uncaused, and dependent on nothing outside Himself. Aseity grounds God's exclusive prerogative to instantiate and define all being and meaning.
Axiological Failure The foundational moral distortion in which one loves what ought not to be loved or esteems what is contrary to God's revealed good. It precedes disobedience or moral collapse in action, corrupting the soul’s basic value orientation. This is the root of iniquity and the first axis of moral breakdown in the ADM model.
Background Ontology The implicit metaphysical structure that undergirds what is considered real, meaningful, or morally valid in a given discourse. Presuppositional warfare targets this background by substituting covenantal categories with pseudo-types.
Bandwidth Suppression The narrowing of onto-epistemic access due to moral evasion, epistemic autonomy, or structural recursion. Rather than allowing truth to rise from ontological disclosure through relational submission, bandwidth suppression limits knowledge to what affirms the self, what is culturally tolerable, or what bypasses ontological confrontation.
Bandwidth Disambiguation Tool A diagnostic structure embedded in the OEBI tool, designed to progressively expose where a knowledge system restricts its onto-epistemic bandwidth. Each tier of the ladder corresponds to a form of suppression or evasion, moving from foundational denial to advanced simulation. It sharpens epistemic analysis by distinguishing between alignment, drift, and collapse.
Binary Pressure A structural framing technique in discourse that reduces complex moral landscapes to false dichotomies—e.g., “You’re either for inclusion or for hate.” It functions to force alignment and preempt critical thought by narrowing acceptable responses.
Clavinism (Synod of Dort) A theological system emphasizing God's absolute sovereignty in salvation. Codified in the TULIP acronym, Calvinism teaches: Total Depravity: Humans are entirely unable to choose God apart from divine regeneration; Unconditional Election: God's choice to save is not based on foreseen faith or merit; Limited Atonement: Christ died only for the elect; Irresistible Grace: God's grace effectively draws the elect to salvation; Perseverance of the Saints: Those truly elected will persevere in faith to the end.The framework is monergistic—God alone initiates and completes salvation. This position is respectfully rejected in the relational-biblical framework presented here, which affirms divine initiative but emphasizes moral confrontation, resistible grace, and relational accountability.
Cataphatic (from kataphasis, “affirmation”)That which is positively disclosed, instantiated, or made concrete. In this framework, cataphatic content corresponds to ontic tokens—particular, manifest realities.
Cataphatic Expression Van Til’s term for the positive features or attributes of an object—corresponds to the ontic token.Example: Moral agency and rationality are cataphytic descriptors of the human.
Code A culturally embedded interpretive framework that governs how signs are understood. Codes may reflect divinely instituted categories or fabricate alternatives by simulating types.
Cognitive Saturation The process by which repeated exposure to typophoric claims (e.g., “inclusion,” “identity,” “justice”) normalizes them as moral facts. Over time, these unchallenged assumptions shape the hearer’s interpretive reflexes, forming a new moral frame.
Cognitive Sovereignty A rebranded version of “liberty of conscience” that retains autonomy but removes vertical accountability. It implies the right to determine truth independently, severed from divine revelation. In this framework, it is a secularized pseudo-virtue—an autonomy masquerading as moral clarity.
Conical Cognition A model of epistemic alignment wherein thought narrows toward the apex of ontological truth through recursive disambiguation and relational submission. In contrast to web-based or linear models, which either remain diffuse or merely sequential, conical cognition recognizes the vertical convergence of moral clarity, typological alignment, and revealed being. Its structure mirrors the sharpening of a cone or pencil: eliminating redundancy to access what is most structurally true.
Consent/Dissent Dialectic A system-preserving tactic wherein apparent disagreement is permitted, even encouraged, but only within a pre-limited spectrum of acceptable views. It functions not to silence opposition, but to domesticate it—ensuring that true ontological disruption is excluded in advance.
Controlled Debate Discourse structured to appear open while excluding the deeper categories (e.g., covenant, sin, creation) that would challenge the system. This technique allows surface disagreement while preserving the legitimacy of pseudo-types through ontological deferral.
Covenantal Epistemology A mode of knowing rooted not in detachment or procedural method, but in relational submission to the One who reveals. Covenantal epistemology recognizes that all true knowing is moral—dependent on posture, obedience, and typological fidelity. It stands in opposition to both rationalist autonomy and empiricist neutrality, asserting that knowledge is covenantal before it is conceptual.
Covenantal Frame A discourse structure shaped by categories revealed by God—such as righteousness, grace, creation, judgment, and redemption. True presuppositional clarity occurs only when language is situated within a covenantal frame.
Deictic Collapse The breakdown of meaningful reference when deixis (e.g., “this,” “we,” “now”) is severed from ontological anchors. What appears contextually grounded becomes rhetorically manipulative, inviting alignment with ideological or affective immediacy rather than covenantal truth.
Deixis A linguistic gesture that points to a referent in space, time, or discourse. Divided into:• Exophoric deixis: pointing to something outside the text or speech event (e.g., “now,” “look there”).• Endophoric deixis: pointing within the discourse itself (e.g., “this idea,” “such behavior”).• Typophoric deixis: (introduced in this model) pointing to abstract, presumed types—such as “justice,” “freedom,” “progress”—which may be covenantally grounded (onto-typophoric) or ideologically simulated (pseudo-typophoric).
Deontic-Modal Unit (DM Unit) A divinely imprinted moral–ontological structure within the human person that discerns obligation (deontic) and moral possibility or necessity (modal). The DM unit is not acquired but embedded at creation as part of the image-bearing design. Though universally present, it can be volitionally suppressed, compartmentalized, or surrendered. Its proper function is awakened in confrontation with divine moral disclosure—particularly through epideictic exposure—at which point the soul must choose whether to align with or resist God’s axiological order. The DM unit is thus the structure of moral agency, capable of either being requalified through grace or distorted through simulation.
Discursive Compliance The act of conforming to the moral or ontological assumptions embedded within dominant language norms. It may involve affirming pseudo-types through speech or silence, regardless of one's actual convictions, due to social or institutional pressure.
Discursive Imitation of God The rhetorical act of simulating divine prerogatives—particularly the right to define kinds and instantiate presence—through language that mimics covenantal force without ontological grounding. Typified by pseudo-types and pseudo-tokens presented as moral truths.
Discursive Preloading The front-loading of a conversation or claim with unspoken typological assumptions. These often function as unstated premises which predetermine the moral landscape of what follows, closing off dissent before it begins.
Discursive Pseudo-Instantiation The act of introducing a fabricated type into public discourse with the moral weight of reality—usually through repetition, fiction, or satire—before any rational or theological evaluation occurs. A primary feature of Overton phase I (Seeding).
Divine Double Prerogative God’s exclusive right to both instantiate ontic realities and define their ontological types. This prerogative safeguards against ontological fraud by asserting that both existence (ontic instantiation) and essence (ontological typing) are within God’s domain alone.
Edenic Inversion The original onto-epistemic rupture enacted in Genesis 3, wherein the human creature chose to know apart from receiving, and to define apart from being defined. The Edenic inversion represents the primal act of epistemic autonomy—the assertion that moral categories can be discerned apart from the ontological voice of God. All subsequent suppression and simulation echo this first act.
Emotional Anchoring The rhetorical strategy of attaching abstract concepts (e.g., identity, equity) to emotionally potent terms like love or safety. This creates moral pressure to accept the concept without evaluating its ontological legitimacy.
Emotive Typophora Typophoric reference used primarily for emotional resonance rather than ontological clarity. It often appears in slogans, advertising, or activism, invoking terms like love, equality, or safety to simulate moral legitimacy without testing the referent. See Typophora separately for further clarification.
Endophoric Deixis Deictic references pointing within the discourse itself (e.g., “this proves that…”). In Overton manipulation, endophora often serves to close debate by assuming shared conclusions that bypass ontological scrutiny.
Elentic Confrontational Self-Realization in Light of Truth Elentics refers to the internal moral interface wherein the soul becomes experientially aware of its position in relation to truth. It is not the external disclosure of truth (epideixis), nor the volitional decision itself (noesis), but the phenomenological moment of internalized exposure—when truth pierces posture and confronts the will with clarified moral awareness. Elentics is the bridging state between epideictic revelation and noetic response. It is the inward recognition, the “thou art the man” (2 Sam. 12:7) moment, when what has been revealed externally becomes subjectively and morally unavoidable. It does not guarantee alignment (the will may suppress it); It does not bypass the will (it is not coercion); It intensifies moral clarity, making volitional response morally weighted and irrevocably meaningful. In biblical examples: The Prodigal “comes to himself” (Luke 15:17): elentic state. Paul, struck by divine voice, asks, “What wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6): elentic recognition preceding noesis. Pharaoh hardens his heart after divine signs: he encounters elentic moments but resists. Elentics reveals the soul’s posture to itself, in the light of God, preparing the ground for decisive noesis. It is not merely psychological conviction—it is a phenomenological interface between posture and volition, accountability and choice.
See also: Epideixis, Noetic Posture, Noesis.
Epidexis Relational Confrontation and Formal Moral Disclosure. In this framework, epidexis refers not to the ambient revelation of moral posture (which occurs in every act and thought), but to a divinely initiated moment of formal confrontation—a kairotic event in which the will is summoned into the light of truth. It is not merely passive exposure, but an intentional revelatory summons wherein the soul’s disposition toward God, goodness, and truth is brought to clarity. While noetic drift expresses ongoing volitional posture, epidexismarks a moral inflection point: ambiguity collapses, excuses dissolve, and the conscience stands unveiled.
This is not psychological manipulation, but covenantal clarity. The soul is not offered neutral choices but confronted with the reality of what it has become—and what it is being called to become. Epidexis transforms latent orientation into explicit decision. It initiates the elentic response, whereby the soul is internally exposed and morally obligated to answer. Thus, epidexis distinguishes implicit moral drift (habitual disposition) from formal moral reckoning (relational confrontation through truth and grace).
Epideictic–Elentic Axis A two-part structure describing the relational dynamic of divine moral confrontation and human response. The epideictic moment refers to God’s sovereign unveiling of truth—wherein the soul is confronted with ontological, axiological, and moral reality not as abstract proposition but as a relational summons. The elentic response follows necessarily: a morally charged internal exposure in which the soul is revealed to itself and must answer, either in surrender or suppression. This axis grounds the function of the DM unit, which mediates the confrontation and renders volitional response unavoidable. The elentic response is not coerced, but demanded—truth unveiled collapses neutrality and calls the conscience to account.
Epistemic Entrapment A situation in which the hearer is forced to operate within a distorted presuppositional field. Even sincere attempts to speak truth are misread, because the categories of interpretation have been redefined in advance.
Epistemic Tiering A layered framework of evaluating knowledge systems based on their foundational alignment. Tier 1 asks whether a system acknowledges a source of truth outside the knower (epistemic autonomy). If this fails, all subsequent structures are distortions. Tier 2 evaluates whether, despite claimed alignment, the system exhibits patterns of suppression or simulation through evasive templates.
Epistemology The study of knowledge, understood not as autonomous cognition but as relational participation in divine self-disclosure. Knowledge is covenantal in posture and moral in accountability.
Essentiation The act of instantiating being within a divinely delimited ontological type (fiat actualitatis). Only God possesses the authority to originate essentia, especially organic life (sentient or self-aware being). Human beings may only participate secondarily—through bounded reconfiguration of non-sentient matter (inorganic essentia). Any attempt to simulate or arrogate this act apart from divine prerogative results in pseudo-essentiation, more broadly termed effigiation when the result mimics divine presence without ontological warrant.
Evasive Template A recurring structural pattern used in philosophical, theological, or social systems to avoid ontological submission. These include coherence simulation, foundational projection, reliabilist substitution, moral constructivism, referential bracketing, and semiotic simulation. Each template suppresses full bandwidth access to truth by redefining what may count as knowledge, obligation, or meaning.
ExempliationThe act of instantiating moral truth within a divinely delimited type (fiat veritatis). God exempliates justice, mercy, and righteousness through commands, judgments, and even thought. Human beings may participate by aligning both thought (noetic posture) and deed (praxis) with God’s axiological will. This faithful participation is called exempliatio fidelis—a covenantal echo of divine reality. When misaligned—performative, insincere, or ideologically distorted—such acts become pseudo-exempliations, and may fall under effigiation if they simulate moral presence without correspondence to ontological truth.
Explicature The enriched surface meaning of an utterance—what is explicitly said, but shaped by context, inference, and background assumptions. Explicature may appear objective but often embeds typophoric drift, masking ontological substitution beneath clarity.
Exophoric Deixis References that point outside the discourse (e.g., “now is the time,” “look at this”). Often used to manufacture urgency or presumed consensus through shared immediacy, while obscuring typological instability.
Expositional Disruption A rhetorical intervention that breaks open latent presuppositions embedded in discourse. Scriptural examples include Jesus’ and the prophets’ interrogative style, which forces the hearer to confront their background assumptions.
Experimental Religion (or Experimental Christianity) The view that spiritual truth must be relationally tested and evidenced in the lived response of the soul to God—not merely believed or professed. Historically emphasized in the Wesleyan tradition, this framework refines the concept by rooting it in ontology: divine truth confronts the will through morally weighted choice sets, exposing the heart’s posture. This experimental dynamic is essential to regeneration and theodicy.
Framing The cognitive and emotional structure imposed on how discourse is received. Framing tools (e.g., memes, slogans, repetition) shape the moral meaning of words before they are even evaluated, privileging certain referents while excluding others.
Holy Spirit – Emanation from the Father
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone (John 14:26; 15:26), not as an ontologically distinct hypostasis (person), but as the emanated presence of divine will and truth. He is active throughout redemptive history (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30; 1 Sam. 10:10), yet becomes personalized only after the glorification of the Son (John 7:39; Acts 2:33), bearing the imprint of the Son's obedience, suffering, and moral triumph. As such, the Spirit becomes the moral and ontological continuity of the risen Christ (John 15:26; 2 Cor. 3:17), divested of the physical presence of Jesus but retaining His volitional personality. The Spirit does not instantiate being or define ontological types but instead activates what the Father authors (Matt. 10:20; Luke 11:13; John 14:26) and what the Son discloses (Gal. 4:6; John 16:13–14; 1 Cor. 2:12). This framework rejects both Trinitarian co-equality and Arian creatureliness, presenting the Spirit as a real, personal, relational emanation—not a third ontic center but the expressive, indwelling presence of the glorified Son within regenerated moral agents.
Implicature What is implied but not directly stated—meaning inferred by the hearer based on shared norms or expectations. It becomes ethically significant when used to exert pressure without accountability, especially when leveraging typophoric ambiguity.
Iniquity (ʿavon) A corruption of axiological alignment—a twisted desire or perverted valuation of what is good. Iniquity is not merely moral failure, but the internal distortion of affection, resulting in a bent or crooked soul. It reflects a noetic posture that has turned away from what is truly good.
Instantiation The act of bringing a divinely delimited ontological type (ontotype) into actual presence—either as essentia (being) or veritas (moral truth). Only God possesses the double prerogative to both define ontological kinds (auctoritas essendi) and instantiate their presence (auctoritas instantiandi), whether through fiat actualitatis (essentiation) or fiat veritatis(exempliation).
Human agents may only participate in bounded instantiation, and only within the moral parameters of divine alignment. Valid human participation—called exempliatio fidelis—is covenantal, never creative. Any attempt to instantiate apart from God's will or outside of the divinely delimited types results in pseudo-instantiation, typically expressed as effigiation: a simulation of being or truth without ontological legitimacy.
Institutional Typophoric Inversion The process by which institutions (law, education, HR policy) codify and enforce pseudo-types, reversing theological referents and presenting moral inversion as normative—e.g., treating conscience as hate, or sin as identity.
Intent (Mens Rea) A legal and moral category describing the premeditated or knowing mental state preceding an action. In biblical terms, intent corresponds to transgression—the willful decision to cross a known boundary, and to noēsis—the deliberative act of mental assent to disobedience.
Intertextuality The intentional coherence of code-message across multiple media to uphold the internal logic of a narrative or myth. It may reinforce divine truth or simulate legitimacy in service of ideological fabrication.Example: A political, cinematic, and educational echo of “self-identification” functions intertextually to normalize a pseudo-type.
Knowledge Not merely the possession of information, but a covenantal alignment with God’s self-revelation. True knowledge arises from a right moral posture toward the One who discloses being.
Linguistic Consent The moral act of agreement not just with the content of a statement, but with the typological structure behind it. Accepting a phrase like “reproductive justice” without discernment often entails unspoken consent to a pseudo-type.
Loaded Language Words or phrases that carry moral or emotional weight beyond their literal meaning. Often used to pre-load a discourse unit with implicit judgment or obligation.Examples: “hate,” “denial,” “inclusive,” “dangerous.”
Meaning The faithful expression of revealed reality. Meaning arises through semiotic systems that conform to God’s ontology and reflect His order.
Metapragmatic Warfield The zone in which the conditions of discourse themselves are contested—not just what is said, but what is assumed sayable, thinkable, or morally permissible. Presuppositional warfare takes place within this field, determining the rules before arguments begin.
Metaphor A trope that transfers meaning from one domain to another based on resemblance.
Reverent: “The Lord is my shepherd” illuminates divine care.
Subversive: “Love is love” collapses moral distinctions under emotional equivalence.
Metonymy A trope that substitutes one element for another based on close association.
Reverent: “The throne” for divine kingship.
Subversive: “Trust the science” uses institutional language to replace moral reasoning.
Moral Discernment Threshold The line beyond which a system no longer retains the capacity to receive or be confronted by ontological truth. Once this threshold is crossed—whether through recursion, abstraction, or typological simulation—truth no longer functions as a confronting presence, but is reduced to data, sentiment, or utility. Restoration of discernment requires more than argument; it requires repentance and relational realignment.
Moral Presupposition A background belief about right and wrong that is not openly argued but woven into discourse as a given. These function as cultural absolutes, often replacing revealed standards with consensus-generated ones.
Morpheme The smallest unit of linguistic meaning. Without ontological grounding, even morphemes become tools of manipulation. Example: The morpheme “trans-” in “transhuman” or “transwoman” reorients perception toward ontological simulation.
Motive The internal emotional or psychological driver behind an action. Motive corresponds to iniquity, in that it reflects the underlying orientation of the heart before any deliberate moral act occurs. Biblically, it speaks to the affections and inclinations that animate will and distort judgment.
Multidimensional Morpheme Model A linguistic tool analyzing words not only semantically or syntactically, but through their ethical, emotional, relational, and referential valence. Designed for biblical hermeneutics and discourse analysis. (Note: This model is further developed and scaled into the OntoDiscursive diagnostic tool.)
Noesis The conscious act of moral recognition or deliberation. In this framework, it is the seat of intention—what one thinks, plans, or justifies before acting. When noesis is corrupted, transgression results: knowingly rejecting what is good and choosing disobedience.
Noetic disposition names the broader, enduring configuration of the soul’s moral receptivity—its habitual openness or resistance to truth, developed over time through repeated responses. It frames and influences both the process of noesis and the formation of posture. We use this term in a super-ordinate sense, encompassing noesis and noetic posture.
Noetic Posture The pre-reflective moral orientation of the mind—the default openness or resistance toward moral truth, as presented by the DM unit. It is not the act of reasoning, but the precondition of receptivity. A corrupted noetic posture gives rise to iniquity, the foundational failure to esteem what is truly good.
Ontic Pertaining to the concrete instantiations of being—particular, observable realities (tokens) brought into existence under divine prerogative.
Ontic–Ontological Axis A hierarchical distinction between:• Ontic tokens – concretely instantiated realities (maps to cataphatic and tokens)• Ontological categories – abstract, God-defined limits (maps to anaphatic and semiotic types)This axis safeguards the boundary between appearance and essence and undergirds all valid referential structures.
OEBI (Onto-Epistemic Bandwidth Indicator) A diagnostic tool designed to evaluate whether a knowledge system operates within or against the moral structure of revealed ontology. The tool consists of two tiers:
Tier 1 tests for foundational alignment (e.g., Is truth external and confrontational?)
Tier 2 identifies evasive patterns (e.g., coherence simulation, reliabilist substitution, etc.)The OEBI exposes not just logical fallacies but structural suppression.
Onto-Epistemic Rupture The structural and moral severing of epistemology from ontology. Rather than knowing flowing from being, being is treated as a construct of the knower. This rupture originates in Edenic rebellion, where truth was no longer received from God but inferred through autonomous judgment. All postlapsarian systems exhibit the effects of this rupture unless realigned through divine confrontation.
Onto-Epistemic Bandwidth The total range within which a system is able to meaningfully engage with, receive, and respond to truth, based on its alignment to ontological reality and its epistemic posture. Full bandwidth is available only to those who stand in right relation to the Source of being—namely, the One who discloses. This includes both structural receptivity(acknowledging an ontological order external to the self) and moral responsiveness (epistemic humility and willingness to be confronted).
Bandwidth is not a measure of intellectual range but of ontological accessibility: a system may be logically vast yet morally and typologically closed. Where truth is treated as a product, utility, or consensus, bandwidth collapses. The narrower the bandwidth, the more severe the evasive behavior—manifesting in recursion, abstraction, or simulation.
The OEBI model evaluates bandwidth integrity through two tiers:
Tier 1 tests whether the system acknowledges truth beyond the knower. If not, the system exhibits terminal collapse.
Tier 2 evaluates systems that claim alignment but suppress full bandwidth access through template-patterned evasion (e.g., coherence simulation, reliabilist substitution, etc.).
Onto-epistemic bandwidth is not just an analytic frame—it is a relational-moral diagnostic. Its restoration requires not cognitive expansion but ontological repentance.
Ontological Collapse The disintegration of language’s ability to point to real, divinely defined categories. In Overton dynamics, this occurs when pseudo-types displace revealed types, and the social referential field no longer maps to covenantal reality.
Ontological Contagion The gradual spread of fabricated or pseudo-types into accepted discourse, altering not just vocabulary but the moral and metaphysical expectations governing speech. It often emerges through uncritical presupposition and rhetorical normalisation.
Ontological Deferral The rhetorical tactic of postponing or excluding examination of whether a category (type) is real, while encouraging focus only on downstream effects (tokens). Debate shifts from ontology to policy, precluding typological discernment.
Ontological Drift The gradual redefinition or dislocation of moral vocabulary from its original divine referents. Terms like justice, equality, and inclusion retain their form but are infused with alien content. Drift occurs quietly and is rarely contested due to emotional familiarity.
Ontological Exile The condition of speaking from outside the Overton-sanctioned discourse—refusing to participate in typological drift. The one who resists pseudo-types is not simply marginalized, but expelled from the field of recognized moral speech.
Ontological Fraud The attempt to redefine or misrepresent an ontological type apart from God's prerogative. It includes the misuse of categories like life, law, or truth without reference to their God-defined nature.
Ontological Preemption The displacement of God-defined categories with secular or ideological alternatives before the discourse begins. The pseudo-type is installed as a default, and all conversation unfolds within its framing logic.
Ontological Type A God-defined structural kind or limit that governs what may be instantiated ontically. Types represent the upper-bound conceptual identity of a category, not reducible to its appearances.
Ontology The study of being. In this framework, ontology refers to God-defined structures of existence—not abstract categories but relationally grounded realities established by divine prerogative.
Onto-Typophoric Reference A typophoric gesture that rightly points to a real, divinely defined type (e.g., justice, grace, covenant). These references carry covenantal authority and moral weight.
Overton Window A conceptual model describing the range of socially acceptable discourse. In this framework, it is expanded from a political tool to a semiotic–ontological filter that regulates what types may be named, contested, or affirmed.
Paradigm A set of accepted signifiers or options within a semiotic category. Paradigms are shaped by prevailing codes and may normalize deviation.Example: In a social paradigm where “identity is self-declared,” traditional ontological distinctions are obscured.
Paradigmatic Framing A subtle rhetorical manipulation through word choice—e.g., “denial” instead of “disagreement.” This selects from a field of synonyms to direct how an issue is morally framed and interpreted.
Parasitism (ontological sense): the rebellious appropriation of divinely given cognitive, semantic, or moral structures in order to prosecute a denial of their very source and stability; it lives off the ontic “capital” it simultaneously disavows.
Partial Ascent A form of epistemic movement that gestures toward truth but fails to reach typological fidelity due to retained autonomy or selective suppression. Partial ascent may appear thoughtful, moral, or even spiritual—but it halts below the relational apex, preferring cognitive control over ontological submission.
Phenomenological Space The lived, conscious experience of being in which the ADM unit is encountered. It is the arena in which moral and relational crises unfold and where divine confrontation may occur.
Praxis From the Greek praxis (action or doing). Refers to lived action that flows from internal belief and intentional alignment with divine order. In this model, praxis is not raw behavior but morally charged enactment—the expression of ontologically grounded values and duties within time and history. It is where the moral self is revealed through obedience, resistance, or distortion.
Prevenient Grace The divine initiative that precedes relational restoration, confronting the will at God’s appointed time. It awakens moral awareness without coercing the will, inviting response but not guaranteeing regeneration. (Acts 16:14)
Presupposition The background assumption required for an utterance to make sense. Unlike assertions, which can be evaluated, presuppositions operate beneath the level of debate, often introducing false typological frameworks without scrutiny.
Presuppositional Drift The process by which moral and metaphysical assumptions gradually shift from being grounded in divine revelation to being shaped by culture, sentiment, or ideology. This drift redefines the hearer's sense of what is real, good, or necessary.
Presuppositional Sleight The use of unstated assumptions to bias discourse—e.g., “as we all know…”—which conceal ideological commitments beneath rhetorical familiarity. These can smuggle in pseudo-types without open scrutiny.
Presuppositional Warfare The strategic contest over what may be assumed in discourse. It is the battle not over conclusions, but over the unspoken categories and moral templates that determine what can be affirmed or denied without argument.
Pseudo-Covenantal Rhetoric Speech that mimics the moral gravity of covenantal categories (e.g., “righteousness,” “liberation”) without reference to their revealed meaning. It functions as typophoric simulation—creating the aura of truth while replacing its referent.
Pseudo-Dialectic A system of permitted oppositions designed to simulate moral deliberation while protecting underlying ontological drift. The illusion of debate persists, but foundational categories remain immune from challenge.
Pseudo-Instantiation A discursive act that illegitimately attempts to confer ontological reality by asserting a token of a false or unauthorized type.Example: Declaring “species-self” as a human identity is a pseudo-instantiation.
Pseudo-Referent A word or phrase that appears to refer to a stable moral or ontological category but actually points to a constructed or context-sensitive illusion.Examples: inclusion, identity, or affirmation when used without covenantal grounding.
Pseudo-Sacred Aura The emotive force surrounding typologically hollow terms—e.g., justice, love, progress—which creates the appearance of moral weight while masking ontological vacancy. This aura disarms opposition by simulating divine resonance.
Pseudo-Token Linguistic or performative expressions of those categories pseudo-types;—plausible within a cultural code but void before God.Example: A legal or social identity that contradicts biological and moral ontology.
Pseudo-Type A fabricated moral category presented as if it were a divinely revealed type. Pseudo-types are often emotionally compelling and socially reinforced but lack ontological legitimacy.Examples: my truth, gender identity, safe space.
Reciprocal Exclusion A structural binary that defines one position not just by what it affirms but by whom it excludes.Example: “To be inclusive means to oppose hate” preemptively labels dissent as morally deviant.
Referential Drift The shift in a word’s assumed meaning due to repetition, emotional framing, or institutional use. It often disguises typological fraud by maintaining the surface form while redefining the core referent.
Referential Integrity The alignment between a word, its signified meaning, and its ontological referent. In this framework, true discourse is measured by whether it preserves this alignment—i.e., whether it speaks in correspondence with what God has defined.
Relational Apex The highest point of knowing accessible only through ontological submission and moral posture. In contrast to knowledge-as-accumulation, the relational apex represents the point where truth confronts, aligns, and transforms. All valid epistemic ascent must converge toward this apex, or else remain horizontally recursive or diffused in simulation.
Relational-Biblical An interpretive model grounded in covenantal fidelity and divine relational structures. Meaning is not constructed but aligned with revelation and moral order.Example: Justice is not determined by consensus but by conformity to God’s character.
Relational Ontology The view that being is constituted and intelligible only through right relationship with God. It rejects the idea of neutral or independent existence and insists that all being is morally charged. Ontology precedes and grounds taxonomy: we reject arbitrary or merely functional categories. Instead, we define ontological types based on God’s prerogative to instantiate being, not merely human conceptual distinction. Relations define boundaries: we do not permit essence to float free from covenantal or moral alignment. Relationality determines ontological relevance—i.e., what can be is framed by God's will, and what is instantiated is further delimited by His relational intention. Taxonomy flows from divine relation, not analytic abstraction: Whether the Spirit, grace, or even semiotic tokens—each is classified not by appearance or effect alone, but by its alignment with God's relational and ontological order.
Relational–Ontological A metaphysical framework asserting that all being, knowledge, and meaning flow from relationship to God. Ontology grounds epistemology, which governs semiotic function.Example: A person is known truly only when understood as a being-in-relation to the Creator.
Relational–Propositional Model of Truth A model in which propositional claims are true only when rooted in relational alignment with divine being. Truth is not merely factual correspondence, or self-referentially correspondent, but a reflection of moral and ontological coherence with God.
Relational Restoration The reconciliation of the soul with God, marked by justification and the beginning of sanctification. It is the precondition for full epistemic and semiotic realignment.
Relational Regeneration / Relational Ontology / Relational-Biblical Model Interrelated terms describing a framework in which truth, moral obligation, and salvation are grounded in a covenantal relationship with God. “Relational regeneration” emphasizes volitional transformation; “relational ontology” anchors being and morality in God; and the “relational-biblical model” affirms Scripture as the authoritative structure of that relationship.
Reverent-Relational Regeneration A posture of moral transformation marked by humility, covenantal accountability, and yielded response to divine confrontation. It emphasizes that regeneration is not only relational, but must be approached with reverence before ontologically revealed truth.
Sanctifying Grace The grace that operates after justification to conform the person to divine moral order. It engages the affections, habits, and decisions to produce holiness over time, often through participation in relational truth. It helps to dis-inculcate inherited and cultivated tendencies to immorality.
Scalable Dissent Critique that appears radical but remains safely within platform or institutional boundaries. It gives the impression of liberty while preserving ontological drift. Often monetized and algorithmically promoted.
Semantic Coercion The use of language structures (e.g., implicature, presupposition) to compel agreement or submission without open argument. It often operates through typophoric gestures that simulate moral authority but evade accountability.
Semantic Drift The subtle redefinition of language over time to accommodate ideological or emotional shifts.Example: “Freedom” may once have meant covenantal self-rule but now refers to expressive individualism.
Semantic Imperative The moral pressure to conform linguistically to dominant presuppositions. It often emerges as an obligation to speak in ways that reinforce cultural pseudo-types or to avoid language that might challenge ideological framing.
Semiotic Collapse The final stage of discursive manipulation, in which signs no longer carry fixed meaning but serve only to reinforce power. In such a state, speech no longer seeks truth—it performs legitimacy.
Semiotic–Ontologic Realignment The restoration of right alignment between tokens (words, symbols, categories), their signifieds (intended conceptual referents), and the ontic–ontological type-pair grounded in divine prerogative.In contrast to structuralist and postmodern semiotics, which treat sign–signified relations as arbitrary or constructed, this framework holds that true meaning must be ontologically instantiated and morally accountable.Christ enacts this realignment by restoring the severed relationship between sign systems and their referents through His divine instantiation, personal confrontation, exemplification, and pedagogy.This realignment is not merely linguistic but metaphysical: it reorients the symbolic world to its rightful place under the authority of ontological truth.
Semiotics The study of signs, meaning, and referential structures. In this model, semiotics is not neutral; it is morally and ontologically grounded, and its distortion constitutes spiritual and intellectual fraud.
Sharpening Metaphor (Pencil Model) A visual metaphor used to illustrate recursive epistemic pruning: the act of disambiguating knowledge claims by stripping away redundancy, distortion, or non-correspondent assumptions. The goal is not reduction but refinement—the narrowing of thought toward ontological clarity and typological precision. In the Conical Cognition model, the sharpening metaphor parallels the vertical ascent toward the apex.
Sin (chatta’ah) A modal failure—falling short of moral execution, often without premeditation. It may reflect moral hesitation, weakness, or lack of habituated obedience. Sin corresponds to praxeological breakdown: the failure to do what one knows, even if the heart and intent are not fully rebellious.
Solipsistic (adj.)From Latin solus ("alone") + ipse ("self") Pertaining to the philosophical position of solipsism, which holds that only one’s own mind is certain to exist. A solipsistic view denies or doubts the reality of anything outside the self—including other minds, external objects, or even objective truth—often leading to radical subjectivism or epistemic isolation.
Submetaphysics The discipline that investigates the relational and ontological preconditions for all metaphysical and epistemological inquiry. It asks not merely “What exists?” but “How is existence made intelligible in relation to God?”
Substack Illusion The belief that certain platforms provide epistemic freedom, when in fact they offer privatized containment—personalized spaces that simulate freedom while enforcing Overton-compatible boundaries through monetization and social framing.
Synecdoche A trope in which a part represents the whole or vice versa.• Reverent: “Bread” in “Give us this day our daily bread” implies total provision.• Subversive: “Eyes were on her” reduces personhood to visibility and consumption.
Syntagm A linear sequence of linguistic elements. Manipulating syntagms can distort ontological clarity through euphemism or obfuscation.Example: Reframing “unborn child” as “reproductive tissue” shifts syntagmatic structure to suppress moral content.
Syntagmatic Framing Manipulating meaning through word order or structural arrangement in a sentence.Example: Placing “safety” before “freedom” suggests a moral hierarchy where the latter must be subordinated to the former.
Teleological Pertaining to purpose, end, or goal (telos).• Secular usage: Outcome-based reasoning—right is determined by consequences alone (e.g., utilitarianism). The ends justify the means, with no necessary alignment to fixed moral or ontological principles. Relational-ontological usage: Teleology is the relational fulfillment of what is good and commanded. It is the culmination of divine purpose expressed through moral structure: shaped by axiology (value), expressed by deontology(obligation), and made possible through modality (grace). Teleology here is not autonomous calculation, but revealed moral destiny.
Terminological Convergence Across Domains While terms such as token and type (semiotics), cataphatic and anaphatic (theology), and ontic and ontological(philosophy) arise from distinct disciplinary traditions, this framework realigns them ontologically under a unified, relational model.Each pair reflects the same underlying distinction: between what is instantiated (visible, particular, concrete) and what is structurally defined (bounded, typological, and morally charged).This realignment is not merely linguistic but metaphysical—anchored in God’s double prerogative to both instantiate realities and define their corresponding types.
Tetradic Constraint of Ontology (TCO) A four-pillar structural fortress that makes all thought and speech possible and therefore pre-invalidates every attempt to deny “fixed kinds.” Objective Reality – the bedrock facticity of being; the external stage on which all perception, reasoning, and language occur. Perceptual Architecture – the pre-semantic forms of identity, continuity, space-time, and causal order that allow creatures to receive givenness. Rational Architecture – the shared canons of non-contradiction, inference, and modal intuition that make trans-subjective reasoning and closure possible. Metaphysical Personality – the enduring, memory-bearing, morally accountable self capable of reasoning to a definite conclusion. Because every act of critique must stand on these four pillars to be conceived or uttered, any ontological rebellion is self-refuting—an “infrastructural theft” that exploits the very order it denies. The TCO thus functions not merely as an epistemic foundation but as a judicial guardrail that exposes the illegitimacy of every attack on fixed kinds before the debate even begins.
Theism The affirmation of a First Cause who is both the origin and sustainer of all being, perception, reason, and personhood. In the biblical-relational model, theism is not merely belief in “a god,” but the recognition of the One who holds the auctoritas essendi (authority to define what is) and the auctoritas instantiandi (authority to determine what may be).
Expanded Meaning: Theism asserts that reality is neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. It grounds the Tetradic Constraint of Ontology (TCO)—objective reality, perceptual architecture, rational architecture, and metaphysical personality—in divine authorship. Theism thus precedes both epistemology and semiotics, as it defines the structural and moral order in which knowing and signifying occur. Contrast with Secularism: Where secular thought often treats cognition and language as autonomous constructs or evolutionary byproducts, theism identifies them as derivative endowments—gifts from the Creator that make moral awareness and communication possible. Theism is therefore not an optional add-on to metaphysics; it is the ontological precondition for coherent existence and covenantal responsibility.
Theodictic Evidence The moral and volitional behavior of individuals when left unassisted by divine intervention, serving to vindicate God’s justice by revealing the suppressed or exposed posture of the soul.
Theosony (n.) From theos (Greek: “God”) + sonē (Greek: “sound, voice”). Refers to a divine vocal self-disclosure—a moment in which God confronts the human soul through direct speech, whether audibly heard, inwardly impressed, or scripturally quickened. Unlike theophany, which is visual, theosony is auditory and relational: it establishes moral address, summons, or indictment through divine voice, exposing the soul to the presence and prerogative of God. See Theophany for contrast.
Theophany (n.) From theos (Greek: “God”) + phaino (Greek: “to appear, to manifest”). Refers to a visible manifestation of God to human perception—often in symbolic, veiled, or accommodated form. Unlike theosony, which is auditory, theophany is visual: it signals divine presence through sight, whether by fire, cloud, human figure, or radiant form, and often serves to mark covenantal moments, assert divine authority, or reveal ontological distinction.
Token A specific ontic instantiation of an ontological type. True tokens are not just linguistic markers, but real beings grounded in divine creation.Example: A man is a token of the male type—reassignment cannot alter ontic reality.
Token–Signified Restoration The rejoining of words, signs, or moral categories (tokens) to their true referents (signifieds) through the work of Christ. In this model, redemption includes not just legal or moral correction, but semiotic repair.
Transgression (pesha) A deontological violation—the conscious crossing of a known moral boundary. It is not accidental but willful disobedience, often rooted in corrupted noēsis. Transgression arises when duty is known but deliberately rejected.
Trope A rhetorical mechanism (including metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony) that redirects meaning. Tropes can illuminate truth or simulate insight depending on their alignment.Example: “She’s a lion” can reverently express courage or dangerously recast ontology.
Truth An ontological category, not an epistemic construct. Truth reflects what is real as defined by God and carries moral weight because it proceeds from His being. It is revealed, not constructed, and it demands response.Truth is relationally accessible, but not autonomously derived; to encounter truth rightly is to be morally accountable to the One who is its source. Truth undergirds the restoration of meaning and the discernment of all legitimate categories.
Typified Relational Crisis A decisive moment of moral or existential reckoning, such as the “coming to himself” of the Prodigal Son. It marks the confrontation between the DM unit and prevenient grace, offering a binary decision: return or resist.
Typological ConstrictionThe artificial narrowing of what types may be referenced or affirmed in public discourse. Often enforced by Overton dynamics, typological constriction precludes the invocation of covenantal categories (e.g., sin, covenant, creation) and replaces them with pseudo-types or typophoric simulations. This constriction limits not just speech, but moral imagination.
Typological Fidelity Faithful correspondence between a word or symbol and the divine type it claims to represent. Language has typological fidelity when it aligns with God’s revealed categories rather than substituting ideological analogues.
Typological Layer (ODA Layer 2) The analytic level that evaluates whether discourse is invoking real types (divinely instituted) or pseudo-types (socially fabricated). This is the layer where typophoric reference is most critically examined.
Typological Replacement The act of substituting one type for another while preserving the original’s rhetorical structure.Examples: Replacing biblical justice with social equity, or righteousness with affirmation. This is the core mechanism behind drift and inversion.
Typological Smuggling The covert insertion of pseudo-types into discourse under the guise of assumed categories. This occurs when a term appears familiar but carries an alien ontology—its content has been replaced, but its rhetorical form remains intact.
Typophora / Typophoric Reference Linguistic or conceptual gestures that refer to presumed types—e.g., justice, love, identity. These references may be: Onto-typophoric: Pointing to real kinds defined by God. Pseudo-/Semiotic-typophoric: Mimicking sacred categories while referring only to constructed ideals.Typophora is the primary mechanism by which discourse simulates the authority of truth while evading its substance.
Typophoric Deixis Deictic gestures that refer not to physical or textual entities, but to presumed moral types (e.g., “justice,” “truth,” “freedom”). These references may be covenantally anchored (onto-typophoric) or ideologically constructed (pseudo-typophoric), and must be theologically tested.
Typophoric Simulation The projection of ontologically loaded categories (e.g., justice, equality, grace) into discourse without submitting to their revealed meaning. Typophoric simulation mimics covenantal language while detaching it from its moral and ontological source. This allows pseudo-types to function as tools of persuasion without reference to divine definition. It is a core component of semiotic suppression.
Vertical Discernment The moral and ontological capacity to track knowledge upward toward its source in divine being. Vertical discernment contrasts with lateral analysis or procedural logic; it requires epistemic humility, ontological awareness, and typological alignment. It is cultivated through regeneration and moral responsiveness to revealed order.
Volitional Suppression The act of morally resisting what is internally known or revealed—particularly the truth perceived through the DM unit. Rooted in Romans 1:18, it entails accountable rejection, not innocent ignorance.
Vibrational Bandwidth The God-defined range within which a particular ontological type may instantiate. It represents the ontological “width” or spectrum of legitimate expression or variation for a kind—whether a creaturely nature, moral category, or relational role.Just as frequency bandwidth defines the spread of possible signals without distortion, vibrational bandwidth defines the lawful range of being within God’s creative design. Anything outside this range is either ontologically impossible or a pseudo-token—a simulated presence that exceeds or transgresses the type’s God-ordained limits.
