Based on the readings from Otto Page 221.
When we possess a name there lays the
temptation to actually believe the object is fully known, leaving no purpose to
search for more understanding…
Is it pride? Or is it nature?
This concept is also presented in the
story of Jacob (Israel) wrestling with the angelic being in Genesis 32. After
Jacob (Israel) restrains the angelic being he presumes to learn the name of his
competitor (verse 29) as though he has inherited a capacity to fully understand
the knowledge of the holy. Otto elaborates by saying names have a “strange
power of hiding God…We get the name
and fancy we understand something more than we did before; but in truth we are
more hopelessly ignorant (221)”.
This makes sense because God is seen
naming and renaming people and places as if to relay the idea that God already
fully knows places and peoples and thus has the authority to bestow names.
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