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The word Shinto was created by combining two kanji: "神" shin meaning god (the character can also be read as "kami" in Japanese) and "道" tō meaning Tao ("way" or "path" in a philosophical sense). Thus, Shinto means "the way of the gods."
The word may be misunderstood by some as being the surname of Jesus due to the frequent juxtaposition of Jesus and Christ in the Christian Bible and other Christian writings. Often used as a more formal-sounding synonym for Jesus, the word is in fact a title, hence its common reciprocal use Christ Jesus, meaning The Anointed One, Jesus.
Isvara (ईश्वर) shortened as Isha (ईश) is applied to mean 'God' in both religious and secular context (for example in the Gita, Arjuna is referred to as Manujeshvara which is a compound of the two words manuja, 'human' and Ishvara, thus the word means 'God of humans', i.e. 'king').
God entered English when the language still had a system of grammatical gender.The word and its cognates were initially neutral but underwent transition when their speakers converted to Christianity, "as a means of distinguishing the personal God of the Christians from the impersonal divine powers acknowledged by pagans."
The root of the word divinity is the Latin divus meaning of or belonging to a God (deus). The word entered English from Medieval Latin in the 14th century. [5]
Rayburn notes that the phrase "the friends" (hoi philoi) occurs in Acts 27:3 and 3 John 15, but that it is uncertain whether this means "Christians in general or merely actual acquaintances". Rayburn goes on to note that the designation was used by the Friends of God and the Religious Society of Friends. [3]
The goodness of God means that "God is the final standard of good, and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." [12] Many theologians consider the goodness of God as an overarching attribute - Louis Berkhof, for example, sees it as including kindness, love, grace, mercy and longsuffering. [13]
Most consider it to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al-and ilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the deity, the God". [20] Indeed, there is "the interchangeability of al-ilāh and allāh in early Arabic poetry even when composed by the Christian ʿAdī ibn Zayd. [21] The majority of scholars accept this hypothesis.