What Should I Call God?
When I was a teenager and addicted to Science Fiction, I read a story by Arthur C. Clarke named, “The Nine Billion Names of God”. It is about some computer experts who are recruited by a Tibetan Buddhist monastery to help in their search for the nine billion names of God. The monks had been compiling names for centuries and believed that when they had found them all it would be the end of the world because the purpose of life would have been accomplished. The computer guys, though skeptical about the hypothesis of this research, agree to help. They succeed but decide to leave the monastery before the computer program completes its work for they fear of the monks reaction when it fails to bring about the end of the world. They are getting on their plane and realize it’s about time for the computer to finish it’s work cataloguing the nine billion names and look up to see the stars beginning to go out.
I was thinking about this because for the last few years I have been having trouble deciding what name I should use for God. As a retired clergy person I am occasionally called upon to pray at meetings or services and have found myself struggling with how to start the prayers. I have noticed this problem with other clergy and public prayers and honestly, I had trouble with this the last few years in the church as well. It has been complicated, I think, by the changing views we have of God in Western society. Attempting to use non-sexist language, or language that does not exclude someone or someone’s theological ideas or someone’s religion is sometimes difficult. Just figuring out my own theological position is hard enough. More traditional language is still in use in many more conservative or traditional religious settings, and even required in some. Using the pronouns He and Him for God, the name Father, Lord, Almighty God or using Jesus more or less interchangeably with God and other such traditional language is still common. However, it longer works for me as I no longer think of God as a being who exists somewhere separate from the world, let alone human-like or male. Our local church switched from beginning the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father” to saying “Our Loving God”. I like this change, however, when I continue the Lord’s Prayer and say “Hallowed be thy name”, I can’t help but add a footnote in my own mind, “whose name I do not know”.
I think my struggle reflects a general transformation that is happening in spirituality in western thought. Diana Butler Bass, in her book, Grounded, calls it the “spiritual revolution” of our time. Theological ground is moving. A great number of people are transitioning away from a way of thinking about God that has been in place in the Western world since at least the time of the Protestant Reformation and in other forms for much, much longer. A theology she calls, “vertical religion” is one in which God is seen as separate from the world and from people and the human role is to follow God’s rules and somehow get up to God in this other place. This is a huge simplification on my part, of course, of something Ms. Bass wrote a whole book about. Her position is that there are large numbers of people (including her) who have been gradually moving away from organized religion and traditional theology. The “nones” and “dones” who are no longer finding themselves spiritually fed by traditional religion and are “spiritual and not religious” or any number of other labels they or the media have given them, are leaving organized religion. Ms. Bass finds that many are finding their new spirituality in the Earth and the immanent presence of God. Some are finding a God who, “dwells in the world the way a soul dwells in the body”, (Ms. Bass quotes the Bhagavad Gita). Others are seeking the contemplative path in spirituality. Still others seek peace in Buddhism, Taoism or other Asian paths. Native American or Celtic spirituality other pantheist and panentheist theologies make sense to many. But as Ms. Bass articulates very well, it’s hard to pin down the movement, as it is in transition, and it’s enough to note that a huge shift in thinking is taking place. I agree and find myself to be part of this revolution.
Which leads me back to my dilemma of language for God. For awhile now the name I prefer is the one Black Elk used in the book Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt’s account of the life and visions Lakota leader Nicholas Black Elk: “The Great Mysterious”. Of course there are many options. I have collected a few for this essay: The Holy, The Sacred, The Divine, God of the Earth, God of the Cosmos, Spirit of Life, Numinous Presence, Web of Life, Gaia, The Ground of all Being (from Paul Tillich), The One in Whom we Life and Move and have Our Being (from Paul in the books of Acts), Sacred One, Spirit of Truth, Immanuel (God with Us). One can get very detailed as J. Allen Boone did in his book, Kinship with All Life, “The Big Holy, breathing life into all things, making all things one essence and speaking wisdom through all things”. But that gets to be a lengthy way to start a prayer. You might well ask, “Why not just say God”? This is a good point and “Loving God” actually is the name I often fall back on when praying in public. But “God” has become a bit of a loaded name for many people. For one thing, it has become a proper name, which, technically, it is not. It is a symbol, which I guess a name is too, but a symbol for this “Other” whose name and nature we do not know. God has many meanings and can be applied to both monotheistic religion and polytheistic religion. One can well object that by using it as a name we are just making another kind of theological statement, implying that there is a supernatural being somewhere whose name is God. Refusing to use any name and that there is no such being anywhere is another theological position; perhaps that God is not a being but is a fundamental process through with the Cosmos is ordered, for example. A humanist who wishes to address this deep process might chose different language entirely, such as “The Power and Purpose Pervading the Universe”.
I admit now that I don’t have a solution to offer to this language dilemma. I guess my purpose here is to raise the question and voice my frustration. Ultimately, we do not know the name of God or even what we are naming: a being, a process, a force or something else. This is a question that has been further complicated by the spiritual transition taking place in our culture. Of course by saying this is even an issue I am taking a theological position that you may not agree with. It’s hard to talk about these ideas without displaying one’s theology and probably offending someone. Perhaps the ancient Hebrews of the southern Kingdom of Judah had it right. Biblical scholars refer to this tradition as the Yahwist tradition and consider it one of the influences on the Old Testament. The Yahwist tradition referred to God as YHWH, an acronym for the word which translates “I am who I am”. This branch of Judaism did not say this name, and did not think one could name God. YHWH is a reference to the way God answered Moses in Exodus 3:14 when Moses asks for God’s name. God’s answer recorded by the Priests when writing the Old Testament, “I am”, was ambiguous at best. We now use the name Yahweh to represent the God of this branch of Judism, but they would not have approved of us saying the name out loud. So we are in good company if find ourselves struggling to name God.
I do not have a name or a solution to this dilemma. I believe this search for a way to address and think about God reflects the time of shifting paradigms that we are in. I agree with Diana Butler Bass that we are in this time of change and I personally find it very hopeful. But this doesn’t help me as I pray in public. How we address the Great Mysterious One is part of this transition. So when you hear clergy and others struggling with titles at the beginning of prayers or in liturgies, send them compassionate thoughts for they are caught in this spiritual transition with the rest of us.