365 Names: The Nameless One

THE NAMELESS ONE was invented by me (unless I unrememberingly wheelered it from somewhere) to express, ironically, that the whole “365 Names of God” project (and similar efforts) is doomed to fail. As Lao-tze said more than a thousand years ago, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” By this I think he means that to name something is to limit it; and that-which-some-call-God cannot be limited. TWSCG is bigger than thought, bigger than speech, bigger than any experience. Does that mean we should stop thinking or speaking about It? Emphatically not! Because with every G?dward motion, we come a bit closer in our understanding — despite that we’ll never arrive. Here’s to the voyage. And the voyagers!

Once upon a time, in 2011 in fact, The Metaphorager aspired each day to feature a different name for that-which-passes-for-God. Some were creative, others traditional, each unique; so we’re going to attempt that project again (though not every day) until we run out of the names we’ve collected so far. If you want to see your favorite here, but haven’t, send it along with the subject line “365 Names” and let us know whether or not you want to be credited.

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