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Concept
God
Summary
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic thought, a god is "a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being". Belief in the existence of at least one god is called theism.
Views regarding God vary considerably. Many notable theologians and philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God. Atheism rejects the belief in any deity. Agnosticism is the belief that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. Some theists view knowledge concerning God as derived from faith. God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence. God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator and sustainer and the ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as incorporeal and independent of the material creation while pantheism holds God is the universe itself. God is sometimes seen as the most benevolent, while deism holds that God is not involved in humanity apart from creation.
Some traditions attach spiritual significance to the relationship with God and see God as the source of all moral obligation, with acts such as worship and prayer. God is sometimes described without reference to gender, while others use terminology that is gender-specific. God is referred to by different names depending on the language and cultural tradition with titles also used to refer to different attributes.
God (word)
The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form was likely based on the root , which meant either "to call" or "to invoke". The Germanic words for God were originally neuter—applying to both genders—but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form.
Official source
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