The Power of Names

Adam Naming the Animals, from a 12th Century Manuscript, the Getty Collection

"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." 

- Revelation 2:17

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient  Church of the West) 

In the beginning, God made the world and placed man into it with the gift of His Breath, the "Ruach", and this created a rational and thinking soul, able to use words to communicate, reflecting the "Logos" of the Uncreated Mind into the created realm. God then brought the animals before the newly created man and allowed him to name them, "and whatever the man called each living thing, that was its name." (Genesis 2:19 B) The Babylonian Midrash creatively retells the story of Adam's creation - "When the Holy One, blessed be He, was about to to create humankind, He consulted with His ministering angels, saying, "Let us make Adam." The angels responded, "What's so wonderful about this Adam?" So He brought each creature before the angels and asked them, "This creature, what is its name?" But they did not know. Then He brought the creatures before Adam and asked him, "This creature, what is its name?" To which Adam responded, "This is shor [Hebrew for ox], this is chamor [donkey]..." Thus, Adam was able to discern the names of the animals based upon his relationship with God, the animals’ relationships with him, and the harmony of the universe in which he and the animals lived eternally for and by the glory of God. Names manifested Adam’s God-given power over the animals, their relationship to God, Adam’s understanding of this relationship, and the way that they were to serve Adam, who was to act as the “priest of all creation” - God’s representative, mediator and steward on earth. 

From this first story of humankind's perfect, unfallen function within the world, we can see that names are central to how we perceive and interact with the world. Only through names, verbal symbols of things and ideas, can we have language; and only through language can we interact with God, whose existence, attributes and will can only be pictured in human abstraction, which, when perceived, agreed upon and obeyed, forms the basis of human interaction and culture itself. The foundation of human values, shared language, law, lineage and land flow from the act of naming and categorizing. Through this activity, we know the world, create internal maps of relationships, and over centuries of amassing knowledge through exploration, trail, error and intergenerational education, we come to the point where our internal maps of relationships may closely mirror reality, although we always see through multiple cultural overlays and metaphors which obscure the whole from any one individual's full comprehension. 

Over the last two hundred years, theologians and philosophers have noticed something about language that was at once controversial and obvious. We cannot know anything directly, as the "thing-in-itself", and all that is mediated to us by names and concepts - names are like icons within our minds, reflections of things and not the thing. As Immanuel Kant observed in his “Critique of Reason,” these concepts point to existence without being that existence, and yet they share in the nature of the thing they represent within our imagination. The word, being a symbol, recreates an image, and that internal, mental image, allows for our capacity for representational thought. Words substitute for pictures and stories, but we cannot escape the fundamental nature of the picture in our mind's eye. Thus, iconoclastic theology is a theology of unknowing, not as a "via negativa," but as a theology that rejects thought itself as unnecessary or insufficient. By rejecting images, such a philosophy also rejects the use of words. 

St. Theodore Studite made an argument for the necessity of icons in the 8th century, based on a similar line of thought, stating that the image was attached to its original prototype in the mind of God, just as it was attached to the story of its association in the human mind, and thus, any honor shown to an image passed over to its heavenly original, and did not receive honor on its own. What he was saying is that, since man cannot think without pictures and associations, God must also associate symbols in the created universe with the heavenly realities that His mind also upholds, and therefore, a picture of a cross, an icon of Christ or one of His saints, or any religious imagery used in His worship or service, was not an “idol” (a false image, telling a story or conveying a belief contrary to God’s will) but, as Christ was the “icon of the Father” (Colossians 1:15), an icon of truth and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. (St. Theodore the Studite, On Holy Icons, St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1:3 and 3.C.2) 

What Christian experience and the Bible record show is that God meets us in these names, these mental symbols attached to iconic pictures in our heads, and especially in His Name, through which we align our relationship with Him and receive the reality of His Presence. We receive Him as we cry out to Him, as we cry "Abba Father.” He chooses to use His Name, an aspect of self, to reveal Himself to us as a bridge into grace, and it reflects a part of His nature, and thus bridges an unfathomable chasm between the infinitely superior and infinitesimally inferior. This is His chosen pathway through the world, and it is everywhere evident in Scripture and Tradition. The Name of God and His Nature is ultimately revealed through Jesus Christ, who as the Logos (John 1:1-14), and figures this process of revelation and self-limitation for the purpose of expression and comprehension perfectly. It is the incarnational principal at work within Christianity. 

We know God through names and words, and He chooses to fill them and make meaning into a personal relationship, and through this relationship He transforms us. We cannot know the essence of God through Names (rejecting the “Name Worship” heresy), but God allows Himself to be touched, the Created permeated with the Uncreated, through this divine communion of self-revelation. This is not Okhamite "Nominalism" because names share in nature because all Creation is held in God’s mind and the exchange of attributes (communicatio ideomatum) is fundamental to how God creates and sustains His creations, and are not just associated through an exercise of Divine Will - but, rather they are empowered through the fellowship of the Divine Persons, through what the Christian East calls the “Uncreated Energies,” and reveal God's self-knowledge in His self-revealing history through the “energia” of the Holy Spirit’s manifest presence within the Creation. 

We know ourselves through the names that are given to us, both by our parents, our peers, and ultimately God. Our personhood is imparted through names, and we receive names as either a blessing or a curse, as a reason and inspiration for growth, and affirmation of our name as "Child of God", or as curses - “dumb,” “pervert,” “failure,” “accident.” As the Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas, notices in his theological work on personalism, “Being as Communion”, personhood is “imparted” by the “other”, not “assumed” by the “self” (which ultimately only exists in contrast, memory, and community). Most of our maturity comes from negotiating names that were given to us, embracing some and rejecting others. Names are therefore not just how we know and experience God, but how we know, experience and construct our familial relationships, reconcile our memories, and come to harmony within ourselves. Like Adam naming the animals, we order our internal world through naming things, good and bad, and putting them in their place within our psyche. We can only be psychologically at peace in a mental space that is named, ordered, and put in proper perspective. Then, with this organization accomplished, even the most scary, embittering, harrowing experiences can be tolerated and seen in a different light.  

We know each other and are known by our names - not just as an exercise in vanity, but as an affirmation of recognition, our relationship, of our communion with God and others. This is why, in Orthodoxy, we say “The Servant of God, ______, receives the Body and Blood of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for remission of sins and life eternal.” We can only function socially through the use of names, and we accumulate names as a function of our self within a group that help us to understand ourselves and form the scripts/liturgies of our interactions. Names are essential to tell our own story, which defines us, and a certain tragedy occurs at the loss of a title and the modification of an identity. 

Thus, the primary functions of the Church is to recognize and name its members, and to constantly teach and call upon the Names of God. This is the function, supernaturally imparted with divine grace through the work of the Holy Trinity, that we see in the sacramental re-namings that fill our Prayerbook - Baptism, Communion, Marriage, Tonsure, Ordination, Confession, Holy Unction (Last Rites). We either call by a new name, a new relationship, or, through water, oil or tears, we re-instate a name that has been forgotten or lost, and thus reconcile a broken connection between us and God. It is only within this constant naming, praying, calling on and giving of names that what we are supposed to do becomes apparent - making humanity one family with God, and empowering all of God's children to manifest "Grace" (recognition and submission to the presence of God expressed in good works and positive actions). This is how ministry is accomplished naturally, without "programs" and the mundane action of calling each other by our relational names, and acting upon those relationships, becomes a vehicle for the supernatural transformation of the Holy Spirit. This is also how the Trinitarian structure of the Church imparts a “new name” to the baptized believer, and thus, brings into being an order of holy life for all its members.