Table 1 Subject Category:
God

  • Christianity
  • Christian Science
  • Spiritualism
  • Jehovah's Witnesses
  • Mormonism
  • Eastern Mysticism
  • The Way International
  • Unity
  • Unification Church
    •

    Personality of the Godhead

    In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

    He is God; there is none else beside him (Deuteronomy 4: 35).

    God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

    For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (I Timothy 2:5).

    Go...and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28: 19).

    Jesus was baptized...the Spirit descended...the Father spoke (Matthew 3:16-17).

    Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech (Genesis 11:7).

    From the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me (Isaiah 48:16).
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    CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

    God

    God is All-in-all (Science and Health, 113:16).

    God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter (SH, 113:18).

    God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love (SH 465:9).

    God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or Soul. The only intelligence of the universe, including man (SH, 330:1)

    Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person called God--God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship--Divine Science or the Holy Comforter (SH, 331:26-31).

    God is "the ever-present, I am, filling all space, including in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God" (M.B. Eddy, Rudintentary Divine Science, pp. 3:26; 4:1).

    The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one everpresent I am (SH, 256:9-11).
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    SPIRITUALISM

    God

    Infinite intelligence pervades and controls the universe, is without shape or form, and is impersonal, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

    It teaches that the spark of divinity dwells in all ("What Spiritualism Is and Does," Spiritualist Manual, 1940).

    The doctrine of the trinity seems to have no adherents in advanced circles of the spirit world. The divinity of Christ as a co-equal with the Father is universally denied.

    Just as I am, nor poor, nor blind
    Nor bound by chains in soul or mind
    For all of Thee within I find
    O God of Love, I come, I come. (Spiritualistic Hymnal)

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    JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

    God

    God's personal name is Jehovah (The Truth Shall Make You Free, p. 17).

    Only Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting (Make Sure of All Things, [1965], p. 486).

    Jesus Christ is not One God with the Father (MS p. 485).

    Holy Spirit is God's Active Force, not a person (MS, p. 487).

    There was a time when Jehovah was alone in universal space. All life and energy and thought were contained in him alone (Let God Be True [1952], p. 25).

    The obvious conclusion is that Satan is the originator of the trinity doctrine (LG, p. 101).

    Elohim is the plural of majesty. It does not mean that he is mysteriously a trinity (New Heavens and New Earth, p. 36).
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    MORMONISM

    God

    We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost (Arficles of Faith, 1).

    This cannot rationally be construed to mean that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one in substance and in person (Talmage, Articles of Faith, p. 40)

    There are three Gods...separate in personality, united in purpose, in plan, and in all attributes of perfection (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 270).

    God is an organized being just as we are who are now in the flesh. He is a progressive being, and possesses the capacity of eternal increase. Perhaps once a child and mortal like ourselves (Gospel Doctrine, p. 64, AF, p. 529, Journal of Discourses, 1:123).

    The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's (Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22).

    God is not omnipresent...cannot be "physically present in more than one place at a time" (Talmage, DC, p. 48).

    Every man who reigns in celestial glory is a god to his dominions (McConkie, MD, p. 322).

    There never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds (Young, Discourses, pp. 22-23).

    Each god, through his wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters (Pratt, The Seer, I, no. 3, p. 37).

    The doctrine of a plurality of Gods is prominent in the Bible. The heads of the Gods appointed our God for us (Teaching of the Prophet Jos. Smith, pp. 37072).

    The eternal Father is a progressive Being...the capacity of eternal increase (Talmage, DC, p. 529).

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    EASTERN MYSTICISM

    God

    Brahma, the Absolute, other than which there is nothing else is without qualities, unknowable, impersonal, beyond all appearances, changes, differences.

    God is all there is. "All visible objects are but modifications of self-existence, of an unconscious and impersonal essence which is called God" (Walter R. Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, p. 239).

    God is omnipresent and almighty, and is in the heart of everyone (Transcendental Meditafions, p. 61).

    In his real nature man is divine. The inner man is fully Divine. Vedanta teaches no other dogma but the divinity inherent in man, and his capacity for infinite evolution (TM, p. 58).

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    THE WAY INTERNATIONAL

    God

    Elohim, God alone, is Creator of heaven and earth. The Bible teaches that there is only one true God, that God was in Christ, that God is Spirit, and that God is eternal whereas Jesus was born (Wierwille, The Word's Way, p. 26).

    God is most holy; God has no equal. God alone holds the power of salvation (Wierwille, Jesus Christ Is Not God, p. 124).

    The trinitarian dogma degrades God from His elevated unparalleled position. Besides, it leaves man unredeemed (JC, book jacket).

    BiblicaDy there are three: I) God who is Holy Spirit, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 2) Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the son of man, and 3; the holy spirit, God's gift which God made available on the day of Pentecost (JC, p. 123).

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    UNITY

    God

    God is not a person having life, intelligence, love, power. God is that invisible, intangible, but very real, something we call life. God is the total...of all good, whether manifested or unexpressed (Cady, Lessons in Truth, p. 6).

    I believe the Hottentot, or the truest heathen that ever lived, he who worships the golden calf as his highest conception of God, worships God (LT, p. 126, cited in Martin, p. 279).

    God is the always present, indwelling Mind. The Father within you...is in the spiritual realms which underlie all creative forces (Fillmore, The Science of Being and Christian Healing, p. 9).

    God is. Man is. We are now in the presence of that eternal Is-ness--Osiris and Isis are now our Father-Mother as fully as they were of old Egypt (SB, p. 229).

    God is Principle, Law, Being, Mind, Spirit, All Good, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Unchangeable, Creator, Father, Cause and Source of all that is (SB, p. 15).

    God is the substance, or real thing standing under every visible form of life, love, intelligence, or power. Each rock, tree, animal, everything visible is a manifestation of the numberless manifestations, or individualities. Each...contains the whole (LT, pp. 8-9, cited in Martin, p. 281).

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    UNIFICATION CHURCH

    God

    God Himself told me that the most basic and central truth of this universe is that God is the Father and we are His children (CIC, p. 9).

    There is one living, eternal, and true God, a Person beyond space and time...source of all truth, beauty, and goodness...creator and sustainer of man and the universe (Declaration of Unification Theological Affirmations at Barrytown, New York, October 14, 1976).

    God, being the First Cause of all creation, also exists because of a reciprocal relationship between the dual characteristics of positivity and negativity....We call the positivity and negativity of God "masculinity" and "femininity" respectively (Moon, Divine Principle, p. 24).

    God existed as the internal masculine subject, and He created the universe as His external feminine object (DP, p. 25).

    Man is the visible--and God is the invisible form. God and man are one. Man is incarnate God...as important in value as God Himself (CIC, p. 5).

    God is just like you and me. All human traits originate in God (CIC, p. 4).
    Taken from: The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error 2. Compiled by Steven Cory. Copyright 1986, Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. Moody Press. Used by permission.

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