“God” by Name, No Name, Any Name – Brad Jersak

“God” — an Unsettled Term:

I come from a Christian tradition that too often assumes the word “God” is a settled term—as if that word means essentially the same thing to everyone—or ought to. The implication can be that any other constructs of the Divine must be false gods.

But Scripture itself invites a far more patient, layered understanding. I’ve been provoked in a good way by David Armstrong’s article “Inclusive Monotheism” in his Perennial Digression Substack, which also directed me to Thomas Römer’s The Invention of God, for a deeper dive.

Before posting this, I reached out to David to ensure I hadn’t misrepresented him or presented any critical errors. Rather than trying to integrate his gracious response into my own words, I have cited his corrections and perspectives directly into this post so you can see his input directly (and note his tone).

Despite our probable differences, I felt that some data and takeaways from their work might be helpful in multifaith dialogue, which is a central focus of my study and writing these days. For now, a few initial thoughts on the word “God” and God’s names.

Elohim, El Shaddai, and Yhwh

In the Hebrew Bible, God is first named in ways that are surprisingly open. Elohim is the common word—often less a proper name than a category: God, the divine, the One beyond us. It’s a word that resonates across traditions, echoing linguistically in the Arabic Allah, used by Arabic-speaking Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.

Then comes El Shaddai—God as the Mighty One, the All-Sufficient One—the One who sustains and blesses. That is not a tribal label so much as a testimony of what God is like, a description according to divine attributes.

While the name Yhwh appears as early as Genesis 2:4 (through Yahwist sources), only later does God disclose its meaning to Moses—his covenant name, bound to liberation, presence, and promise.

Scholarly Clarification – David Armstrong

This is as good a place as any to drop in David’s response:

I think this is good!

You’ve basically captured the complexity of the historical situation as reflected in the text (though I’d contend that El and Yhwh were simply different gods before their fusion in the 10th c BCE).

My only suggested correction is that El Shadday probably means “El of the steppe” or “El of the wilds”—a sort of “Lord of Animals” / Prajupati form of El—rather than “God Almighty.”

The Greek translators of the LXX don’t know what 𐤔𐤃𐤉 / שדי means, so they render it as Παντοκράτωρ, whence the Latin translation choice Omnipotens; they do the same thing with 𐤑𐤁𐤀𐤅𐤕 / צבאות, which really means “of Hosts” (as it’s often rendered in English Bibles using the MT).

Basically, by the time the Torah and Prophets had been more or less compiled and were beginning to be translated into Greek, only scribes knew Hebrew, and the scribes that produced the LXX either were not as proficient in Hebrew as their colleagues in Judea and Babylon or they recognized that the cult names would not be meaningful to a Greek-speaking audience and changed them to something that audience would care about.

I hope this helps, but overall, it’s good!

Definitely helpful! Thanks so much, David.

Reading Exodus with Fresh Eyes

Now, if we insert key Hebrew terms into Exodus 3:15 and 6:3 (NRSVue), the text records God’s words to Moses,

3:15Elohim also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘YHWH the Elohei of your ancestors, the Elohei of Abraham, the Elohei of Isaac, and the Elohei of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.

6:3 I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name ‘YHWH’ I did not make myself known to them.

Three Ways of Reading the Divine Name

There are several ways to read this:

  1. God had previously not been known by the covenant name YHWH, but by other titles and attributes. But now, this new name for the same God is revealed more fully in a special type of relationship—this is the deliverer God, the Redeemer who makes and keeps covenants.
  2. OR does this progression also speak to a narrower, more exclusiverelationship—that the God revealed as YHWH has entered an intimate covenant with one particular, chosen people? Some hear this as “Our God and not yours”—as “exclusivist monotheism” identified with the Deuteronomist tradition.

    Such emphases are often associated with the Deuteronomist tradition, particularly in the context of Josiah’s reforms (640–609 BC), the centralization of worship in Jerusalem’s Temple, and the period extending into the early Babylonian captivity (6th century).
  3. OR, do we have a multiplicity of names (simultaneous, successive, or evolving) by which God is known? While they may range from general terms to specific titles to a proper name, the revelation is that all these names and name types refer to one and the same Ultimate Reality.

    The writings that emphasize this tend to come from the Priestly tradition associated with the development of the Torah through the exile and post-exilic eras of 6th-5th centuries BC, with an emphasis on the centrality of the Torah and faithfulness to its holiness codes and rituals.

    Armstrong regards these writings as a type of “inclusivist monotheism,” in which one God is confessed without denying that others may be worshiping the same God by different names, titles, and covenants. The boldest suggestion is that the Jewish exiles in Persia may have seen “all Gods are our God.”

The “Name” of Jesus

For Christians, this unfolding finds its center in Jesus. So, when Acts 4:12 declares that there is “no other name” by which we are saved, we need not hear “the Name” as a narrowing claim about spoken syllables, but as a confession about a Person. For one thing, this Person is called, known, and encountered by many names and titles (even by Jesus himself): Jesus of Nazareth, Christ/Messiah, Emmanuel, Lord, Son of God, Only Begotten Son, Son of David, Prince of Peace, King of the Jews/Israel, Saviour, Son of Man, Logos/Word of God, Lamb of God, Light of the World, Bread of Life, Good Shepherd, Pantocrator, Alpha and Omegae, Way, Truth, and Life, Holy One of God, Image of God, etc. All these names and titles point to Jesus Christ.

But also, the “Name” of this one Person is not a backstage pass to the one true religion. Rather, for Christians, the Name is more than a word or label. The Name represents either (1) whatever gestures to the living reality of Christ himself—the One in whom God’s saving life is fully revealed, or (2) the Person to whom any divine name might ultimately be pointing.

Think of Philippians 2 where Jesus is “given that name that is above every other name…” (I wonder what that name is). And “at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.” The Name here IS the Person, not the placeholder word for the Person.

God as Boundless and Ineffable

Religious traditions throughout the ages, including Christianity but certainly not only, simultaneously use many names for God and insist God is not bound by our limiting names and limited notions. In Islamic practice, the prayer beads (called misbaha or tasbih) are used to recite the ninety-nine names of God (Asma al-Husna, “the Most Beautiful Names”). The Jewish tradition both names God (their mystical tradition has seventy-two names for God) and also refuses to confine God to any name—especially the unspeakable Name.

If God is not confined to our names, then neither is God confined to our boundaries. This means that Christians need not—must not—speak as though God were absent from every story but our own. Rather, we can trust that wherever healing, restoration, and reconciliation break through, the One we know as “God” is the source of that grace—whether named, recognized, or not. That is, Jesus-followers can acknowledge that by the Wind of the One we call Holy Spirit, divine grace is flowing everywhere, according to the Name revealed to them.

A Greater Confidence

So perhaps we can say: Christians believe we know God most fully in Jesus—but we also trust that the One we know is not silent elsewhere. Or to riff off Fr. Thomas Hopko, we know where salvation is found, but we do not know where it is not found. God is both radically transcendent and radically immanent, and therefore certainly bigger than the brand I identify with and closer to everyone than their own breath.

That kind of confidence doesn’t shrink our faith. It enlarges it.

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