Abulafia

What's in a name? That which we call a rose...

In today's Straits Times Review section, there was an article titled "For the love of God, stop grandstanding". The article discussed a recent effort in Malaysia to ban non-Muslims from using "Allah" as a synonym for "God" on the grounds that it could "confuse" the country's Muslim majority. The author states that this is another blow dealt to the country's reputation for pluralism. The author's contention is that "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for God and that it was used even before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed. The rise of Wahhabism since the 1970s and the trend of increased inter-religious tension were also discussed in brief.

Although the article was filed under the category of Politics and Religion, it could also quite easily fall under the heading of Language and Semantics. Those who ply words as their trade would understand the pitfalls of loose connotations and phrases. And even those who don't are subject to the consequences of slippery language, just read any credit card Terms and Conditions!

I think this article touches on the age-old question of whether the word "God" is what we call a proper name. The problem from a theological viewpoint (theology as a study of God) of such use is that bearers of proper names are always individuals with identities pre-existing their being named. To say that "God" is the name of the person who is the Creator, is to confine "God" to being a creator. A theological understanding of the word "God" is that it is not a proper name but the name of a nature, as a symbolism of something divine; to the extent that you would say all dogs are canine and in the sense that canine is not a proper name. Theology takes the view that "God" signifies whatever it takes to be divine; it signifies a nature. Dogs exemplify caninity by being individual dogs, for they are all canines. But there is no such thing as caninity, considered as something existing apart from the individual canine things we call dogs. Dogs are not caninity. But God is divinity itself (theologically speaking).
Nevertheless, theology is not an exact science and I wouldn't dare say that theology is the only way to dictate the use of words. But what approach are we going to take? Should we adopt Abulafia's Kabbalistic Theory of Language instead? Maybe we should all just cast aside theories and any X-logy or X-sophy and let common sense decide.