Divine Names, Human Psyche, and the Emergence of Process Theology
This study examines the theological, psychological, and mystical dimensions of Exodus 6:3, wherein God declares to Moses: "I appeared to your ancestors as El Shaddai, but by My name YHWH I was not known to them." Far from a simple historical marker distinguishing patriarchal from Mosaic religion, this verse emerges as a hinge text that anticipates what modern theology would term "process thought"—the understanding that divine-human relationship unfolds dynamically through history. Drawing upon biblical scholarship, classical midrash, Kabbalistic hermeneutics, modern process theology, and post-Holocaust thought, this essay argues that divine names function not as static descriptors of an unchanging divine essence but as relational disclosures calibrated to the evolving psychological and spiritual capacity of humanity. The transition from El Shaddai to YHWH charts a movement from divine containment to divine exposure, from promise to presence, from assurance to encounter with rupture and ethical demand. This trajectory, already implicit in biblical and rabbinic sources, reaches full articulation in the work of post-Holocaust theologians who understand God as suffering history's catastrophes alongside humanity. The essay integrates the hermeneutical insights of Michael Fishbane, the historical scholarship of Moshe Idel, the philosophical analyses of Elliot Wolfson, the mystical interpretations of Shaul Magid, the Hasidic scholarship of Joseph Weiss, and the theological synthesis of Louis Jacobs.