The demonstrative use of names, and the divine-name co-reference debate

Abstract

For an account of the reference of divine names, I follow Bogardus and Urban (Faith and Philosophy 34(2):176–200, 2017) in advocating in favour of using Gareth Evans’s causal theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in the name’s “dossier”. However, I argue further that information about experiences, in which God is simply the object of acquaintance, can dominate the dossier. Thus, this demonstrative use of names offers a promising alternative avenue by which users of the divine names can refer to the same referent despite having different conceptions of God. I also respond to Burling’s (Faith and Philosophy 36(3): 343–371, 2019) worship-worthiness view.