Is It Really Jehovah?

by Francois 0 Replies latest jw friends

  • Francois
    Francois

    I remember going from door-to-door using a standard canned presentation. This particular one included the line that we worshipped a God who had a name. This was before my own critical thinking facilities progressed beyond the germinal stage. Thinking about it today, it's really a dumb argument. After all, Baal is a name, Chemosh is a name, Vishnu is a name, Buddha is a name. And each name describes a god whose characteristics are well-known. In fact, these characteristics so define the God that the God wouldn't be the same dude if additional characteristics were added to the description.

    Similarly, any name is just like that if you think about it (please bear with me here as I sneak up on my point). If an object is called a cup, immediately pops into your mind the image of all that is known about the object that goes with the name. You know what a cup is, and thus you also know what a cup is not. If I said it's flat, you'd know that "cup" is the wrong word to use. Thus, a name constitutes a limit. The name sums up all the characteristics about the thing named. It can't be more.

    Same is true with the name Jehovah. Once you've said Jehovah, you know the nature and character of the God you're speaking of. And in that lurks the problem. For if a name, a lable is a limit, as demonstrated above, then a god with a name cannot be god - for a limited god is not god at all.

    So when you say Jehovah, you're not speaking of the existential god of the universe of universes; the god of love, the father of us all. You may be speaking of the god of the Hebrews or of the Hittites, a five-thousand year-old conceptualization of the nature and character of god, never updated to reflect new realizations and insight about him; subtracting what is obviously not true about god, and adding new elements of character unknown to us previously.

    Developing a grasp of this concept has been very important in my recovery from the clutches of a cultic religion. But realizing that the true God that lives and rules in the Center of all Things and Beings is not that angry judge-accountant who speaks from a fulminating volcano issuing edits like he thinks he's the federal government has been the most important discovery in my new life of the discovery of many, many releasing truths.

    The witnesses want their Jehovah? They can have him. For me, the god that can be named is not the eternal god.

    Think about it.

    Francoise

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