Naming God
Saying “God” is both the greatest act of human self-understanding and desire and also the most arrogant and controlling utterance possible. To declare “God” is to speak the deepest desire of the human heart or at least to acknowledge that reality doesn’t begin and end with me but instead that I am dependent upon that which is greater than myself. It is that small whisper inside that hopes that I haven’t been abandoned into a meaningless existence and that I am known, cared for, and part of something beyond my very limited life. It is the cry for meaning-filled life and safe relationship. It is the affirmation of Life and the acknowledgement that my little life is contained in something far greater, beyond, inclusive, and eternal. The utterance of “God” is a way of saying that my little “i” is contained in a larger “I”. “i” inhabit “I”, and conversely, “I” inhabit “i” similar to an unborn child inhabiting mother and mother’s sense of self as “mother” having also to do with the indwelling child. In that sense, a child’s utterance of “mom” or “dad” is a grand statement of dependence, attachment, care, identity, and the foundations of what is ideally love.
Paradoxically, and confusingly, naming “God” is also a great arrogance. To place a word, a name, upon that which contains and defines me is try to capture that greater reality and place it in the small reality of my human understanding and my constricting ego. To say that I know that which is my source well enough to utter a name for it is to be under the illusion that I know the Source, and that my language has the capacity to hold it or define it. This is obviously as absurd as an unborn child being able to have a single thought that captures what a mother is, or even a young child’s utterance of “mom” that would somehow sum up the mother’s identity or essence. In part, this great dilemma is why the Jewish tradition resists speaking the formal name of God and instead indicates the name with only consonants, YHWH, so that it is rendered unspeakable in a certain sense. Capturing or defining God is more impossible than understanding all the dynamics of the universe. To speak of any knowing of the Source should be an intensely humble and care-full experience as well as being one that is filled with gratitude that we can consider God in any name or form or definition.
Perhaps the truest approach is to consider the One which is beyond God. God beyond God is closer to accurate. And yet, by even saying that phrase, I have once again limited the very nature of that of which I am trying to name. So truth is God beyond God beyond God beyond … . God holds me. I do not hold God.
Religious and spiritual traditions have always sought to give a word or words as name to this Beyond - God, Yahweh (the Jewish consonants with vowels reinserted), Krishna, the Great Spirit to name only a very few. The Christian tradition also utilizes the word “Christ” as a way of expressing God’s essence made manifest or tangible or experienced. Alternatively, other human attempts to apply a name lean a bit more toward calling God an adjective or role such as Divine One, Creator, the Great Mystery/Spirit, Source, Father, Mother, Ground of Being to also just name a few. The fact that this list could be quite large is proof that a single name or indicator is woefully inadequate in indicating, in any full manner, the idea to which we are referring.
One of the most helpful namings in my awareness is the one that arrives in the ancient Jewish, Christian, and Islamic story in which God is speaking to Moses and says to be named as “I Am”. In this name, we are asked to approach the God idea as an understanding of “Being” itself. The source, creator, container, and sustainer of all that is and will ever be. The source of all of life is not just the creator of life but also the essential nature of Life itself. With this name, we are called to relate with God as the very Life that flows through us and vitalizes each moment. The call here is to acknowledge our essence, vitality, and interconnection with all things as the very nature of God. All that “is” is brought forth in and through “I Am”. God is the One within whom we move and have our being. Is this a name, a reality, a description, an adjective, noun, or verb. Yes.
In response to that magnificent approach to acknowledging God’s essence, I have found a way that helps me to indicate this grand naming and that is through the use of capital letters. Spiritual traditions around the world often capitalize their names for God to indicate the ultimate nature of each name. I like to do the same with concepts that I think flow from the essence of who God is such as Beauty, Love, Nature, Being, Source, Ground, Redeemer, Mystery, Spirit, Christ, Divine, One. In this way, these words move beyond being adjectives or nouns as they become acknowledgements of the presence of God in this moment and in all. These and many other words situate us humbly and with gratitude within the Divine embrace. They are names in a sense but they are more of an invitation and an active relationship with that to which they refer. They are words of gratitude as they invite us to that which is beyond ourselves. They are beyond noun or verb. They emerge from “I Am”. They invite our participation and awe.
No word by itself will ever be able to capture God because words limit. However, the gracious call upon us, is to seek and wonder and delight in Life, both in the present and the eternal. Words assist us when they help orient our awareness and then become an invitation to falling into that which is behind and underneath everything.