God

Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It is the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or an anthropomorphic form of a god. It is used to mean a god, deity, or Divine Being in human or animal form on Earth. The proper noun, Incarnation, refers to the union of divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ. In Islamic literature it is called "ḥulūl".

Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a substance and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a substratum or a thing-in-itself. Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to undergo changes. Changes involve something existing before, during and after the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. Attributes or properties, on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers; they express what their bearer is like.

Substance is a key concept in ontology, the latter in turn part of metaphysics, which may be classified into monist, dualist, or pluralist varieties according to how many substances or individuals are said to populate, furnish, or exist in the world. According to monistic views, there is only one substance. Stoicism and Spinoza, for example, hold monistic views, that pneuma or God, respectively, is the one substance in the world. These modes of thinking are sometimes associated with the idea of immanence. Dualism sees the world as being composed of two fundamental substances (for example, the Cartesian substance dualism of mind and matter). Pluralist philosophies include Plato's Theory of Forms and Aristotle's hylomorphic categories.

Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.

Monotheism is distinguished from henotheism, a religious system in which the believer worships one god without denying that others may worship different gods with equal validity, and monolatrism, the recognition of the existence of many gods but with the consistent worship of only one deity.

Sophia (Koine Greek: Σοφíα "Wisdom", Coptic: ⲧⲥⲟⲫⲓⲁ "the Sophia") is a figure, along with Knowledge (γνῶσις gnosis, Coptic: ⲧⲥⲱⲟⲩⲛ tsōwn), among many of the early Christian knowledge theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as gnostikoi (γνωστικοί), "knowing". Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic faiths and the Greco-Roman mysteries.

In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the syzygy, or female twin, of Jesus, i.e. the Bride of Christ, and the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the term Achamōth (Ἀχαμώθ, Hebrew: חכמה chokmah) and as Prunikos (Προύνικος). In the Nag Hammadi texts, Sophia is the highest aeon or anthropic emanation of the godhead.

The Ezana Stone is an ancient stele still standing in modern-day Axum in Ethiopia, the centre of the ancient Kingdom of Aksum. This stone monument, that probably dates from the 4th century of the Christian era, documents the conversion of King Ezana to Christianity and his conquest of various neighbouring areas, including Meroë.

From AD 330 to 356, King Ezana ruled the ancient Kingdom of Aksum centred in the Horn of Africa. He fought against the Nubians, and commemorated his victories on stone tablets in praise of God. These liturgical epigraphs were written in various ancient languages, including the Ethiopian Semitic Geʽez, the South Arabian Sabaic, and Greek. The king's engravings in stone provided a trilingual monument in different languages, similar to the Rosetta Stone.

Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity and the history behind religion. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and to reveal themselves to humankind.

Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument (experiential, philosophical, ethnographic, historical, and others) to help understand, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any myriad of religious topics. As in philosophy of ethics and case law, arguments often assume the existence of previously resolved questions, and develop by making analogies from them to draw new inferences in new situations.

Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembrance, supplication, or repentance. It forms a basis for establishing a relationship with God or the divine.

Technically speaking, liturgy forms a subset of ritual. The word liturgy, sometimes equated in English as "service", refers to a formal ritual enacted by those who understand themselves to be participating in an action with the divine.

The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb. According to the biblical account, the bush was on fire but was not consumed by the flames, hence the name. In the biblical and Quranic narrative, the burning bush is the location at which Moses was appointed by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan.

The Hebrew word in the narrative that is translated into English as bush is seneh (Hebrew: סְנֶה, romanized: səne), which refers in particular to brambles; seneh is a dis legomenon, only appearing in two places, both of which describe the burning bush. The use of seneh may be a deliberate pun on Sinai (סיני), a feature common in Hebrew texts.

An angel is a spiritual heavenly, or supernatural entity, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in various traditions like the Abrahamic religions. Other roles include protectors and guides for humans, such as guardian angels and servants of God. In Western belief-systems the term is often used to distinguish benevolent from malevolent intermediary beings.

Emphasizing the distance between God and mankind, revelation-based belief-systems require angels to bridge the gap between the earthly and the transcendent realm. Angels play a lesser role in monistic belief-systems, since the gap is non-existent. However, angelic beings might be conceived as aid to achieve a proper relationship with the divine.