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IV. The Names of God
A. The Names of God in General.
While the Bible records several names of God, it also speaks of the name of God in the singular
as, for instance in the following statements: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God
in vain,” Ex. 20:7; “How excellent is thy name in all the earth,” Ps. 8:1; “As is thy name, O God,
so is thy praise,” Ps. 48:10; “His name is great in Israel,” Ps. 76:2; “The name of Jehovah is a
strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe,” Prov. 18:10. In such cases “the name”
stands for the whole manifestation of God in His relation to His people, or simply for the
person, so that it becomes synonymous with God. This usage is due to the fact that in oriental
thought a name was never regarded as a mere vocable, but as an expression of the nature of
the thing designated. To know the name of a person was to have power over him, and the
names of the various gods were used in incantations to exercise power over them. In the most
general sense of the word, then, the name of God is His self-revelation. It is a designation of
Him, not as He exists in the depths of His divine Being, but as He reveals Himself especially in
His relations to man. For us the one general name of God is split up into many names,
expressive of the many-sided Being of God. It is only because God has revealed Himself in His
name (nomen editum), that we can now designate Him by that name in various forms (nomina
indita). The names of God are not of human invention, but of divine origin, though they are all
borrowed from human language, and derived from human and earthly relations. They are
anthropomorphic and mark a condescending approach of God to man.
The names of God constitute a difficulty for human thought. God is the Incomprehensible One,
infinitely exalted above all that is temporal; but in His names He descends to all that is finite
and becomes like unto man. On the one hand we cannot name Him, and on the other hand He
has many names. How can this be explained? On what grounds are these names applied to the
infinite and incomprehensible God? It should be borne in mind that they are not of man’s
invention, and do not testify to his insight into the very Being of God. They are given by God
Himself with the assurance that they contain in a measure a revelation of the Divine Being. This
was made possible by the fact that the world and all its relations is and was meant to be a
revelation of God. Because the Incomprehensible One revealed Himself in His creatures, it is
possible for man to name Him after the fashion of a creature. In order to make Himself known
to man, God had to condescend to the level of man, to accommodate Himself to the limited
and finite human consciousness, and to speak in human language. If the naming of God with
anthropomorphic names involves a limitation of God, as some say, then this must be true to an
even greater degree of the revelation of God in creation. Then the world does not reveal, but