I wonder what our communities could be like if we thought anew about tradition?
By Adrian Pyle
Director of Mission Participation Resource Unit
Uniting Church in Australia
Vic / Tas Synod
Recently I was involved in a conversation about a website universal resource locator (URL) with the word “god” in it. The discussion was about the convention in URLs to avoid capital letters. It was argued by some present that a reference to god as a Christian notion must be capitalised. But like all words, the use of the word “god” by Christian community is just that community’s attempt to represent an entity that it perceives. So under what circumstances should “god” be capitalised?
I imagine capitalisation is a tradition established in English-speaking Christian communities (and communities of some other languages, with their equivalent term for “god”) to treat with deference the “transcendent other.” That is, “god” is a sense of wholeness that rightly deserves our deference. In this sense the tradition is important. Yet capitalisation is just one human attempt to make meaning. It is one way that humans might try to show deference. And as such it is a human construction. And indeed as a construction it might be meaningful to me as a way to show deference but not to you. So insisting that “god” must be capitalised is like deifying my human construction rather than the notion (“god”) to which I am trying to point. It is creating an idol out of a particular word form. It is worshipping an idol in the form of capital G.
Might that be inherently un-humble, un-meek, un-godly in the way Christians really understand “god?”
Maybe tradition is both friend and enemy of god/God.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Hello adrian
Yes, why use capitals for our names - cementes the concept of ‘I’ and allows the ego to run riot.
The fact that you can ask this question without threat to your life is something - we have moved from our tribal past. We are in the era of asking questions. The church is still in the era of avoiding answering those questions. I generalise. But you get my idea.
I don’t know what I worship - an idea perhaps. All I know is that I have to express that idea at times and the name god seems appropriate. I don’t think it matters in what form we make our ‘image’, but an image of some sort we seem to have to make. The image I see is the rising sun heralding a new creation. But each to their own.
john
March 21st, 2008 at 11:35 pm
When I use a capital to refer to “God” I do so because I am using a personal name of a being with whom I have a relationship (in the same way that I would use a capital for any other personal name).
The God I name with a capital is not a “transcendent other” or a “sense of wholeness”- I reckon these are impersonal concepts that rightly deserve to be called “god” (without a capital).
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Thank you Caro. Your thoughts have grown my understanding and I respect your reasons for using the capital. For me (and again this doesn’t diminish my respect for your opinion) concepts like “being,” “personal name” and “relationship with” are personifications. Although these personifications are often thought to be associated with an authentic Christian faith, I’m afraid they don’t work well for me to describe something I understand to be beyond personification. Then again, maybe our understandings of these terms are differently formed - a great basis for a future exploration between us.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Ahh… yes… the joys of limited, finite beings (such as ourselves) trying to contemplate the infinite (such as God- with or without a capital G). You know, I reckon that no matter how hard we try (and we certainly SHOULD try) we will never really come up with a ‘right answer’ that is completely satisfactory. But the struggle to try, itself is valuable.
It would certainly be interesting to unpack this whole topic with you a bit more.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
This certainly is an interesting topic to explore, and I second Caro’s view that while we should try to come up with a right answer, it is unlikely that we will stumble across one in this life.
First, I think that requiring URL’s like www.godismycuteboyfriend.com to capitalise the G might stuff up the address, mightn’t it? Isn’t there some tekky reason why the letter needs to be lower case?
Second, Adrian, I find it difficult to see how God in Jesus Christ is not fully human. He is something else as well, something beyond our capacity to express other than to say fully God, but He remains a person, surely!
Third, I’m not so sure that the capitalisation thingy developed out of a need to show deference, or even to demonstrate the personality of God. Rather, I think it was to distinguish the Christian God from other gods - God the particular, the one-true, as distinct from God the god, the one among many. It would be interesting to have a look at some of the research on capitalisation and how it developed. I know that Koine Greek didn’t use capitalisation, and from what I saw of the medieval manuscripts the other day, only the first letter of a chapter appeared to be capitalised in the Latin. I wonder when it started up in English and its predecessors? Anyone feel like emailing Pete Rowsthorne on Can We Help?
May 1st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Good questions again Andrew. As I am rushing to run off to the US for a month, I will post here something of the conversation I had on this topic in another space. The fact our Christian understanding of God includes God in the person of Jesus, Christ - still does not make it easy for me to personify the mystery that overlays our Trinitarion construction or understanding - the divine dance we call god …and so I wrote the following…… (and I think you are right about the techy thing and please do get that question on the ABC - more of this discourse in public arena is a good thing.) ….
Reactions to my last post in various forums have been interesting. Mostly the assumption has been that I was making a point about the English language and approporaite grammar. My metaphor was obviously a little too subtle. Someone who responded to my thoughts made the comment that as god was a name applied to “the being” God it is appropriate to give him/her a capital. They went on to say “what is the big deal?” and “that’s an easy one.” I offered the following reflection in response:
Your thoughts and question have helped me reflect more on my own thoughts, which - as always - is a gift. Thank you.
Maybe I can use your thoughts, without undermining them in any way, to offer a little more of the backgound to my thoughts.
a) In your comments you refer to ‘proper names,”there is God,”out of respect’ and ‘Him (Her).’
b) The view that these terms reflect (and don’t in any way hear me say this is wrong, as that would defeat my argument) is a theistic view of god. It expresses an understanding of god as “a being” Not “being” in a broader sense but “a being” as I might look at you, another person, and understand the term “being.”
c) Taking that view of god - a personification of god - means that I can give god a name “God” - that that name is a proper noun and that according to the rules of English, should hence be capitalised.
d) Under these views and assumptions, the answer is, as you say “an easy one.”
e)….but….
f) I increasingly speak to people who are energised by the mystery behind Christian faith but who seek a broader definition of “being” or think of God beyond any definition of “being” and are reluctant to apply personifications.
g) So this “capital g/small g” thing is not so much a reflection on capitalisation at all as it is a metaphor (a very bad one, I am sure).
h) Hence what I am concerned about is the argument that takes place like this:
“God is a being named God” (the capital G person)
“I am not sure I see it that way” (the small g person)
“But it just is that way. Our faith demands it”
….and so on….
As such we can become definitive about something which is a mystery. Our finger pointing to the moon becomes our moon …..and our field of vision becomes a little shorter.