I don’t think that “Godhead is triune” is trivial since, as you mention, we can use it as a plural referring term that picks out the Father, Son, and Spirit as distinct persons. It does not necessarily entail that they are united in a Trinitarian way.

Mormons use the term too, but they don’t mean that the divine person enjoy any sort of ontological unity; only that they are functionally united.

Thus, orthodox Christians can say that “Godhead is triune” whereas Mormons might say that “Godhead is a trokia.” In this sense, maybe it’s a useful term for social Trinitarians who want to distinguish between social Trinitarianism and rank tritheism.

Thanks for the comments.

SVM – If “the Godhead” is just a plural referring term which pics out Father, Son, and Spirit, then it looks like “The Godhead is triune” is close to trivial. But if “Godhead” means the divine nature – this is the older usage – then the sentence would say something substantial – that the unique divine nature – presumably thought of here as an individual and concrete thing, is triple or threefold in *some* way or other. “The Godhead is tripersonal” would be more specific yet.

About “Godhead” in the KJV – I believe all of these instances are now translated as something like “the divine nature”. So, this is the older usage. I’m pretty sure you will never find the newer usage I highlight in my post in any Bible translation. You may, however, find it in the accompanying notes or articles. (At some future date, I’m going to post on the invasion of ST ideology into certain study Bible materials.)

Anonmous – I agree with your comments. Can you pass along any evidence of Mormon influence? As I recall, they’re close to the ST camp, or perhaps the tritheistic camp, and I could see why they would need a term like this. Talking of the “Trinity”, for them, would wrongly insinuate that they agree with the creeds…

I also found it in Jonathan Edwards’ Unpublished essay on the Trinity

* God is triune.
* But when we say “God,” as such, we are usually speaking of the Father; we are speaking of a “he.”
* And, since we often replace “God” with the pronoun “he,” we are tempted to think that “God is triune” is equivalent to “he is triune.”
* But, of course, there is no triune person. The Trinity encompasses three divine persons, but no single divine person is triune. So who does “he” refer to?
* We need a way to refer to the Trinity that doesn’t succumb to the “God”/”he” confusion.
* The statement “The Trinity is triune” is analytic and uninformative.
* “Godhead is triune” is informative since “Godhead” can be understood to refer to the Father, Son, and Spirit in union but not necessarily trinitarian union.
* Thus, Mormons and orthodox Christians, and even Arians, can speak of Godhead as the union of the Father, Son, and Spirit but orthodox Christians are saying something unique and informative by saying that “Godhead is triune.”

As for the recent resurgence in usage with a specialized, dare I suggest Mormon influence?