By Any Other Name

If we should call up “down” and down “up,” neither concept would change one bit. The change would be in us. The same is true of our idea of the Divine. The truth of the statement, “God made the world,” does not depend on whether we call the Supreme Being “Creator.” The truth of the statement, “God will not abandon us,” does not depend on whether we refer to the Supreme Being as “Divine Providence.” The truth of the statement “God wills us to share in his eternal happiness” does not depend on whether we say, “God’s name is ‘Love.'”

By any other name, these divine titles have no consequence in themselves. They are meaningful only to the extent that they genuinely reflect our understanding of them. The Divine Title, “Creator,” is just another name until it becomes an acknowledgment of our dependence upon God for life itself. The Divine Title “Providence” is just another name until it represents an attitude of trust in God’s…