Deeper Waters

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” At the moment, we’re looking at verses that the Watchtower says Trinitarians use to back the Trinity but that the Watchtower claims doesn’t work.

This one starts at John 8:58 which should be recognizable as an allusion to Exodus 3:14. The Watchtower takes us back there however and cites the opinion. Interesting that the Watchtower goes back to one person who was writing about 50 years prior to the publication of this booklet. I’m not surprised. It seems the Watchtower method is to go through history, find one person who agrees with their view, and then shout out that they have confirmation.

You can find scholars however who will argue for nearly any position. I’m not against scholarship of course, but the reality is not that you believe something because scholars say it, but you need to know why the scholars say it. Of course, if many scholars say something and especially if it’s a case of something that would not be advantageous to their position, there’s good reason to affirm it.

The Watchtower tells us that some translate this as “I will be.” Why? Well, don’t ask such questions. You won’t find an answer. The Watchtower thinks it’s sufficient to show that one person agrees with them. It would be good of them to give the reason why their scholar is right and why everyone who disagrees with them is wrong.

When it comes to their justification of John 8:58, we have instead a long list of translations that do not translate it as “I AM.” Well if that’s the game that they’re playing, all anyone needs to do is go to any Bible web site themselves and count out how many translations render the verse a certain way.

In fact, I have here just such a collection.

The Watchtower has five translations listed. I have more. Is it the case then that I automatically win the translation war? No. Instead, we’d want to look at the reasons why scholars do translate the verse the way that they do. However, there is just such a resource that does show the verse to be read as “I Am.”

And that source happens to be from the Watchtower.

It’s the Kingdom-Interlinear Translation. All you have to do is if you come across the rare JW who has this, just ask them to open it up to John 8:58 and read what it says on the side of the Greek. Lo and behold, they will read that it says “I am.” In this case, who am I to argue with the Watchtower?

Do I have independent reasons for believing it’s translated correctly traditionally? Yes. Jesus was not speaking about how old he was. He was speaking about existence. He was around before Abraham. He was around because He always was. What was the response of the crowd? They wanted to stone him. Was he claiming to be just older than Abraham? If so, they would have simply thought him a lunatic. No. The problem was not that the Jews misunderstood Jesus. They understood him entirely. He made a divine claim and they knew the response to that was stoning.

We shall continue next time.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’re still going through the Watchtower booklet “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We are finally on the part where we are discussing biblical prooftexts and tonight, we are going to look at John 10:30.

The Watchtower takes us to John 17:21-22 in response where Jesus prays that his followers would be one with Him and the Father. Was he praying that they would be one entity? Since that is the case, then surely in the instance of John 10, he is not saying that he and the Father are one entity.

This could depend on what the Watchtower means by entity, which is simply unclear. They have consistently confused the idea of the Trinity saying that the Father and the Son are not the same person and since there is a difference between the two, the Trinity must be false, a position they should know is not Trinitarianism.

Now does being one sometime refer to something other than ontological oneness? Of course. However, how are the Father and Son one? They are of the same nature. They are of a nature of love and holiness. This would include a unity of purpose, but it would also go beyond such a unity.

How are the disciples to be one? Paul tells us in Philippians. We are to be of like mind. We should all be going forward with one pursuit. We can speak of a group of men acting as one man. In this, they are in union with one another and there is no division between them.

This nature is also holiness. We are to be holy because God is holy, as we are told numerous times in Leviticus. The Son shares that holiness and love with the Father by nature. We as the followers of Christ have that by adoption. It is granted to us by the gift of grace.

The Watchtower also tells us that Jesus immediately denied this charge. He did not. The Jews knew quite well what he was claiming so he answered them from their Scripture. It is a passage of Scripture that many Christians have not understood, but when it is understood, it turns out to be a powerful argument for the deity of Christ from this passage.

Jesus points to their Scripture which they claimed came from an infallible authority and says “Does it not say in there ‘ye are gods.’ ” Now who is it that he’s talking about? In this case, it’s about wicked men, wicked men who I believe were the leaders of Israel at the time. These men who were evil nevertheless in their position of leadership had a functional role as gods.

If wicked men can be functionally gods to Israel, how much more then can Jesus, the one who is the Son of God, be ontologically equal to the God of Israel? After all, if the wicked can claim a title and it be true, then the righteous can claim it and it can be true to a greater extent.

The Jews knew this full well so they sought to stone him again.

Again, the Watchtower I do not believe has made their case strongly enough here. Yes. I realize John Calvin disagreed. Even if he was right, there are many other passages. However, in this case, I will stick with what most have said.

We shall continue next time.

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve lately been going through the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Now, we’re finally going to start going to specific Trinitarian prooftexts that can be used to support the Trinity. Some I will find weaker than others. Some I would not even use. However, let’s start with three in one passages the Watchtower brings up.

The verses are 2 Corinthians 13:13-14, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, and Matthew 28:19. I would agree that these verses in themselves do not prove the Trinity. The Watchtower makes much about whether a verse explicitly states the Trinity. I do agree that there is no verse that explicitly states the Trinity. I do not see why that is a problem however and it is up to the Watchtower to convince me that that is what must be done for any doctrine.

Matthew 28 however I consider the most important of all of these. Note that the actions are to be done in the name, singular, of the three persons. It does not mean they all share the same name in the sense the Watchtower means of Tom, Dick, and Harry. It means that they all possess the same authority. Now how is it that the Son and Spirit possess the same authority as YHWH and that they can be subsumed under His name?

One would think that for an organization that makes much of knowing what the name of God is, that they would take this much more seriously.

The Watchtower also brings up the baptism of Jesus and says that this does not prove the Trinity. Again, I agree. The Watchtower keeps forgetting that the Trinity is a cumulative case. It is a building block of the Trinity. For the Trinity to be true, there must certainly be three persons.

Reading this kind of thinking makes me think of how I can read atheistic rebuttals to the five ways of Aquinas for instance that think it’s something to say “But this argument does not prove that God is triune and possesses all the omni-attributes.”

At that point I just want to say “It wasn’t supposed to.” Neither were these verses supposed to prove the Trinity, although it is interesting how many verses there are that have all three persons mentioned as interacting together. They do not prove the Trinity, but they certainly can support it. They are what we call a necessary but not a sufficient condition.

Finally, the Watchtower says that 1 John 5:7 was added in later. With that, I agree, and I think it’s a shame when Christians want to jump straight to this verse to prove the Trinity. Even if you think it’s valid, you have to get into a whole other argument just to get it to be accepted. There are better texts to go to and ones that do not depend on a questionable text.

I thus conclude that the Watchtower is simply making the mistake that the new atheists also make. It is an all-or-nothing game instead of realizing that there is a cumulative case to be made.

We shall continue next time.

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, we’re going to finish looking at the Holy Spirit. There’s just three sections remaining and I’d like to tie them all in together. Our discussion is coming from the Watchtower’s “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Thus far, we have not found much in their arguments. Let’s sum up the look they have of the Holy Spirit tonight.

To begin with, we are told the writers of the Old Testament never considered the Spirit a person. Okay. I’d be willing to grant that. So what? Their doctrine was developing. The writers of the Old Testament never conceived that a new set of books would come and be called the New Testament.

They also state that it is not unusual for something to be personified. In this, they are correct. However, that does not prove that personification is taking place in the case of the Spirit. Its not enough to say “Here are some examples of personification.” What must be done is to demonstrate that the descriptions of the Spirit are personifications.

The Watchtower also tells us that in 1 John 5:6-8, the Spirit, water, and blood are said to be witnesses. Blood and water aren’t persons, and thus, neither is the Spirit.

Very well.

In John 5, those that testify of Jesus are Jesus Himself, the Father, John the Baptist, the miracles Jesus was doing, and the Scriptures.

So which is it Watchtower? Are miracles and the Bible persons or are the Father, Son, and John the Baptist non-persons? There is no problem putting personal and non-personal sources together.

In actuality, 1 John 5 makes great sense. Water and blood could refer to Christ’s human nature, a counter to gnostic tendencies, or they could point to the baptism and crucifixion, or they could just point to the crucifixion. The Spirit meanwhile is a witness for Gnostic teachers who were making much about “spiritual claims”. John would be saying that the Spirit they have is sufficient to know Jesus came in the flesh.

What about language of filling which the Watchtower says would not be used if the Spirit was a person.

Then based on Ephesians 1:23 which says Christ fills all things and Ephesians 4:10 which says Christ fills the universe, Christ is not a person.

The idea of filling is most likely meant to convey the immediate presence of God in the life of a Christian through the Holy Spirit.

When we are told the Spirit speaks, that’s said to be done through humans or angels. Unfortunately, a text like Acts 13 is not dealt with in this case and it would be interesting to see the Watchtower demonstrate that that was through humans or angels.

And in fact, even if it was, so what? God can speak through humans and/or angels. What conclusion can be drawn then about the Spirit speaking through humans or angels? None whatsoever.

In commenting on Matthew 28:19, the Watchtower states that name does not mean a personal name. We agree. They state it is more like we ask someone to stop in the name of the law. We also agree. Finally, they state that the Spirit is included to show that the Spirit is from God and acts by divine will. We also agree.

If we are to say that the Spirit is impersonal however, will we not say the same of the Son? Could it be all three have divine authority because all three are fully divine?

As for neuter pronouns being used for the Spirit, this is because the word for spirit is a neuter word. Too much is made of grammar in this case, but I suggest the reader seek out those skilled in Greek grammar on this point.

As for the final point, some references would be nice. However, any Catholic source would readily state that the Bible does teach the personality of the Spirit and the deity of the Spirit. Without references, one really cannot tell. Surely it cannot be that the Watchtower wants it that way….

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’re not covering that Jesus never claimed to be God as I believe that has been sufficiently dealt with. Instead, I plan to move on to covering the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. According to the Watchtower, the Spirit is not a person but is rather God’s active force.

In Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of Jehovah is to be over the surface of the waters preparing the acts of creation. Granted, this could work fine with an active force, but it could also work fine with a personal “force.” What the Watchtower will have to do is to both demonstrate that there is positive evidence in Scripture that the Spirit is non-personal, and also deal with all the positive evidence that the Spirit is personal.

The Watchtower also tells us that the Spirit came upon people as a form of enlightenment. Now that’s not the term I’d use, but there is really no quibble here. It was often noted in the Old Testament when the Spirit came upon someone so that they were prepared to do something unusual for God.

This also includes the recording of Scripture which the Watchtower tells us. Orthodox Christians also agree that men wrote from God as they were guided by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit moved through each writer to bring about what God wanted us to have. Again, we have total agreement with this.

The Spirit we are told also led Jesus into the wilderness after baptism which is an important point. Because God is directing someone to go somewhere, that does not mean it’s all going to be a bed of roses. The Spirit is not meant to be an antidote to suffering but a relief that one has in suffering.

The Watchtower fortunately also includes Psalm 139 but has an interesting take that God’s Spirit can reach anywhere. At this, I would disagree since Witnesses I know do not agree with omnipresence. It’s not that God can reach everywhere but that He is everywhere in the sense that He is the cause of the existence of every place.

We find the same thing when we get to the idea of power beyond normal which the Watchtower covers next. The Watchtower asks if a divine person entered Samson and caused him to defeat the lion. If they mean in the sense of possession as in demon possession, I would not think so. If they mean the Spirit gave some of His power to Samson in some sense, then yes. Just saying that the Holy Spirit caused Samson to do this does not argue against the personhood of the Spirit.

Do we have arguments against that? Yes we do. Those are in the next section however. This post is simply to lay down some groundwork. There are areas of agreement and it’s good to bring that up with the Witnesses you know. It’s where there are differences that the problems emerge, and we’ll cover that tomorrow.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve lately been looking at the Watchtower pamphlet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Tonight, we’re going to be studying the topic of Jesus’s limited knowledge. This is a common objection and frankly, it is the first objection I can really see as one that can legitimately trouble some people. The rest fall on bad understanding, but this one does require more knowledge to it.

Why is it that Jesus did not know the day or hour of his return? What does it mean to say that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered? Why is it that the revelation was given to Him? These are good questions and for an effective Christology, they need to be answered.

For Christians, the answer is that indeed, Jesus did not know some things. Why? Because he came as a human and as such, he took upon himself limitations. I believe that Jesus was only given knowledge that was absolutely essential to his mission. The knowledge of when he would come again in Matthew 24, however you interpret it, was not essential and frankly, we can be thankful in some ways I’m sure that he did not tell us.

Why did Jesus learn obedience? Jesus was a human for the first time and for the first time, he experienced what it means to obey God in the space-time continuum. Of course it would be something new. Jesus had to submit to the Father as a human and in doing so, he was being what we are all supposed to be.

Why was the revelation given to him? Again, Jesus was the servant and all the knowledge he had was coming from the source. Of course, I always like to take Witnesses to Revelation 19:12 where we are introduced to the man riding on the white horse, and there’s no doubt it’s Jesus. What are we told? He has a name that no one knows save he himself.

Ah. Are we to assume that God the Father does not know the name? If we interpret the verse the way Jehovah’s Witnesses do, then yes.

The reality is that passages like these being used indicate that more than anything, we need to be developing our Christology more and more. The reason the Witnesses have such great success is not I believe so much because of what they are doing, although we should certainly wish to have their zeal for evangelism. The reason they have such success is because of a biblical illiteracy and this is largely on the part of Christians.

What do we do? Churches ought to be trainers of their people. No. Not everyone can be an apologist. The pastor should have a basic knowledge of apologetics but even he is not necessarily to specialize in that. However, he should know someone who he can refer to who will be there to help someone. Could it actually be that it would help if every church had a member on staff who was a trained apologist?

It just might.

We shall continue later.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re through the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity? “Right now, we’re discussing the objections that the Watchtower raises. Tonight’s will be similar to last night’s, but there are some different objections.

The idea that the Watchtower wants to show is that God is superior at all times, yet once again they are making “The Father” synonymous with God. When God says “This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved” the Watchtower asks if God was saying that he was His Son, sent Himself, and approved Himself.

It’s a shame any Christian would fall for such a statement. I hope readers of this blog are better informed and realize that the Watchtower has presented a straw man. Are we to think none of the Trinitarians in church history noticed that the Father sent the Son?

No. It’s not that God the Father sent God the Father. God the Father sent God the Son. There is no contradiction there and as we pointed out yesterday, there is nothing about superiority since it does not effect ontology, the being that one is. What the Watchtower has done is actually give a fine argument against modalism. In doing so, they’re ironically making a point Trinitarians WANT to be made.

Does the giving of authority indicate superiority? Not unless every time in human history a boss has promoted someone it’s been because they are superior. Would Caesar be superior to a governor by ontology? Would the centurion would be superior to the soldiers that he sent to talk to Jesus? The Watchtower consistently confuses function with essence.

The Watchtower says that Jesus told the mother of James and John that to sit at his right and left belonged to his Father, that is, God. However, here the Watchtower makes clear their misrepresentation. They have equated God with the Father so that any time you make a case for Jesus being God, they think you are saying he is the Father. If you demonstrate that Jesus is not the Father then, for a follower of the Watchtower, you demonstrate that he is not God. This only works however if God is unipersonal, which the Watchtower has yet to demonstrate.

The Watchtower returns to their straw man with Jesus praying about the cross and asking if the cup could be removed. Was Jesus praying to himself or to part of himself? No. This is confusing Jesus with the Father and confusing Jesus with the entirety of the Trinity. No Trinitarian makes these kinds of arguments, yet here the Watchtower tries to present to people that they are giving an honest impression of the Trinity.

For the sake of argument, I and other Trinitarians could be entirely wrong on what we believe. We’re not, but I could say that for the sake of argument, I’d grant that. That does not mean the criticisms of the Watchtower are true. You can have bad arguments against a false position. I’m not a believer in macroevolutionary theory at the moment for instance, but I know that there are bad arguments against it that should not be used. A lot of Christians use them thinking since they’re arguing against a position they believe to be false, they’re serving God. God is best served by good arguments, not bad ones. If you think your arguments are good, they should be enough to make the other side at least think their position is being fairly represented.

The Watchtower also says that if Jesus was God, then Habakkuk 1:12 is wrong as it says God does not die. However, did God die? No. The human being who happens to have the same ontological nature as God died. The deity did not die however. The Bible says that the highest heavens cannot contain God in 1 Kings 8, yet when we read in the Israel wanderings, we see that God dwelt in the tabernacle. Can a tabernacle contain God? Then if so, 1 Kings 8 is wrong.

No. God’s presence was made manifest in areas like the tabernacle. God was not limited to that place however. It’s interesting that the idea also of John 1:14 is that Jesus tabernacled among us. When Jesus died, God did not die. (In fact, the early church argued against the idea that the Father suffered throuuh Son on the cross.) The human Jesus died, but the Son as God never suffered. The death was also not a sham. He really was dead and he gave his life to God, to which God granted that life back in a new and glorified state.

What about miracles? It’s not that Jesus did miracles, but how he did them. He claimed the finger of God at work in his miracles. He claimed to do them in his name. Elijah would not have gone around saying “In my name, I command you to be healed.” Jesus did. Jesus saw his miracles as the direct act of God on Earth through his person in a unique way. He was God’s presence on Earth bringing about what would be the new kingdom.

It’s really sad to read argumentation like that of the Watchtower and sadder still that some Christians deconvert over it. We can do better. No one should deconvert over weak argumentation like this.

We shall continue next time.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through lately the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Currently, the Watchtower in our study is presenting arguments against the Trinity. Tonight, we’re going to look at the case of Jesus being God’s submissive servant.

To begin with, it’s important to note that a believer in the Trinity does believe that Jesus was a submissive servant to God. Thus, if the Watchtower wants to present this as evidence prima facie that Jesus is not ontologically equal to the Father, then it falls flat with just that statement. They do want to do a bit more as they want to show why that should be a problem for Trinitarianism. Let’s see if it is.

We are given a verse like John 5:19 where Jesus says he only does what he sees the Father doing. The Watchtower presents verses like this as if it would be a problem. What do they expect we think they should say if Jesus was ontologically equal to God?

“I do what I want and if the Father doesn’t want to do it, I do it anyway.”

“I come to teach my doctrine. What the Father teaches does not have to agree.”

“I did not come to do the will of my Father. I came to do my own will.”

Each of these would be highly contrary statements to both the doctrine of the Watchtower and Trinitarianism. They are not a problem for us however, nor do I think in themselves they would be one for the Watchtower. Trinitarians have never had a problem with Jesus doing the will of the Father and submitting to that perfectly in every angle. That’s what he was supposed to do in the life of a perfect man.

The Watchtower asks if the one who sends is superior to the one who is sent, but there is an equivocation here. When the centurion sends his servants to Jesus to ask him to come heal his sick servant, surely the centurion was superior to the servants, but in what way? Was the centurion superior in humanity or was he higher in rank? When a wife submits to her husband in a biblical way, is she doing so because she is inferior to her husband? (I would love to have a husband and wife couple use a superiority type argument like this and then get to ask the wife how inferior she is in humanity to her husband.)

The Watchtower assumes that lower in rank means lower in nature. That does not follow. The example that we have shown demonstrate that. Now to be fair, it could mean that. God is superior to the angels and the angels are described as servants. (Note that Jesus is also described as superior) That one has to submit to another is necessary to show superiority of essence, but it is not sufficient. Because there is submission, that does not prove that there is superiority of essence.

Because the followers of Jesus viewed him as God’s submissive servant, it does not rule out their viewing him as deity.

We shall continue next time.

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going to continue our study tonight of the Watchtower booklet “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’re right now looking at the objections that the Watchtower raises and tonight we’re going to discuss how the Watchtower says Jesus is distinguished from God.

The problem the Watchtower has is similar to one addressed earlier. The Watchtower does not realize that generally in New Testament usage, God was used to refer to the Father and Lord was used to refer to Jesus Christ. One could say that God is distinguished from the Lord in the New Testament, therefore God must not be the Lord. This is fallacious, but it’s the same kind of argument that the Watchtower is presenting.

Thus, we do not expect to find Jesus referred to as God explicitly many times as that would have led to confusion. Why call two persons within the same sentence God? There are other ways to say that Jesus has ontological equality with the Father and I believe that those have been done. However, this is not the place for that as we are here simply examining the arguments the Watchtower puts forward.

The Watchtower states that Paul had no problem speaking of God and Jesus as separate and cites 1 Cor. 8:6. Indeed, this is the kind of example I am speaking about. By their standard, God is separate from the Lord and therefore God cannot be said to be the Lord.

What’s more problematic however is the scholarly work of Richard Bauckham in “God Crucified” where he argues persuasively that what Paul is doing in a text like this is in fact Christianizing the great Shema of Israel. Lord and God were both referred to and Paul is making a strong statement of monotheism. If Bauckham is correct, and I think he is, then Paul is not arguing against Jesus being ontologically equal with God, but is rather going to great lengths to show that Jesus fits into the divine identity.

The Watchtower also gives us John 8:17-18 which has Jesus saying that he is one witness and the Father is another. How could this be unless they were two separate entities? The irony I find in this is that this is a passage that I regularly use when I argue against modalists and point to this passage to show that Jesus and the Father are two separate persons. Indeed, this is what Jesus says. He says his Father is one witness and He is another. He does not say God.

Finally, Mark 10:18 has the rich young ruler referring to Jesus as good teacher and Jesus says “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” The Watchtower says Jesus is denying that He is as good as God. Where is the denial? Jesus is just stating that only God is truly good. He is not saying outright that he himself is. Note also that in the ancient world, one would not answer this question saying “Yep! You’d better say I’m good!” That would be seen as trying to claim honor unjustly for oneself. Jesus gave a humble answer and left it to the man to work out the implications.

Again, I am not convinced by anything the Watchtower has said so far. It’s also worth noting that so far no Trinitarians have been cited in these arguments.

We shall continue later.