one of the many names of the Supreme Being. See Christianity, Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, and Theology.

God is also used in speaking of the false deities of the heathens, many of which were only creatures to which divine honours and worship were superstitiously paid.

The Greeks and Latins, it is observable, did not mean by the name of God, an all-perfect being, whereof eternity, infinity, omnipresence, &c. were essential attributes; with them, the word only implied an excellent and superior nature; and accordingly they gave the appellation gods to all beings of a rank or class higher and more perfect than that of men; and especially to those who were inferior agents in the divine administration, all subject to the one Supreme. Thus men themselves, according to their system, might become gods after death; inasmuch as their souls might attain to a degree of excellence superior to what they were capable of in life.

The first divines, Father Bossu observes, were the poets: the two functions, though now separated, were originally combined; or, rather, were one and the same thing.

Now the great variety of attributes in God, that is, the number of relations, capacities, and circumstances, wherein they had occasion to confider him, put these poets, &c. under a necessity of making a partition, and of separating the divine attributes into several persons; because the weakness of the human mind could not conceive so much power and action in the simplicity of one single divine nature. Thus the omnipotence of God came to be represented under the person and appellation of Jupiter; the wisdom of God, under that of Minerva; the justice of God, under that of Juno.

The first idols or false gods that are said to have been adored, were the stars, sun, moon, &c. on account of the light, heat, and other benefits, which we derive from them. Afterwards the earth came to be deified, for furnishing fruits necessary for the subsistence of men and animals; then fire and water became objects of divine worship, for their usefulness to human life. In procefs of time, and by degrees, gods became multiplied to infinity: and there was scarce any thing but the weakness or caprice of some devotee or other elevated into the rank of deity; things useless or even destructive not excepted. See Mythology.