The Joy of Naming the World

In my congregation we tend to welcome a lot of babies.

Just this month we saw four new image bearers take their first breath and vault into the first stage of action in the world. Apart from sheer joy for the parents, newborns contribute nothing to the productivity of society. They do not advance the plight of humanity through their efficiency. As Shakespeare says in “As You Like It,” they came in "mewling and puking in their mother's arms". They are, in the best possible way, a burden. Yet the dignity they carry is not dependent on their actions or abilities, but on their personhood.

The reason for this is that from conception we share a common name, the name "human". When a new life enters the world, they are given a personal, human name, signifying their dignity as a person. To take away someone's name is rightfully considered a great evil. In a just society, no one should be fearful of losing their name: even if they are good-for-nothing, or even if they have committed a great crime. The name "human" is given, and the name "human" cannot be taken away.

The art of naming creation is God’s gift to man. What a name does is provide meaning, shape, order, and density to what is named. An unnamed object is a thing, but a named thing becomes a defined being, something alive, something personal. Sometimes we name boats or cars or other inanimate objects, such as AI chatbots, but we do so because they remind us of life and are in themselves “icons” of life. The Christian novelist and poet Madeline L’Engle says it this way: 

God asked Adam to name all the animals, which was asking Adam to help in the creation of their wholeness. When we name each other, we are sharing in the joy and privilege of incarnation, and all great works of art are icons of Naming.

This is what we are created for. Adam and Eve were made by God to “fill the earth and subdue it”, that is: to birth and name human beings and to birth and name the beauty in the world. But as the history of our world continues on from its infancy into greater degrees of societal, cultural, and technological advancement, it becomes harder to enjoy the simple “joy and privilege” of incarnation.  It shouldn't be a surprise that as processors get faster, AI gets smarter, and manufacturing gets easier, that we begin to define our value and worth by means of production and efficiency rather than beauty and relational unity. The more powerful, unnamed “things” we launch into the world, the less capacity we seem to have to take up the sacred work of “naming” and creating living things. 

This is the great warning of Magnifica Humanitas, the recent encyclical written by Pope Leo XIV. In the words of the introduction, "every era runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world... humanity is in danger of marring its true identity." The danger of humanity since the fall of man is not simply that we have the potential to  “unname” or “unhuman” ourselves, but that we have the potential to create an inhuman and “nameless” world, a world where it becomes harder to live humanly. 

As a protestant pastor, I find myself confronted continually with questions from parishioners about how they can maintain humanity in the world we live in. They are concerned they are over-busy, over-distracted, and over-sold. They worry that their children will suffer greater isolation and economic insecurity than they have. Much of this is perceived to be the result of rapid technological advancement creating a more inhuman world. The question before us in 2026, so aptly posed by Magnica Humanitas, is whether we are aware of the potential of such a danger and willing to do something about it.

The Danger of Babel

The negative Biblical example given by Leo of the danger of building an inhumane world is that of the tower of Babel found in Genesis 11. 

[Babel] was a project conceived without reference to God, supported by a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion. When a city is built on pride and the claim to self-sufficiency, communication breaks down, languages are confused and people no longer understand each other. The result is not unity, but dispersion. Babel thus reveals the limits of any effort that, however grandiose, arises from self-affirmation, sacrifices human dignity for efficiency and aspires to reach heaven without God’s blessing.

Babel was the height of human civilization post flood, the zenith of development, technology, production, and efficiency. "All mankind shared one language" is not just a description of their linguistic unity but their organizational and aspirational unity. They had two goals: first, to get to God, which is why their city became known as Babylon, "gate of the gods"; and second, to achieve cultural and political unity, which is why they feared being “dispersed over the face of the earth”. The problem with Babel was not their goals, but their motivation and methods. Instead of embracing the God-given identity of the name “human”, they sought “to make a name for themselves” (Gen 11:4). 

The primary motivation of Babel was self-glory, and their desire for unity was to build higher and stronger. The fear of being “spread” was simply a fear of the thinning out of influence and power. But what they forgot is, as Leo affirms, the “The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer.” 

But even if we have good motives, we can have bad methods. This is often where we fail in our technological society. Perhaps we desire to do great things for God, but we are not humble enough to depend on God to do them through us. So we expedite the process: we use bricks to get to heaven, rather than suffering. We outsource devotion and prayer to devices that give us answers.  We trade relationships for entertainment. We attempt to multiply and fill the earth not through the slow and patient steadfastness of love, but the frenzied hurry of the next advancement.

The primary method of Babel is technocratic ambition. Their project was technocratic because they based their decisions on the newest technology available to them: hardened bricks and water-proof mortar. They had no time to chop lumber and gather stones, bricks are easier and stronger. No doubt their decision to waterproof their tower was also an attempt to God-proof their tower. Our methods of work in the world become likewise technocratic and “God-proofed” when, in Leo’s words, we let “the logic of efficiency, control and profit alone shape personal, social and economic decisions.” When this happens, technology ceases to become a “tool” and instead becomes a “standard by which everything is judged, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency.” Our thirst for more powerful and advanced technology is one way we attempt to protect ourselves from the slow and often painful methods of God. Real humanity takes time, and real relationships take attentive focus, sacrifice and suffering. The best way to avoid confronting God is to try to become so technologically powerful that you believe you can afford  to forget him. 

But no matter how tall the tower is built, it cannot reach Heaven apart from God’s methods. In one of the most striking parts of the Magnica Humanitas, Leo affirms the necessity of suffering, dependence, and limitation. 

Even when limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to deny or suppress it, but to integrate it. To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments. It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity. To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.

To be a human is to live with and embrace the reality of dependence, and even at times, futility. To try to escape our dependence is to trade eternal goods for temporal gains. Calvin calls this the “world’s perpetual folly: having neglected heaven, to seek immortality on earth, where everything is perishable and passing away.” Until our motivation ends with the increase of God’s glory and not our own, our ambition will always be futile.

In our culture, we use phrases like “find yourself” or “make something of yourself”.  But no one can know himself apart from God and others. No one can name himself. No one can reach Heaven from earth. No one can build a legacy that lasts for eternity. No one can become more than human, regardless of what kind of machine they build. What Babel is teaching us is that such an effort is entirely fruitless, futile, and in the end, destructive. 

Born Again

Magnifica Humanitas ends on a redemptive note, recognizing the only way to protect and recover our humanity in a technocratic age is through incarnation, “the flesh of the Son, poor and vulnerable.” It is in the incarnation where God takes a human name, the name of Jesus. And it is in the incarnation that we receive the grace of being named by God.

What happened at Babel in response to their foolish and godless attempts to get to God is that God himself, in great mercy, “came down” and confused their unity. In giving them multitudes of languages, he gave them all sorts of different “names”. He created the beauty of diversity—but not as an affront to the beauty of unity. What God mercilessly protected the world from was false unity, an inhumane name and an inhumane language, in order that he might deliver them in time back to true unity and heavenly language.

God still frustrates our plans for false unity today. Although our best technological tools can remove the barrier of language and offer instant translation, none of our tools can unharden human hearts towards mutual love, respect, and honor. None of our tools can give humanity back the name they were created for, the name of God. But such frustration need not distract us from what God is really doing. Neither our technological achievements nor our technological failures can prevent God’s plan of unity. Listen to how Herman Bavinck masterfully puts it:

The false unity [of Babel] was violently broken, making room for true unity; the kingdom of the world was shattered, so that the Kingdom of God could be established on earth. Henceforth, the peoples were dispersed and scattered over the earth. Israel was chosen from among these peoples to be the bearer of God's revelation. General and special revelation, hitherto united, separated and remained apart for a time, only to converge again at the foot of the Cross.

Jesus is the king who unbuilt the palace of his presence, brick by brick, so he might rebuild here on earth. This is why we pray “let your kingdom come.” Jesus came down so that he might be lifted up on another man-made instrument, the Roman cross. And the reason for the cross was, in his words, so that “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:38).  What was attempted at Babel in man’s way is fulfilled at Calvary in God’s way. 

As the church just celebrated Pentecost, I am surprised Pope Leo does not bring Pentecost’s promise into his Encyclical. At Pentecost, we see the great glimpse of the way that the earth is unified. Of course, it is not through human power and technological achievement, but through heavenly power and human trembling. The only way for God’s kingdom to come is for him to send it and for us to receive. The only way to learn the language of God, the language of grace and mercy and the language of Heaven, is to learn it as a child does: slowly, by immersion in the love of God and dependent on the speech of God. The only way to be named not just with the name of humanity but the name of God is to be born again, welcomed into the world as a newborn, not of flesh but of Spirit. 

And in the mercy of God, when through the incarnation of God we take on the name of God by the Spirit of God, we are welcomed into the joy of naming and making the world. There lies a great potential for the church to “be fruitful and multiply and have dominion.” With God’s help, and in God’s way, the church of Jesus Christ does not have to settle for an inhumane world of lifeless things, but one alive with the creative diversity and beautiful unity that comes from belonging to God and bearing Christ’s name.