#673 Is “God” a Proper Name?

Dr. craig’s response

There is a surprisingly good discussion of your question in the atheist philosopher J. Howard Sobel’s Logic and Theism, chapter 1. As Sobel explains, the word “God” functions as both a proper name and a common noun. You can usually distinguish the two usages by the presence or absence of a definite/indefinite article prior to the word. So when we say, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,” we are using “God” as a proper name. But when we say, “There is a God,” or “We worship the God of Israel,” we are using “God” as a common noun.

It seems to me that there are no lurking “metaphysical problems” here. I disagree that Christian theologians have said that “God” is not a proper name. Quite the contrary, it would be the use of “God” as a common noun that is relatively infrequent. When used as a common noun, “God” can be ambiguous. What properties go to make up the generic concept of a God? In some contexts, being the transcendent Creator and Designer of the universe may be what is meant by a “God.” In other contexts one would want to include perfect goodness as part of what is meant by a “God.” In still other contexts, yet more properties may be added for an entity to count as a God.  I don’t see any metaphysical significance in this; we may simply need to clarify in a given context what we mean by the word.

I think that the use of “God” as a common noun almost always entails that God is personal. That’s what we mean by “a God.” But proper names can be given to impersonal entities as well as to personal ones, e.g., Mt. Rushmore, Titanic, Route 66. The reason that most people think that when using “God” as a proper noun God is personal is because they already think that the entity referred to by that term is personal.