(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[Salmoneus]

Not trying to go full philosophical here, but couldn't you say that a singular entity contrast with other potential but non-existent entities if the same kind? I was thinking of stuff like "There is only one god and his name is X", which implies that any claim that something with name Y is also a god is false.

Well, that's why I specified 'definitionally' singular, as it were, rather than just accidentally singular.

If we're talking about monotheism, not only is there only one God, but there is only one potential God - if anything else were God, it would be God, so it wouldn't be something that weren't God. You can ask "could God have different characteristics?", but you can't really ask "could a different thing be God?", because only divine beings can be God and there's only one divine being.

It's not like asking "I know there's only one President, but could someone else be President?" because we can imagine, for instance, Joe Biden NOT being President. Biden is one among many interchangeable beings, and the Presidency is an accidental, contingent property that this being sometimes possesses, but which we could easily imagine instead being possessed by one of the other Biden-like beings (or, as we normally call "Biden-like beings", people). But God is not one among many, and being God is not an accidental property of God. It's the definition of God. Put another way, Biden is one of many people who possess the essential characteristics that allow them to be President (being human, being over 35, being alive, being American, etc). And the characteristics of the President (being commander-in-chief, for instance) are merely some of the potential characteristics Biden (or Biden-like beings) can have. But there is only one being that has the essential characteristics (like perfection and omniscience and, importantly, singularity!) that allows them to be God. And the characteristcs of God (like perfection, omniscience and singularity) are not merely potential characterics God could have, but esssential and inalienable characteristics.

It's not like there are two God-like beings but only one of them is actually God but in a different timeline maybe the other one is God instead. All God-like beings are God, and there's only one of them. Anything that isn't God isn't God-like, and hence could never have been God.

There's a maxim in logic, "existence is not a predicate" - there aren't an infinite number of things some of which happen to have the property of existence and some don't. If you treat "exists" as a predicate equivalent to other predicates like "is yellow" or "likes cheese", you end up in a lot of logical paradoxes and some pretty weird metaphysics*. Similarly, to a monotheist, Godhood is not a predicate - it's not some accidental property that a being may have or not have. God is necessarily God and everything else necessarily isn't. I'm reminded similarly of Wittgenstein's observation about the meaninglessness of "is identical to": if you say a thing is identical to itself, you are never adding any new information, it's just a tautology or a definition of identity, but if you say a thing is identical to anything that isn't itself you are always saying something false. Likewise, "X is God" is true by definition if X is God, but false by definition if X is anything that isn't God. [whereas "Biden is President" conveys meaningful information, and "Trump is President" is currently false but only contingently, not by definition].

[Salmoneus]

Firstly, you're right. Really, He shouldn't need a Name at all. Some of these Names in theory (such as Allah) seem to reflect that - they're more descriptive than given. But because some religions name G-d (either the people doing so, or G-d Him), He has a Name now, so now you need to explain that.

Everything named has a name. The things that aren't named don't have names, but I bet you can't name even one such thing. If it has no name, we can't talk about it. So if people talk about it, it has a name. So all the gods people talk about have names - they have to, because otherwise they wouldn't be talked about. So "explain why God has a name" is just another way of asking "explain why religion exists". If religion didn't exist, God would have no name; but conversely, if God had no name, (theistic) religion would not exist. So the two questions are the same.

Even "The Unnamed God" has a name; it's "The Unnamed God".

Asking why people have the concept of a G-d (philosophically, theologically, or anthropologically) is not exactly the same as why Names are important theologically.

I'm not convinced they are important theologically, but more importantly I don't see what that's got to do with the question at hand. I don't see where eldin asked why names were theologically important in some religions. [let alone why we're randomly capitalising Words now] I mean maybe he meant that, because as I said I don't really understand what he means, but I don't see where he says that.

Judaism, Islam, and Sikhi off the top of my head care a lot about Names - though each in different ways. I tried to illustrate that a little above - though that wasn't my main point.

You claimed it, but you haven't illustrated it. In what way is the precise name we use to describe God highly significant in these religions? I don't mean "quote some poetry that plays with the metaphor of naming".

[eldin raigmore]

….
Okay, are you asking "why does a singular entity need a name, beyond simply a word saying what type of entity it is?" ... or are you asking "why do humans give a name(s) to a singular entity, beyond simply a word saying what type of entity it is?"
….

Both of those. I think they’re logically related; and I don’t think I had distinguished them in my mind before making my Original Post!

- = - = - = - = - =

Thank you, @Keenir and @Creyeditor and @Visions1 and @WeepingElf!

@Visions1, your answer was especially informative, IMO!

….

I may post a further reply after some additional reflection!

[Visions1]

Everything named has a name etc.

Judaism, Islam, and Sikhi off the top of my head care a lot about Names - though each in different ways. I tried to illustrate that a little above - though that wasn't my main point.

You claimed it, but you haven't illustrated it. In what way is the precise name we use to describe God highly significant in these religions? I don't mean "quote some poetry that plays with the metaphor of naming".

True, but you don't ascribe much significance to the word "G-d", right? In some faith systems, names are less important, in some, they are more. Christianity is arguably one of the ones where they matter somewhat less.

In Judaism, G-d Names have specific uses in liturgy, ritual, and hermeneutics. Names cannot be erased, thrown away, or disrespected (say by stacking a novel on top of a prayer book). Taboos exist in pronouncing Names. Many Medrashim are learnt from the usage of one Name over another in Tanakh, influencing actual law at times. Scribes will immerse before writing the Four-Letter Name in a Torah scroll. Amulets with Kabbalistic names - or even just Mezuzas with Shaddai on them - are common for warding off evil. An entire industry exists in some places for the disposal (burial) of sacred documents, which are colloquially called "Sheimos" - "Names" even if they lack them. The very idea of giving a good/bad reputation to the religion is called "Sanctifying/Desecrating G-d's Name."
In Islam, invoking the name Allah is a common act in parlance - Alhamdulillah, Bismillah, Inshallah etc. The Name is highly significant to Sufis, or really any Muslim practicing Dhikr. It's used as a deliberate move away from the word "G-d" (Illah, Ilhah), which sort-of sounds like G-d is a god like any other (remember, the very idea of Monotheism is a major focus of Islam, even in lay practice, and this is pretty implicit in the Quran). As Allah Himself is central to the religion, His Name carries massive significance to the average believer. Theophoric names are a staple of Arabic naming practices. This is not even mentioning the 99 other Names.
In Sikhi, Naam Japo (Contemplating Names) is one of the three pillars of faith, and is practiced daily. It's thought to create connection to G-d and forgiveness of sins. Like you said, the long lists of Names provided symbolize Universality, which is an important tenet of the religion. I don't feel elaboration beyond this is necessary.

Also, I was wrong about something i said earlier about Christian Names - I was underestimating their importance. I put in a correction on my first post.
I apologize.

[Salmoneus]

To me, that all just seems like normal symbolism (the symbol represents the thing and is treated with the respect due to the thing itself).

I would compare these superstitions with the fact that, as every schoolchild knows, paying for a sweet with a coin placed upside down on the counter is high treason and carries the death penalty, just like placing a stamp upside down on a letter or drawing a line through the queen's face on a pound note.

That's not because British people "care deeply about pictures of faces" or believe that the Queen's face has any mystical significance per se. It's because we recognise that the image is a symbol of the person, and disrespect to the image conveys disrespect to the person. If you scribbled a random symbol on some paper, said "this is the queen!" and then stabbed the paper repeatedly with a fork, that would be considered disrespectful to the Queen - it's not the symbol per se that matters, but the fact it is identified as a symbol.

[these things aren't actually illegal, except for defacing banknotes; whether they ever were illegal or were merely assumed to be illegal seems to be a bigger question, but also isn't particularly relevant - my point is that it's assumed to be illegal, whether or not it is]

Similarly, the Islamic taboo on depicting Muhammad. If you draw a cartoon and label one figure as Muhammad (or even if the association merely seems implied by context), that's going to offend many Muslims - whatever the figure looks like! The taboo isn't about the actual, factual, objective facial features of Muhammad having a special significance - it's about the disrespect implicit in the intent to depict him, however that intent is carried out.

Likewise, I suspect that if a pious Jewish rabbi were credibly informed that a certain Amharic word were the traditional name for Yahweh for Ethiopian Jews, they would probably consider it improper to disrespect that word likewise, even if they hadn't previously been familiar with it. That is, that it's not the specific name that carries significance, but the fact that the name refers to God, and the same taboos would apply to any name that referred to God, no matter what it was. Is that false? And, as you say, the same taboos apply to sacred texts that do not actually mention God's name, so the idea of his "name" is really just being used as an example of a class of things. Likewise, the idea of 'desecrating God's name' is just the usual metaphor whereby the name stands for honour, reputation or dignity, not an actual claim about the metaphysical significance of the specific name itself.

All of which is to say: if God had no name, all these taboos could exist in virtually exactly the same form as they do now, applying in the same way to representations, symbols and emanations of the divine - so it's not actually the name itself that has the significance. It's just an example of a symbol.

Similarly, I know it's common for religions with the idea of God having many names to have had conflicting sources on what those names are, the same way there may be conflicting sources on, for instance, the names of angels and the like - because it's not any specific name that carries unique significance, it's the fact of there being many names.

But this perspective is clearly not welcome in this discussion, so I'll leave you all to it.

[Keenir]

Not trying to go full philosophical here, but couldn't you say that a singular entity contrast with other potential but non-existent entities if the same kind? I was thinking of stuff like "There is only one god and his name is X", which implies that any claim that something with name Y is also a god is false.

That would work too.

(also, it reminds me of when I watched one of the Lord of the Rings movies in Turkish, and when one character - one of the major elves, i think - was talking about the maiar and Sauron, the subtitles used the word which generally meant "false god" (you know, Marduk, Isis, Loki, etc))

[Keenir]

Everything named has a name etc.

Judaism, Islam, and Sikhi off the top of my head care a lot about Names - though each in different ways. I tried to illustrate that a little above - though that wasn't my main point.

You claimed it, but you haven't illustrated it. In what way is the precise name we use to describe God highly significant in these religions? I don't mean "quote some poetry that plays with the metaphor of naming".

True, but you don't ascribe much significance to the word "G-d", right? In some faith systems, names are less important, in some, they are more. Christianity is arguably one of the ones where they matter somewhat less.

Say what?

I can't think of any Christian denomination, wherein you could say "the holy name of God's Only Begotten Son is Bob, not Jesus" or "...is Richard Nixon" and not be stared at in disbelief until you walk away.

In Islam, invoking the name Allah is a common act in parlance - Alhamdulillah, Bismillah, Inshallah etc.

Mashallah means "God Protect" (an excellent bumper sticker)...Inshallah means "God Willing" and is good at emphasizing the request for "wish me luck" and the chancyness of something, however thats spelled. :)

generally, historically at least, if people can ask for divine assistance or protection, they generally will at least try to.

[Visions1]

Say what?

I can't think of any Christian denomination, wherein you could say "the holy name of God's Only Begotten Son is Bob, not Jesus" or "...is Richard Nixon" and not be stared at in disbelief until you walk away.

I know.
I noted that I realized I was wrong what I said about Christianity. I wasn't raised with it, and so I'm not very well informed on it.
I didn't know Christianity in general held Jesus is a name of G-d. I just thought it was... well, his own.

Can you elaborate on it?

[Visions1]

To me, that all just seems like normal symbolism (the symbol represents the thing and is treated with the respect due to the thing itself).
...
Likewise, I suspect that if a pious Jewish rabbi
...
whereby the name stands for honour, reputation or dignity, not an actual claim about the metaphysical significance of the specific name itself.
...
All of which is to say: if God had no name
...
Similarly, I know it's common for religions with the idea of God having many names to have had conflicting sources on what those names are

You're right about it being symbolism, if you ask me.
Edit: I want to elaborate on this point. If the symbol was a fruit, then the ways religions would treat said symbol may specially relate to the fact it's a fruit. Replace the word fruit with names, and you catch my drift.

The Beta Israel are a tumult in mainstream Judaism.
In general, observant Jews won't even pronounce Christian versions of that Name.

You're right about the honour thing - but there is a Jewish belief it literally does mess up Names in heaven (remember that a Name might be associated with a method of creation, so this would be bad).

I thing the idea of conflicting sources is pretty valuable to the discussion.

[Keenir]

Say what?

I can't think of any Christian denomination, wherein you could say "the holy name of God's Only Begotten Son is Bob, not Jesus" or "...is Richard Nixon" and not be stared at in disbelief until you walk away.

I know.
I noted that I realized I was wrong what I said about Christianity.

Oh; sorry.

I wasn't raised with it, and so I'm not very well informed on it.
I didn't know Christianity in general held Jesus is a name of G-d. I just thought it was... well, his own.

Wellllllllllll...basically, yes to both. Remember that for most Christians, the Trinity is a focal point -- Jesus is Himself, and Jesus is God...while God the Father is also God, and both the Father and Jesus (aka the Son) are part of the same God (or Godhead) while also being distinct enough to be able to hold a conversation between the two of them - but not schizophrenic(sp) like a human would be.

If you have Youtube, you might like some of the work on the channel UsefulCharts, both in terms of Christianity, writing systems, and other subjects.

Can you elaborate on it?

On the nature of Jesus? thats a wee small thing, surely. :D
(sorry)

seriously, anything in particular? I'll do my best.

[Visions1]

I was thinking on names in Christianity in general.

[Salmoneus]

Wellllllllllll...basically, yes to both. Remember that for most Christians, the Trinity is a focal point -- Jesus is Himself, and Jesus is God...while God the Father is also God, and both the Father and Jesus (aka the Son) are part of the same God (or Godhead) while also being distinct enough to be able to hold a conversation between the two of them - but not schizophrenic(sp) like a human would be.

Careful there - that part's a heresy. Conventionally, God is said not to have parts. And in particular, to say that Jesus was a part of God would imply that Jesus was not the whole of God - that there were parts of God that Jesus wasn't, which would mean, since God has no limits, that Jesus was not really God at all.

[Keenir]

I was thinking on names in Christianity in general.

Again, not a small thing, but I'll give it a try... A lot of what some people treat as divine names in Christianity, are better grasped if you uncapitalise them, whence you can see they are mostly job descriptions, telling what roles that God (and-or Jesus and-or the Holy Spirit) has

ie, The Creator, the Good Shepard (which i tend to missspel), the Father and Son,

while "Jesus", insofar as I understand, is more of a mortal name, like "Michael, Israel, Jael" -- the name has elements that are seen as positive. (basically, look in a book of baby names - it tells the meaning)

Wellllllllllll...basically, yes to both. Remember that for most Christians, the Trinity is a focal point -- Jesus is Himself, and Jesus is God...while God the Father is also God, and both the Father and Jesus (aka the Son) are part of the same God (or Godhead) while also being distinct enough to be able to hold a conversation between the two of them - but not schizophrenic(sp) like a human would be.

Careful there - that part's a heresy. Conventionally, God is said not to have parts.

Nobody says the Trinity is an easy explain. :) (its like the Dao in that way) :)

And in particular, to say that Jesus was a part of God would imply that Jesus was not the whole of God - that there were parts of God that Jesus wasn't, which would mean, since God has no limits, that Jesus was not really God at all.

On one hand, thats true, and I was trying to avoid Modalism - in which God is seen as a single entity, whose Names reflect His relationships and locations: when on the Earth, He is Jesus, he is the Son; when in Heaven, He is G-D, He is the Father...just as when around my parents or in conversational reference to them, I am their son; while around my sister or in conversational reference to her, I am her brother.

But at the same time, I'm not aware of any Christian denomination whose members say "the Holy Spirit died for our sins"...despite the Spirit being God just as much as Jesus is.

[Khemehekis]

But at the same time, I'm not aware of any Christian denomination whose members say "the Holy Spirit died for our sins"...despite the Spirit being God just as much as Jesus is.

I don't think any Christian denomination says the Holy Ghost died for humanity's sins, but there were the Muggletonians, a Christian sect who believed that it was the Father, not the Son, who died on the cross.

[Salmoneus]

Nobody says the Trinity is an easy explain. :) (its like the Dao in that way) :)

Oh, the Dao's easy - just remember that the Dao that can be explained is not the Dao and you'll be fine!

And in particular, to say that Jesus was a part of God would imply that Jesus was not the whole of God - that there were parts of God that Jesus wasn't, which would mean, since God has no limits, that Jesus was not really God at all.

On one hand, thats true, and I was trying to avoid Modalism - in which God is seen as a single entity, whose Names reflect His relationships and locations: when on the Earth, He is Jesus, he is the Son; when in Heaven, He is G-D, He is the Father...just as when around my parents or in conversational reference to them, I am their son; while around my sister or in conversational reference to her, I am her brother.

But at the same time, I'm not aware of any Christian denomination whose members say "the Holy Spirit died for our sins"...despite the Spirit being God just as much as Jesus is.

Yes, I was going to accuse your of modalism, but decided you'd probably avoided it - although I think you may have been close to what Sabellius himself believed? I don't know, I'm not a theologian.


The headline of the Trinity is actually pretty simple: God is one substance (reality, essence, Godhood, being, etc), but three persons. This is tricky for people to understand because most people are distinct substances, or at the very least distinct parts of one substance.

I actually had a similar argument at university once, although I didn't make the connection to theology at the time. I argued that two things could be the same thing without being the same as one another, and used the example of the Dover-Calais ferry. You can point at a ship in Dover, I believe, and truthfully say "That is the Dover-Calais ferry". If someone points at it and asks you, "I'm looking for the Dover-Calais ferry - is that it?" you can truthfully say "yes". But another person, in Calais, simultaneously, could tell another traveller that a different ship was the Dover-Calais ferry and be just as correct as you. Both ships, I think, can truthfully be said to be the Dover-Calais ferry. [if the order of names feels like a get-out (maybe the one is Calais is the Calais-Dover ferry), think of a ferry that has a non-geographical and hence 'symmetrical' name - the ferry across the Irish sea, for instance, used to be called "Sealink"]. It's not that the two ships are the same ship, of course - they may be totally different, even unalike. It's also not really that they're two parts of the ferry - if someone said "is that the Dover-Calais ferry?" you wouldn't say "no, but it's half of it!" - that makes it sound like it's only half a ship. Because the ferry is, of course, a ship, and the ship is the ferry. It's just that two ships are the ferry.

Likewise, Christians would say, Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are all God - not parts of God, and not the same as one another. Inherently different, yet all the same thing.

Many Christians would traditionally go further and say that although the three are different, with different properties, there are no properties of one that are not also properties of the others. They do this by saying that each of the three contains the other two, so everything within one is within all three - but there is still a distinction between, as it were, properties of Jesus qua Jesus, and properties of Jesus qua person that contains a person with those properties qua themselves. An analogy might be a pair of mirrors, each marked with a different design, facing one another - each mirror shows the same complete image, but each image comprises a painted design AND the reflection of the design painted on the other mirror, and the different mirrors have a different division in their parts. So although the Holy Spirit contains the property of having died for our sins, it doesn't have that property in the same 'native' way that Jesus does, but only in, as it were, a reflected way. From this, the traditional approach was to say that certain properties should be ascribed to one person of the godhead not exclusively, but preferentially, with relevance to the distinct mission of each person.

[Visions1]

So it's three divinities that are equal in what they are made of, but choose to do different functions?

Like, say, a cerberus - three heads that share a body? Or no shared body, so to speak?

[Keenir]

So it's three divinities that are equal in what they are made of, but choose to do different functions?

One divinity; as three would be polytheism.

Hopefully this will be of more help: in most Christian denominations, Jesus is seen as being both human and divine -- but not half of each...rather, 100% God and 100% Human. (Yes, I know, the mind wants to go "but that is bad math!")...perhaps we can say the Trinity is three overlapping 100%s ?

Like, say, a cerberus - three heads that share a body? Or no shared body, so to speak?

Hm...interesting idea. I've honestly never come across anything like that (in terms of analogies, that is)...but its a cool idea, at the very least.

(whether or not its valid for the Trinity, its a neat idea for conworlds)

[Nel Fie]

I've recently stumbled across the Gutenberg Project release of Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed, by Lord John Bourchier Berners et al.

The original documents date back to the 15th century, so written roughly at the change from Late Middle English to Early Modern English, but this particular edition is more recent, and has been 'translated' into a more recent orthography. However, there's a particular word that I'm not sure about, in the first paragraph of the section "OF THE GREAT ASSEMBLY THAT THE FRENCH KING MADE TO RESIST THE KING OF ENGLAND":

The French king heard well what he did, and sware and said how they should siever return again unfought withal, and that such hurts and damages as they had done should be dearly revenged;[...]

Is that supposed to be "sever", with the intended meaning of "abandon"/"give up on"? I.e. "they should give up on the hope of going unfought if they were to return again"?

[Dormouse559]

The French king heard well what he did, and sware and said how they should siever return again unfought withal, and that such hurts and damages as they had done should be dearly revenged;[...]

Is that supposed to be "sever", with the intended meaning of "abandon"/"give up on"? I.e. "they should give up on the hope of going unfought if they were to return again"?

I don’t know what “siever” means, but it feels like a negative adverb to me.

[Khemehekis]

I tried https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/? ... s&q=siever , and it lists "siever" only as a noun for a sieve-maker (and later, an eponymous attributive, with a capital S).