What you should be looking at instead is arguments about identity/identification a la rigid designators. Personally I think a lot of rigid designator analysis is a mess, but at least it has to do with what you're asking about. See, for example, section 1.1 here ("Names, Ordinary Descriptions, and Identity Statements"): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rigid-designators/#NamOrdDesIdeSta — Terrapin Station

Thank you for that article, it definitely answered my question. It seems that if A and B are two names for the same thing, then A is necessarily identical with B. A and B need not be names for God for this to be the case. If my real name is Casey Gettier, then it's necessarily true that "Curly Haired Cobbler is Casey Gettier," because they are names for the same being. If it's not, then it's necessarily false. In this case, it is necessarily false, because I don't want to give my real name out, and also because Casey Gettier is an obvious pun.

This also seems to mean that just because something is necessarily true, that doesn't mean that all truths about it can be discovered a priori, with no empirical knowledge.

This is interesting. I think (1) and (2) are uncontroversial.

However, there seems to be an issue with the claim "Jesus is necessarily God". This says something different. Namely, the necessity operator, here, applied to an identity. When I say that God exists necessarily, what would follow is that if Jesus is God, then Jesus exists necessarily.

I think it is a further step in reasoning to speak of Jesus being necessarily identical to God. That is, if God is a necessary being, then God exists in every possible world. Should Jesus be God, then Jesus is identical with God in every possible world. So, yes, necessarily Jesus is God. Again, however, I am not sure that this is a controversial claim. It seems controversial, but claims of the sort would apply to any necessarily existing being. — Kornelius

Good point. Some philosophers have stipulated that numbers are necessary beings. If this is the case, then the number two is necessary, it is necessarily identical with some things (the square root of 4, 1+1, 3-1), and it is necessarily not identical with some other things (the number 100, 1-1, 3+1). But there are also things that the number two is identical with contingently, such as "the meaning of the Spanish word dos" or "the number represented by the symbol 2." One could imagine a possible world in which Arabic numerals had never been adopted, or Spanish had developed differently such that dos meant something else. If the meaning of the Spanish word dos is the number two, then the meaning of the Spanish word dos is a necessary being. That doesn't mean that the number two is necessarily the meaning of the Spanish word dos, because, again, Spanish could have developed differently.

Hi, CurlyHairedCobbler here. I'm a member of an interfaith family containing Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, and Christians. Having been exposed to so many interesting and conflicting views, I've developed an interest in theology. I believe that reason is the best tool for answering questions about the being and the nature of the divine. I am a rationalist not only in the common language sense of believing in the power of reason to uncover truths, but also in the philosophical sense of believing that some truths can be known a priori, regardless of sense experience.

In college, I majored in psychology and minored in philosophy. I have always been very interested in both topics. My name is a reference to the section of the Republic, where Plato likens men and women fit to guard to bald and long-haired people fit to be cobblers: both are different in one sense, but alike in the sense relevant to their profession. I am a woman with curly hair, so I chose the name Curly Haired Cobbler for this site.

I pray that my reason lead me to the truth.