Godhead (Christianity)

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In Christianity, the Godhead is a term denoting deity or divinity. It is a unity comprised of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Though often used interchangeably with the concept of Trinity, the word Godhead is itself a word that simply means "godhood"[1] and, thus, it is erroneous to use it as synonymous with the English word "trinity." In those English translations of the Bible that use "Godhead," such as the King James Bible, there are only three passages of scripture where it is used, and each time it translates a different Greek word: Acts 17:29 (θεῖον theion, an adjective meaning "divinity, deity"[2]); Romans 1:20 (θειότης theiotēs, a noun meaning "divinity, divine nature"[3]); and Colossians 2:9 (θεότητος theotētos, a noun meaning "deity"[4]). In the later Neoplatonic mystical tradition (in Pseudo-Dionysius, for example), the term θεαρχία thearchia is used.[5]

[edit] Contrasting views of the Godhead

The nature of the Godhead is defined differently among different Christian denominations. In most branches of Christianity, including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, trinitarianism prevails and the Godhead is viewed as the Holy Trinity, and so the word Godhead is often used interchangeably with Trinity.

Contrasting views of the Godhead include the version of tritheism accepted by some denominations of Mormonism, the unitarianism of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Monotheistic Modalism of the Oneness Pentecostals, the Binitarianism of some Seventh day Church of God groups, the Dualism of Gnosticism, and various other nontrinitarian views of denominations such as the Church of Christ, Scientist, the Unification Church, and Unitarian Universalism.