ABSTRACT
As discussed in the preceding chapter, Kripke’s work links proper names closely to the possibility of singular reference, as names can refer independently of description. While descriptions are epistemically useful for fixing the reference, the differing truth-values in modal contexts between a name and a description indicate that the name permits the description to refer, rather than the reverse. While not directly a theological argument, the work of theorists such as Kripke and Putnam reshapes the problem of reference in religious language. In philosophy of religion, religious language is frequently presumed to be anthropomorphic in its attempts to describe God or delineate God’s attributes. This reduces God to the level of things in the world-something known by us; it thus remains in tension with the religious claim that God transcends the world that we know. However, if reference is not circumscribed by description, then it is possible that one could name God without describing God. By naming God without description, one can refer without reducing God’s transcendence. The Kripkean inversion of the relation between names and descriptions may suggest that naming God makes theological realism possible, to the extent that it elides description.
