In popular Christian writing, as well as in theology, I’m constantly seeing the word “godhead” being used to mean something like “the three members of the Trinity, considered as a group”. An example context would be discussion “the eternal fellowship of the Godhead”.
Historically, this usage puzzles me. You never see this usage in ancient, medieval, or early modern material.In fact, I’m not sure I’ve seen it in anything before 1980 – anyone out there have a counterexample?
Here’s what our friend the Oxford English Dictionary says about “godhead”:
1. The character or quality of being God or a god; divine nature or essence; deity.
b. As a title: Divine personality. Obs.
2. a. the Godhead: the Supreme Being; the Deity; = GOD n. 5. (Also rarely without article.)
b. A deity or divinity. = GOD n. 1. Now rare. (Oxford English Dictionary online, “godhead”)
Basically, the OED acknowledges two usages of “godhead’ – (1) that which makes God divine – his quality of divinity, and (2) God. (2) is a natural extension of (1) – it’s a case of using a word for a part/aspect/component of the thing to stand for the whole thing – here, God. Note: the OED is out of date; it lacks the usage I noted at the start of this post. The new usage implies a divine community; the old (2) doesn’t – it is like referring to God using a sort of euphemistic title such as “Providence” or “Heaven”. Note that a “Godhead” in the recent usage is never a “him” but always a “they” or an “it” – this is the whole point of the new usage.
My hypothesis is this:
- Since the 1970′s (?) it has become popular, in theological circles, to think of God as irreducibly a group of selves.
- When thinking this way, the word “God” now becomes not the name of a concrete individual, but rather of a collection or group of individuals – which is itself not a concrete individual.
- Problem: “God” clearly names a self, hence a concrete individual in the Bible – in the NT, nearly always the Father, a few times the Son. (Some want to say that it refers to the Trinity, but considered as a concrete entity in its own right.)
- So, we need a new word to refer to the Three together.
- We don’t know what the outdated “godhead” means, so we’ll use that. Thus, the new, “social trinitarian” usage of the word “godhead”.
Is that what happened? What started this new usage?
Comments 11
The KJV uses “Godhead” three times: Romans 1:20; Acts 17:29; Colossians 2:9.
Posted 09 Mar 2010 at 5:54 pm ¶Hmm, I have no idea. And, it seems a bit odd to me. In scholastic texts you’ll find the locution “in divinis”, which can be translated “in God”, “in divine matters”, “in the divinity”. Of course, the best translation is shaped by the context and use of the phrase. In any case, this seems to be loosely akin to this current “Godhead”, nevertheless it is broader. ‘Cause, it don’t entail social or anti-social trinitarian theology. It’s just a fill in phrase for when someone wants to say something about The Creator of All Things, or who could’ve been the creator of all things but decided not to be. Typically “in divinis” is contrasted with “in creaturis” (in creatures). In any case, this is a case of a loose phrase that is vaguely akin to this “godhead” talk, but it isn’t committed social or anti-social trinitarian theology.
Posted 09 Mar 2010 at 9:31 pm ¶I personally don’t like the word all that much, since it conveys almost no meaning to the uninitiated, and the presence of “head” (in this context, an archaic variant of the “-hood” suffix) can be rather confusing to those who aren’t familiar with old fashioned language (not to mention that the main other semi-surviving word with this “head” suffix is “maidenhead”).
As for the recent resurgence in usage with a specialized, dare I suggest Mormon influence?
Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 3:10 am ¶I think the issue might be something like this:
* God is triune.
Posted 10 Mar 2010 at 10:46 am ¶* But when we say “God,” as such, we are usually speaking of the Father; we are speaking of a “he.”
* And, since we often replace “God” with the pronoun “he,” we are tempted to think that “God is triune” is equivalent to “he is triune.”
* But, of course, there is no triune person. The Trinity encompasses three divine persons, but no single divine person is triune. So who does “he” refer to?
* We need a way to refer to the Trinity that doesn’t succumb to the “God”/”he” confusion.
* The statement “The Trinity is triune” is analytic and uninformative.
* “Godhead is triune” is informative since “Godhead” can be understood to refer to the Father, Son, and Spirit in union but not necessarily trinitarian union.
* Thus, Mormons and orthodox Christians, and even Arians, can speak of Godhead as the union of the Father, Son, and Spirit but orthodox Christians are saying something unique and informative by saying that “Godhead is triune.”
My question is — is that picture a picture of . . . the Godhead? Or, like, Marcus Aurelius?
Posted 16 Mar 2010 at 8:26 pm ¶Whoever it is, they have their eyes closed, and I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean!
Posted 16 Mar 2010 at 8:26 pm ¶Sorry to go on about this, but what’s with that dude’s beard? Is that, like, a bunch of barnacles stuck to his chin? Maybe I should stop shaving and follow suit. If I go down in history, . . . . rad.
Posted 16 Mar 2010 at 8:31 pm ¶It’s used in W.G. Shedd’s dogmatic theology, dated to the 1894.
I also found it in Jonathan Edwards’ Unpublished essay on the Trinity
Posted 17 Mar 2010 at 3:01 pm ¶R.R. — Is it used as a straightforward (now old-fashioned) translation of Latin divinitas, Greek theotes, or in the development of meaning under discussion?
Posted 20 Mar 2010 at 5:26 am ¶Thanks for the comments. I couldn’t be happier that my choice of pic so riled JT.
Of course, it is a god_head.
Thanks for the comments.
SVM – If “the Godhead” is just a plural referring term which pics out Father, Son, and Spirit, then it looks like “The Godhead is triune” is close to trivial. But if “Godhead” means the divine nature – this is the older usage – then the sentence would say something substantial – that the unique divine nature – presumable thought of here as an individual and concrete thing, is triple or threefold in *some* way or other. “The Godhead is tripersonal” would be more specific yet.
About “Godhead” in the KJV – I believe all of these instances are now translated as something like “the divine nature”. So, this is the older usage. I’m pretty sure you will never find the newer usage I highlight in my post in any Bible translation. You may, however, find it in the accompanying notes or articles. (At some future date, I’m going to post on the invasion of ST ideology into certain study Bible materials.)
Anonmous – I agree with your comments. Can you pass along any evidence of Mormon influence? As I recall, they’re close to the ST camp, or perhaps the tritheistic camp, and I could see why they would need a term like this. Talking of the “Trinity”, for them, would wrongly insinuate that they agree with the creeds…
Posted 24 Mar 2010 at 9:04 am ¶Dale,
I don’t think that “Godhead is triune” is trivial since, as you mention, we can use it as a plural referring term that picks out the Father, Son, and Spirit as distinct persons. It does not necessarily entail that they are united in a Trinitarian way.
Mormons use the term too, but they don’t mean that the divine person enjoy any sort of ontological unity; only that they are functionally united.
Thus, orthodox Christians can say that “Godhead is triune” whereas Mormons might say that “Godhead is a trokia.” In this sense, maybe it’s a useful term for social Trinitarians who want to distinguish between social Trinitarianism and rank tritheism.
Posted 31 Mar 2010 at 7:53 pm ¶Post a Comment