Opus 2026-017: How Do You Spell That?

One of the bits of superstitious nonsense that we pick up reading fantasy novels is how knowing someone’s name gives you control over them.  I don’t know if this belief is common in pagan cultures or not.  Books I’ve read act like it is, but you know how books are dependable.  I do believe, though, that there is something in the world with the occult, which says that knowing someone’s true name gives you magical powers over them.  I would suggest that that’s a bit of nonsense.

Why would I say that?

I would say that because God has told us His name, Yahweh.  He came right out and said it to Moses.  That is His name.  Does that give us some kind of mystical control over manipulating Him?

I would suggest that there are many people that think they have the ability to control God.  They think of Him as a big vending machine.  We know a lot of them who have casual contact with our church.  They’re always calling in with prayer requests as if we had some magic wand we could wave and that suddenly the God that they reject would look at them with benevolent smiles.  I don’t think it works that way.

You also find theologians that tend to think this way, even if they don’t recognize it.  I don’t know how many times people tell me that God can’t do something.  Now I am not talking about the atheistic dreamers who come up with things like, “Could God make a rock so big that he couldn’t move it?”  That is nonsense logic and is mutually exclusive.  I’m talking about people who will say that because God is sovereign that we cannot have free will.  We love to twist our theology and force it down God’s Throat.

So no, I would reject this common bit of superstition.  We don’t have a public name and a secret name.  God told us His name and that should settle the issue.

Of course that doesn’t cover how you should carefully hide your fingernails so they can’t be used in potions against you.

homo unius libri