"The God that you can name is not the eternal God." - Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching.
This means that the instant you name something, even God or a god, you label it and a label is a limiting thing. For instance, when someone says their god's name is Baal, one thinks about an ancient middle eastern god who supported his follower's claims to own land as individuals, who supported human sacrifice, and who was a "false" god. No one thinks about Baal being a god of love, or a god of mercy because those characteristics are not a part of the "Baal" label. Thus Baal is limited by his name, or label.
The same is true of Jehovah, and it's more complex because Jehovah appears to suffer multiple personality disorder. In one place he's an angry judge-accountant who is chiefly interested in making damaging enteries in his "book of life" of the errors of his earth children so that he can properly punish them later. But he is also a god of love and mercy. He is on the one hand willing and able to make Canaan run with blood, and he did; and on the other hand is not willing that "even one" be lost. Here is a god that is "no respecter of persons" in one place, but who has respect for a certain racial or ethnic group of people in favor of all others in another; his so-called "chosen people." Here also is a god who says in one place that it's a mortal sin to be angry, jealous, resentful, self-centered, and several other characteristics, but who himself practices these very human failures on an unimaginable scale. And all these characteristics come to mind when you use the "Jehovah" label.
The point is that the "Jehovah" label defines who and what Jehovah is, and he is not more, nor any less than what is included in this definition, this label. Thus the god represented by the label "Jehovah" is a limited god - - and a LIMITED god is not GOD at all; God, the real one, is eternal and infinite and thus unlimited by anything, especially is he not limited by a mere name and a made up, tricked out name assigned by a human organized religion at that. Lao Tzu apparently knew what he was speaking about.
Questions?
Tyler, you also read into scripture that which is not there. The real god has never revealed himself by name - only by attribute, regardless of what any scripture says. There is no record that Jesus ever used a name for god. That's quiet good enough and is certainly superior to the claims of a man-made organization who has proved its untrustworthiness over and over and over for over 120 years.
francois
