God
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for God. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
According to the ancient magical conception of God in the scheme of the universe, evil is the inevitable contrast and complement of good. God permits the existence of the shadow in order that it may intensify the purity of the light. Indeed he has created both and they are inseparable the one being necessary to and incomprehensible without the other. The very idea of goodness loses its meaning if considered apart from that of evil-Gabriel is a foil to Satan and Satan to Gabriel. The dual nature of the spiritual world penetrates into every department of life material and spiritual. It is typified in light and darkness, cold and heat, truth and error, in brief, the names of any two opposing forces will serve to illustrate the great primary law of natureviz. the continual conflict between the positive or good. and the negative or evil. For a scriptural illustration of this point, let the story of Cain and Abel be taken. The moral superiority of his brother is at first irksome to Cain, finally intolerable. He murders Abel, thus bringing on his own head the wrath of God and the self-punishment of the murderer. For in killing Abel he has done himself no good, but harm. He has not done away with Abel's superiority, but has added to himself a burden of guilt that can be expiated only by much suffering. Suffering is shewn in the Scriptures to be the only means by which evil is overcome by good. Cain re-appears in the story of the prodigal son, who after privation and suffering is restored to his father who forgives him fully and freely. The possibility of sin and error is therefore entirely consistent with and even inseparable from life, and the great sinner a more vital being than the colourless character, because having greater capacity for evil he has also greater capacity for good, and in proportion to his faults so will his virtues be when he turns to God. "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons," because more force of character, more power for good or evil is displayed by the sinner than by the feebly correct. And that power is the most precious thing in life. This great dual law, right and wrong, two antagonistic forces, call them what we will, is designated by the term. duad. It is the secret of life and the revelation of that secret means death. This secret is embodied in the myth of the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis. At death the discord. will be resolved, but not till then. From the duad is derived the triad on which is based the doctrine of the Trinity. Two forces producing equilibrium, the secret of nature, are designated by the duad, and these Three, call them life, good, evil, constitute one law. By adding the conception of unity to that of the triad. we arrive at the tetrad, the perfect number of four, the source of all numerical combinations. According to theology there are three persons in God, and these three form one Deity. Three and one make four because unity isrequired to explain the Three. Hence, in almost all languages, the name of God consists of four letters. Again, two affirmations make two negations either possible or necessary. According to the Kabalists the name of the Evil one consisted of the same four letters spelled backward, signifying that evil is merely the reflection or shadow of good-"The last reflection or imperfect mirage of light in shadow." All which exists in light or darkness, good or evil, exists through the tetrad. The triad or trinity, then, is explained by the duad and resolved by the tetrad.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the Supreme Being. The form ary being, constituting an object of worany other person, yielding great and ship; or for (1) an emperor , king, or despotic power; (2) any person or thing greatly idolized. age tribes exist with no belief in any Ethnic Religions. - Whether any savbeing higher than man is doubtful. Lubbock thus arranges the first great stages in religious thought : Atheism, understanding by this term, not a denial of the existence of a Deity, but an absence of any definite ideas on Fetichism, the stage in which man supthe subject. with his desires. Nature-worship, or poses he can force the Deity to comply totemism, in which natural objects, trees, shiped. lakes, stones, animals, etc., are worsuperior deities are far more powerful Shamanism , in which the Their place of abode also is far away, than man, and of a different nature. and accessible only to Shamans. Idolatry or anthropomorphism in which the gods take still nature of men, being, however, more more completely the persuasion; they are a part of nature, powerful. They are still amenable to and not creatures. They are represented by images or idols. In the next stage the Deity is regarded as the author, not merely a part of nature. He becomes for the first time a really supernatural morality is associated with religion. being. The last stage is that in which Judaism. Two leading names for the Hebrew Bible; the one generic, the other Supreme Being continually occur in the Eloah, both singular, and ELOHIM (q. v.) specific. The generic term is El, or plural, the specific one is Yehovah, in general written JEHOVAH (q. v.). It is rendering. El, Eloah, and Elohim of the first that God is the appropriate signify Deity in general. Elohim is much more common than the singular forms. Among the epithets or titles used High (Gen. xiv: 18, etc.), Mighty (Neh. of God in the Old Testament are Most ix: 32), Holy (Josh. xxiv: 19), Merciful (Deut. iv: 31), God of Heaven (Ezra i: 2), God of Israel, etc. (Exod. xxiv: 10). Anthropomorphic chiefly, though not exclusively, in the language occurs poetic parts of the Old Testament (II Chron. xxx: 12, Psa. xx: 3, Deut. viii: 3, Psa. xxix: 4, Isa. xl: 12, liii: 1, lx: 13, Exod. xxxii: 23), but monotheism is enjoined in the first commandment, and idolatry forbidden in the second, while in Isaiah and elsewhere there are most scathing denunciations of the manufacture and worship of images (Isa. xl: 12-26, xlii: 17, xliv: 9-20, etc.). In the New Testament, St. John gives the evermemorable definition of the Divine nature. "God is love" (I John iv: 16). The Latin Church, the Greek Church, and the several Protestant denominations all essentially agree in their tenets regarding God. See the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, the first of the Thirty-nine Articles, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Confession of Faith (ch. ii.), and the Shorter Catechism, question 4. See THEOLOGY; TRINITY. The name of God in 47 languages: Hebrew-Elohim, Eloha. Chaldaic-Eilah. Assyrian-Eleah. Syriac and Turkish-Alah. Malay-Alla. Arabic-Allah. Old Egyptian-Teut. Armorian-Teuti. Modern Egyptian-Teun. Greek-Theos. Aeolian and Doric-Ilos. Latin-Deus. Low Latin-Diex. Celtic and Gallic-Diu. French-Dieu. Spanish-Dios. Portuguese-Deos. Old German-Diet. Provençal-Diou. Low Breton-Doue. Italian-Dio. Irish-Dia. Olalu Tongue-Deu. German-Gott. Flemish-Goed. Dutch-Godt. English and Old Saxon-God. Teutonic-Goth. Danish and Swedish-Gut. Norwegian-Gud. Slav-Buch. Polish-Bog. Pollacca-Bung. Lapp-Jubinal. Cretan-Thios. Finch-Jumala. Runic As. Zemblain-Fetiza. Pannonian-Istu. Hindostanee-Rain. Coromandel-Brama. Tartar-Magatal. Persian-Sire. Chinese-Prussa. Japanese-Gezur. Madagascar-Zannar Peruvian-Puchecammae.