Servetism refers to the theology of Michael Servetus, which affirms that Christ was God manifested in the flesh, yet not as part of a tri-personal God, and that he did not exist previously as the Son, but as the divine Logos (the manifestation of God, or the Word of God) that became the Son after incarnation.
Servetus believed strongly in the unity of God and in the Divinity of Christ, but denied that the doctrine of the trinity of persons was the way to support these two essentials of Christian doctrine. He looked to the study of the Bible for answers, and he did not find the traditional Trinitarian doctrine affirmed there. Rather than seeing a traditional Trinitarian view reflected in the Bible, he saw confirmation of the idea that God manifested himself in the human form of Jesus Christ.
In the preamble to his book, Christianismi Restitutio (1553), he says, "There is nothing greater, reader, than to recognize that God has been manifested as substance, and that His divine nature has been truly communicated to mankind. It is in Christ alone that we shall fully apprehend the manifestation of God Himself through the Word, and His communication to mankind through the spirit."
Although he was a pioneer in this unique view of God he is often lumped in with Unitarian or Arian theology. His view of God is very similar to those of the New Church and Oneness Pentecostals.
Arianism is a Christological doctrine considered heretical by all mainstream branches of Christianity. It is first attributed to Arius, a Christian presbyter who preached and studied in Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten/made before time by God the Father; therefore, Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, but nonetheless Jesus began to exist outside time as time applies only to the creations of God.
In Christian theology, Sabellianism is the belief that there is only one Person in the Godhead. For example, Hanson defines Sabellianism as the "refusal to acknowledge the distinct existence of the Persons." and "Eustathius was condemned for Sabellianism. His insistence that there is only one distinct reality (hypostasis) in the Godhead, and his confusion about distinguishing Father, Son and Holy Spirit laid him open to such a charge." Condemned as heresy, Sabellianism has been rejected by the majority of Christian churches.
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is the central doctrine concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons (hypostases) sharing one essence/substance/nature (homoousion). As the Fourth Lateran Council declared, it is the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds. In this context, one essence/nature defines what God is, while the three persons define who God is. This expresses at once their distinction and their indissoluble unity. Thus, the entire process of creation and grace is viewed as a single shared action of the three divine persons, in which each person manifests the attributes unique to them in the Trinity, thereby proving that everything comes "from the Father," "through the Son," and "in the Holy Spirit."
Unitarianism is a Nontrinitarian branch of Christianity. Unitarian Christians affirm the unitary nature of God as the singular and unique creator of the universe, believe that Jesus Christ was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is the savior of humankind, but he is not equal to God himself.
Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist. He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in Christianismi Restitutio (1553). He was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, translation, poetry, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages.
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian theology of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence. Certain religious groups that emerged during the Protestant Reformation have historically been known as antitrinitarian.
Oneness Pentecostalism is a nontrinitarian religious movement within the Protestant Christian family of churches known as Pentecostalism. It derives its name from its teaching on the Godhead, a form of Modalistic Monarchianism commonly referred to as the Oneness doctrine. The doctrine states that there is one God―a singular divine spirit with no distinction of persons―who manifests himself in many ways, including as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This stands in sharp contrast to the doctrine of three distinct, eternal persons posited by Trinitarian theology.
God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the first person of the Trinity, followed by the second person, Jesus Christ the Son, and the third person, God the Holy Spirit. Since the second century, Christian creeds included affirmation of belief in "God the Father (Almighty)", primarily in his capacity as "Father and creator of the universe".
In orthodox Mormonism, the term God generally refers to the biblical God the Father, whom Latter Day Saints also refer to as Elohim or Heavenly Father, and the term Godhead refers to a council of three distinct divine persons consisting of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. However, in Latter Day Saint theology the term God may also refer to, in some contexts, the Godhead as a whole or to each member individually. Latter Day Saints believe that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, and that the Father and Jesus have perfected, glorified, physical bodies, while the Holy Ghost is a spirit without a physical body. Latter Day Saints also believe that there are other gods and goddesses outside the Godhead, such as a Heavenly Mother—who is the wife of God the Father—and that faithful Latter-day Saints may attain godhood in the afterlife. The term Heavenly Parents is used to refer collectively to the divine partnership of Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. Joseph Smith taught that God was once a man on another planet before being exalted to Godhood.
God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies the Logos (Jesus) as the incarnation of God. United in essence (consubstantial), but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
Hypostatic union is a technical term in Christian theology employed in mainstream Christology to describe the union of Christ's humanity and divinity in one hypostasis, or individual personhood.
Binitarianism is a Christian theology of two persons, personas, or aspects in one substance/Divinity. Classically, binitarianism is understood as a form of monotheism—that is, that God is absolutely one being—and yet with binitarianism there is a "twoness" in God, which means one God family. The other common forms of monotheism are "unitarianism", a belief in one God with one person, and "trinitarianism", a belief in one God with three persons.
In Christian theology, the doctrine of incarnation teaches that the pre-existent divine person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, and the eternally begotten Logos, took upon human nature and "was made flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the Theotokos. The doctrine of the incarnation then entails that Jesus was at the same time both fully God and fully human.
Conceptions of God in monotheist, pantheist, and panentheist religions – or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction:
Modalistic Monarchianism, also known as Modalism or Oneness Christology, is a Christian theology upholding the oneness of God as well as the divinity of Jesus. As a form of Monarchianism, it stands in contrast with Trinitarianism. Followers of Modalistic Monarchianism considers themselves to be strictly monotheistic, similar to Jews and Muslims. Modalists consider God to be absolutely one and believe that He reveals Himself to creation through different "modes", such as the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, without limiting His modes or manifestations. The term Modalism was first used by Trinitarian scholar Adolf von Harnack, referencing this belief.
In Christianity, God is believed to be the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe in a monotheistic conception of God, which is both transcendent and immanent. Christian teachings on the transcendence, immanence, and involvement of God in the world and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same substance as the created universe but accept that God the Son assumed hypostatically united human nature, thus becoming man in a unique event known as "the Incarnation".
Debate exists as to whether the earliest Church Fathers in Christian history believed in the doctrine of the Trinity – the Christian doctrine that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons sharing one homoousion (essence).
The pre-existence of Christ asserts the existence of Christ prior to his incarnation as Jesus. One of the relevant Bible passages is John 1:1–18 where, in the Trinitarian interpretation, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos. There are nontrinitarian views that question the aspect of personal pre-existence, the aspect of divinity, or both.
Christian theology is the theology – the religious study of the divine and religion – of Christianity and Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake the study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to:
For the majority of Christian denominations, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, is believed to be the third person of the Trinity, a triune God manifested as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each being God. Nontrinitarian Christians, who reject the doctrine of the Trinity, differ significantly from mainstream Christianity in their beliefs about the Holy Spirit. In Christian theology, pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit. Due to Christianity's historical relationship with Judaism, theologians often identify the Holy Spirit with the concept of the Ruach Hakodesh in Jewish scripture, on the theory that Jesus was expanding upon these Jewish concepts. Similar names, and ideas, include the Ruach Elohim, Ruach YHWH, and the Ruach Hakodesh. In the New Testament it is identified with the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit.
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