Deity
natural or supernatural god or goddess, divine being
A deity is a supernatural being considered to have authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life, with many also being considered as sacred and worthy of worship. It is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or to control some part of the universe or life, for which such a deity is often worshipped". The Oxford Dictionary of English explains deity as anything revered as divine. While, C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". Various cultures have conceptualized their deities differently. and may refer to their deities in a variety of ways—male, female, androgynous, or genderless. A male deity is called a god, while a female deity is called a goddess.
Belief in the existence of at least one deity, who may interact with the world, is called theism. Theistic beliefs can be categorized by how many deities they worship: whereas polytheism accept multiple deities, monotheism accept only one deity, and henotheism accepts one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity, but may accept a pantheon of deities which live, die and may be reborn like any other being..
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Deity” as natural or supernatural god or goddess, divine being. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as natural or supernatural god or goddess, divine being. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178885. The Library of Congress control number is sh85055608. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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This entry incorporates text from “Deity” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.