Then why use the word? A capitalised God is a named object or concept amongst every other named object or concept, and however subtle our definitions are they still result in the trapping of the indefinable within a language system designed to define and discriminate.
The word God is not being used as a descriptive object inside reality, but as a pointer to a structural role reality requires. Language cannot trap what it merely references. All formal systems work this way. Mathematics names zero, infinity, and undefined without pretending they are objects like apples or chairs. Physics names spacetime, singularity, and constant without assuming they are material entities floating somewhere. Naming is not containment, it is addressability. The alternative, refusing to name the necessary reference point at all, doesn’t preserve transcendence. It dissolves coherence. If something is structurally required for intelligibility, it must be referable, even if it is not describable in ordinary terms.
Zero, infinity, undefined, spacetime and singularity are common nouns and adjectives. God is a proper noun, a name, a personification. There is a huge difference. As soon as the name, God, is used, it fractures human thought into innumerably different understandings of the word, most of which are tied to the religious tradition the interpreter has been raised in. If we change the word 'infinity', to 'Infinity', does this not make a nonsense of the concept of infinity, because there is an immediate implication that 'it' is a 'thing' - a definite article named Infinity?
This is certainly not a specific criticism of your use of the word though, and in fact it is not a criticism at all, just a question. I have long wondered why people use a word that to any English speaker unavoidably references the God of the Bible and all things positive and negative associated with that; yet those that use it outside of a religious tradition, as it seemed you were in the essay, scarcely seem to mean this God at all. I understand it is a convenience of language and that ultimately no word is available to replace it, but every time it is used outside of a strictly biblical sense, it becomes more of a hindrance than a help if our aim is to move understanding beyond the tangible, the conceivable, or the venerated. Do we mean God the Father, the Son or the Holy Ghost? Do we mean God the Creator, or a God that stands outside of creation? The God of Moses or God of Christ? Because as soon as we start to define God we immediately intrude on other's perceptions of what God means and the conversation soon becomes unhelpfully dialectical - the focus moves from the metaphysical (for want of a better word), to the intellectual.
The Zen teacher, Bankei, capitalised an adjective, the Unborn, to point not to an entity but to an 'idea' he was attempting to convey. This abolishes the inherent contradiction encountered when attempting to name the unnameable, as it nominates and capitalises a common and entirely neutral word for the purpose. It is not a word that points at what 'is', but rather at a thing that never 'was', or at least not in the common understanding of 'is' and 'was'.
Again, none of this a criticism of your essay, but rather at the persistence of those who are not referring to the God of the Bible but instead to a mystery beyond our cognition, and yet still use 'God' as their reference. I understand the convenience of it, but I still do not 'get it'. Not that this matters in any way of course, it is simply a usage that has long puzzled me. But I am grateful for the answer you already gave and there's no need to engage further if you consider it a trivial matter.
I appreciate the care in your question, it isn’t trivial, and you’re right to note that God carries historical and psychological baggage in a way that terms like infinity or the Unborn do not. The deeper issue, though, isn’t the word itself but the human tendency to subjectivize whatever is objective. New terminology doesn’t resolve that impulse; it only postpones it. Whether we speak of God, the Absolute, or the Unnameable, the same risk remains unless the objective is confronted explicitly as nonnegotiable rather than filtered through narrative or identity.
Then why use the word? A capitalised God is a named object or concept amongst every other named object or concept, and however subtle our definitions are they still result in the trapping of the indefinable within a language system designed to define and discriminate.
The word God is not being used as a descriptive object inside reality, but as a pointer to a structural role reality requires. Language cannot trap what it merely references. All formal systems work this way. Mathematics names zero, infinity, and undefined without pretending they are objects like apples or chairs. Physics names spacetime, singularity, and constant without assuming they are material entities floating somewhere. Naming is not containment, it is addressability. The alternative, refusing to name the necessary reference point at all, doesn’t preserve transcendence. It dissolves coherence. If something is structurally required for intelligibility, it must be referable, even if it is not describable in ordinary terms.
Zero, infinity, undefined, spacetime and singularity are common nouns and adjectives. God is a proper noun, a name, a personification. There is a huge difference. As soon as the name, God, is used, it fractures human thought into innumerably different understandings of the word, most of which are tied to the religious tradition the interpreter has been raised in. If we change the word 'infinity', to 'Infinity', does this not make a nonsense of the concept of infinity, because there is an immediate implication that 'it' is a 'thing' - a definite article named Infinity?
This is certainly not a specific criticism of your use of the word though, and in fact it is not a criticism at all, just a question. I have long wondered why people use a word that to any English speaker unavoidably references the God of the Bible and all things positive and negative associated with that; yet those that use it outside of a religious tradition, as it seemed you were in the essay, scarcely seem to mean this God at all. I understand it is a convenience of language and that ultimately no word is available to replace it, but every time it is used outside of a strictly biblical sense, it becomes more of a hindrance than a help if our aim is to move understanding beyond the tangible, the conceivable, or the venerated. Do we mean God the Father, the Son or the Holy Ghost? Do we mean God the Creator, or a God that stands outside of creation? The God of Moses or God of Christ? Because as soon as we start to define God we immediately intrude on other's perceptions of what God means and the conversation soon becomes unhelpfully dialectical - the focus moves from the metaphysical (for want of a better word), to the intellectual.
The Zen teacher, Bankei, capitalised an adjective, the Unborn, to point not to an entity but to an 'idea' he was attempting to convey. This abolishes the inherent contradiction encountered when attempting to name the unnameable, as it nominates and capitalises a common and entirely neutral word for the purpose. It is not a word that points at what 'is', but rather at a thing that never 'was', or at least not in the common understanding of 'is' and 'was'.
Again, none of this a criticism of your essay, but rather at the persistence of those who are not referring to the God of the Bible but instead to a mystery beyond our cognition, and yet still use 'God' as their reference. I understand the convenience of it, but I still do not 'get it'. Not that this matters in any way of course, it is simply a usage that has long puzzled me. But I am grateful for the answer you already gave and there's no need to engage further if you consider it a trivial matter.
I appreciate the care in your question, it isn’t trivial, and you’re right to note that God carries historical and psychological baggage in a way that terms like infinity or the Unborn do not. The deeper issue, though, isn’t the word itself but the human tendency to subjectivize whatever is objective. New terminology doesn’t resolve that impulse; it only postpones it. Whether we speak of God, the Absolute, or the Unnameable, the same risk remains unless the objective is confronted explicitly as nonnegotiable rather than filtered through narrative or identity.