Spirituality,
Religion, Nature
The Name of God:
Is it Noun or Verb?
We start
this reflection wondering whether God is a verb or a noun; whether its name is verb or noun; whether when
we call God in prayer, we are calling to a noun or to a verb. These are not
small things but a subject with a profound meaning; in particular, this is the
clearest way to see and understand how “All-that-Is” is God,
as you’ll see.
(Read it from right to left). The Tetragrammaton (word with
four letters) YHWH, or Yahweh in English, (incorrectly
translated also as Jehovah), refers to the Hebrew name for the God of Israel.
It is translated into English as Lord,
often written with
capital letters as in the Hebrew Bible.
YHWH in Hebrew means I am, and as such is a verb. That was the name chosen by God when Moses said to God,
"Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers
has sent me to you, 'and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I
tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.
This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to
you.'” It is meaningful and worthy of consideration to see why God wanted to be
named by a verb.
Names
are no more than names in most modern languages, as Steven, or Nancy; they are
just names. That is not so in Hebrew culture where the names of persons and
places mean what the person or place is or should be. Within this culture each
name has a meaning, and the chosen name of God must also be meaningful.
What
then does the biblical “I Am” mean? As a verb it means an act, the act of being, or simply To Be. But all verbs require a subject to execute their proper
acts, and the subject of “to be” is always a being, something that is. When we
apply this to God, the subject of to be in God is “I.” In the physical world
the subjects performing actions are different from the actions they execute:
one is the subject who loves, and another thing is the
act of loving; and we may say the same of all actions or happenings in the
universe: one is the Sun, and another thing its act of shining, heating or
radiating; and so on.
Each
object that exist in the world is a compositum, a
composition of a generic nature
common to all entities belonging to the same nature, and some particular or
individual characteristics exclusive of each particular entity, which
distinguishes it from others of the same genus or nature; a general quality or
condition common to many, and being an individual entity which distinguishes
one object from others. For instance, every human being has something common to
all men/women, and something which distinguishes one from others, Nancy from
Paul. All men/women are rational animals (their nature), but every individual
has some characteristics which distinguish one from the other. These characterists are the “whatness,”
the “whichness” of every thing:
which is it? This is what distinguishes Nancy from Paul; a mouse or stone from
another one. This is the individual quiddity,
exclusive of each one. Please read the note.[1]
Not so
in God: in God the act of being, “Am,” identifies
with the subject “I.” The whatness or whoness of God is the same as its being; the “what” or
“who” of God, and its being, are the same reality. This means that God’s nature
and God’s essence identify. This is an exclusive property of God, and it is the
opposite of what happens in all objects of the universe where their nature and
their essence are different. Only in God the verb and the noun identify.
We’d see
clearer the concept of God (although always limited) if we’d see God as “To Be” (a verb, an action) instead of “The Being” (a
subject), because God is primarily an action, actus purus, one pure
act: To Be; and whenever and wherever something is, God is. God is simply this act: Being! So, the answer to the
initial question whether God, or his name, is noun or verb, is that God is
verb.
When we
pray to God, the Being, we are praying to an Action, to a Verb. It is true
however that, given the fact that “The Being” and “To Be” in God identify, as I said; and given that the
totality of being, all-that-is, is God, then, when we pray to To-Be, we are
implicitly praying to The Being.
All
proper philosophical and theological names or qualities of God may be converted
into verbs; and, if there would be a property that couldn’t be converted into a
verb, it would mean that that property or quality is not appropriately said of
God. There are, for example, nouns as Creator, Existence, Life, or Action, that
can be expressed through verbs, as to create, to exist, to live, to act, and
God “is” such acts. The verb from Energy (that I use so often in my writings)
is to energize, or the equivalents to do something with power, to produce
something with force, to create, to move, to change. So, this name Energy is
very meaningful in God, as I have elaborated in other reflections.
Regarding
the name Lord, it has some
equivalent verbs as to dominate, to command, to lead. The name Father is also
to beget, to create. The name Holy so often used in the Scriptures (and in my
writings) would mean to make holy or to consecrate (in Latin sanctificare, sacrare, consecrare). Wisdom identifies with to see, to know, to
intuit.
It is
important to observe, however, that all verbs or properties of God are said of
him analogically, and under the principle that any verb is an action that is, an act, and God is
“Total-Is,” ”Total-Action,” “All-To-Be.” Although, God does not have “properties”
in plural because he is one Action: To Be. If we’d give different names to God,
or talk about different properties (or verbs) in God, we’d say that only for
our understanding. God is the simplest being, just one Action, fullness of Being: he Is.
Am I therefore
God since I am too? Is my body God? No, my body is not God; no material thing
of the universe is God; material things are limited, temporal, contingent
beings; no contingent subject or object, no body or matter of the world is God,
the noun. But the important point
here are not the nouns but the verb, the
act of being which is common and one with the to be of God, because God is “The Total To Be.” So, there is
plurality of nouns, subjects or objects, but there is “identity” in the act of
being, the verb.
We are
bearers of the Principle of all being
by which we came to be and by which we continue existing. Our existence is a
given, a constantly, “repeatedly” receiving of our existence at each instant
(there are not repeated actions in God). There is therefore something divine in
everyone and in everything, a “hidden” Action which the whole universe holds.
By this Action the whole universe is somehow “divinized,” made sacred, holy,
consecrated; it belongs to God; rather, it “is” God! I’ll explain it.
The
“who” or “what” of all objects of the world, and the “who” or “what” of God are
different, but the to be of all objective reality that exists or may exist is one and
common to God and the world. This objective reality and God look in our mind as
two different beings, but in God’s mind is one. God intuits the essences of all
objects of the world and sees them as a likelihood of his own essence which is
the wholeness of To Be. If God would miss any being, he wouldn’t be “The Total To Be” as by nature he is, and all beings one in him.
This
“unity [2]
God-Universe could be understood in terms of the Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy saying that to exist is genus and, as such, it is common to God and creatures,
and can be equally said of God and of the universe. God is not the individual
beings or nouns, subjects or objects of the world (otherwise there would be an
infinite number of “Gods”), but God is the whole being: To-Be.
There is
then in the objects of the universe something more than we see and touch.
“Behind” and “beyond” what we see in the physical world there is an
Intelligence and Power that cannot be seen or measured, which is the meaning
and the explanation of the universe.
As you
may see, in these reflections we are always going back and forth, affirming the
unity God-Universe, and accentuating also the difference. And it is so, because
“before” something existed God “was,” He always is. One thing is to look at the
individuality of all subjects or objects of the world, and another one is to
see that they are existences, and their existence is like “parts” of the
Fullness of Existence, who is All Being, God.
I have
written many times that we are “inside” God, or in God; but that is not exactly the fact; we are not in God; instead, our existence, the
universe’s existence “is” God, the Existence itself; no multiplicity but
simplicity: To-Be.
In
conclusion, the God we cherish so much is the plenitude of the verb To-Be in all forms of being, the fullness of
being, whichever it might be. There is no other God than this as Isaiah said: I am Yahweh, and there is no other one,
I am “Am!” [3]
Our fantasy may create a kind of subject “there,” and call it God; but there is
no such a being “there;” that “God” would be only in
our imagination. The only existing God is Being.
This
eternal, atemporal “To Be” is an Action of infinite
Wisdom, incommensurable Power, indescribable Force that we cannot imagine; it
is a Beginning without beginning and has no end. He cannot cease to be because his
nature is precisely To Be. He is a simple and spiritual Action who lives in an
immutable and simultaneous present. He is a rational Intelligence, immaterial
and metaphysical Being. And I think he is supernatural
because, according what we know about the world, there is not sufficient
explanation for its existence, but presupposes an Intelligence, Wisdom and
Power “behind” it. We have marvelous theories regarding the evolution, and
about the expansion and contraction of the universe, but we do not have the
evidence (and so, the theory) that the universe could exist by itself, unless
we see a kind of “identification” God-Universe. [4]
So, the
whole universe is held by To-Be, and we may resort to him for sustenance, assistance,
and light.
Finally, a talk about human life. To be is good because this makes
us “like Gods;” it is great to exist, especially when there is health and means
of subsistence; but in reality our individual existence, all nouns, subjects and
objects of the universe do not
matter; they are ephemeral, passing, temporal. The only thing that counts at
the end is the verb: God
is!
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HTM NATURE / NOUN VERB NATURE 03-12-11