Human civilization flourishes when reality is named rightly. To misname or deny reality leads to chaos. This principle is deeply rooted in the Bible’s portrayal of wisdom and resonates with the vocation of science. Both Scripture and science insist that truth is not manufactured but discovered, discerned, and spoken. Creation itself was framed by God’s act of naming and ordering; human wisdom participates in this divine order by rightly identifying, classifying, and describing the world. When societies reject correct naming, whether of moral realities or natural phenomena, they slide back into chaos, the very opposite of God’s creative intent.
Naming in Creation: The Biblical Foundation
Genesis 1 presents creation in stark contrast to Mesopotamian myths, where rivals gods struggle. God brings order to creation through the act of divine speech. God names Day, Night, Sky, Land, and Seas (Gen 1:5–10). Naming here is more than labeling; it fixes identity and function. The Hebrew worldview understood shem (“name”) as essence and role. To call the darkness “Night” is to establish its rhythm and purpose.
In Genesis 2, Adam extends this divine act by naming the animals (Gen 2:19–20). This is humanity’s first intellectual vocation: discerning the nature of creatures and articulating their place in creation. Right naming thus becomes the foundation of human wisdom, science, and stewardship. To name correctly is to align with God’s order; to misname is to distort reality.
This same principle drives the prophets. Isaiah warns against those who “call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isa 5:20). Misnaming moral realities creates disorder, just as misnaming creation would lead to chaos. Wisdom literature likewise insists that reality is not malleable at will but must be acknowledged truthfully.
Ancient Near Eastern Background: Naming as Power
In Mesopotamian culture, naming was often seen as a magical act. In the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth, the gods create order by naming heavens and earth. To know or conceal the name of a god or force was to wield power over it. In contrast, Israel stripped naming of magical manipulation and rooted it in covenant fidelity. Humans do not control creation through names; rather, they participate in God’s ordering work by recognizing reality and calling it truthfully.
This distinction is crucial. Israel’s wisdom was not a tool for domination but for covenantal living. Right naming was an act of obedience, an alignment of speech with God’s order. This sets the stage for the prophetic critique: societies fall into ruin when they rename injustice as “progress,” idolatry as “religion,” or oppression as “peace.”
Science as the Modern Practice of Naming
Science, at its best, is the disciplined art of calling things by their correct name. The great scientific revolutions were revolutions of naming reality rightly. Galileo named the earth not as the fixed center but as a planet among planets. Darwin named the processes of biological variation and selection that shape life. Modern medicine names pathogens with precision so that healing may occur.
The structure of modern science, from taxonomy to physics, depends on classification, on recognizing patterns in creation and calling them accurately. Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae (1735), which gave us the binomial system of naming species, was in many ways a scientific extension of Adam’s Genesis 2 task. By naming organisms rightly, science revealed order in the apparent chaos of life’s diversity.
When science errs, it is often because it has named falsely, whether through premature conclusions, ideological distortions, or racial pseudoscience. But at its best, science embodies the biblical principle: wisdom begins by calling things by their correct name.
The Rejection of Right Naming and the Descent into Chaos
When societies reject developed wisdom and refuse to name things truthfully, chaos follows. Scripture calls this return to tohu va-bohu—the “formless void” of Genesis 1:2. To call evil “good” or truth “falsehood” unravels social order. History provides ample examples:
- Medieval rejection of disease causation delayed sanitation and medicine, perpetuating plagues.
- Denial of human dignity through slavery and racism persisted by misnaming people as “property” or “lesser.”
- Modern denial of ecological limits misnames exploitation as “progress,” destabilizing creation itself.
In each case, society collapses into disorder when it refuses to speak truthfully about reality.
This pattern mirrors the biblical narrative: Pharaoh hardened his heart by refusing to acknowledge (to name rightly) the LORD’s sovereignty, leading Egypt into chaos. Israel’s exile resulted from misnaming idols as gods and injustice as acceptable. Naming falsely goes beyond merely semantics. As the God of heaven and earth named all that is, it is a form of covenantal rebellion to ignore correct names or to misname. This lead to the dissolution of creation’s order.
Creation, Wisdom, and Covenant Order
The Bible consistently presents wisdom as the skill of living in alignment with creation’s order. Proverbs declares: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 1:7). The word fear is better translated as respect as in to see things clearly, truly, fully, and accurately. Hence to respect God is to recognize reality as it truly is: God as Creator, humans as dependent creatures. Wisdom literature thus urges correct naming of reality, whether in moral decisions, economic dealings, or social justice.
Job’s speeches, Ecclesiastes’ reflections, and the Psalms’ laments all hinge on naming reality honestly before God. Denial, evasion, or distortion is folly. This is why lying is so destructive in biblical theology: it misnames reality and undermines trust, the bedrock of covenant community.
The Book of Mormon and the Plainness of Truth
The Book of Mormon, drawing on the same cultural world, emphasizes “plainness” in teaching and record-keeping. Nephi insists: “My soul delighteth in plainness” (2 Ne 25:4). Nephi is going beyond literary stylistic simplicity to reinforce covenantal accuracy and discipline, namely, to refuse to misname or obscure God’s truth. The Nephite prophets consistently warn that societies collapse when they rename pride as righteousness or riches as blessing. Like Isaiah, they declare that false naming breeds chaos.
Moroni closes the record with a plea that his words be taken as they are, without distortion. The covenant community can only survive when things are called by their true name: sin as sin, redemption as redemption, Christ as Lord.
Science and Theology Together: Partners in Naming Reality
Far from being opposed, science and theology share a vocation of truth-telling. Both seek to discern and articulate reality rightly, though in different registers. Theology names God and moral order; science names natural processes and structures. When both are faithful, they serve creation’s order.
The danger arises when either field misnames: when theology baptizes injustice or when science denies moral realities. Both errors unravel the order God intends. But when they work together, they fulfill humanity’s Genesis vocation: naming creation in truth, exercising stewardship, and resisting chaos.
Conclusion: The Call to Correct Naming
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible presents creation as an ordered cosmos upheld by truthful naming. Wisdom begins by calling things by their correct name. This principle undergirds both covenant faithfulness and scientific inquiry.
To ignore developed wisdom, whether ancient or modern, is to return to tohu va-bohu, chaos and disorder. Societies that rename evil as good, deny observable truths, or obscure reality with lies inevitably unravel. God’s creative work is the opposite: He brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, truth out of confusion.
Science, when practiced faithfully, participates in this divine vocation. It continues Adam’s work of naming creation, discerning patterns, and speaking truth. Theology insists that this naming be oriented toward God’s covenant order. Together, they remind us that truth is not ours to invent but God’s to reveal.
To be wise is therefore to resist false naming and to embrace the discipline of truth. This is both the beginning of science or philosophy and the beginning of wisdom itself.
