Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Watchtower pamphlet lately of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’re finding it lacking, especially with their poor citation practices, which make it easy to tell also in the age of the internet if a web site is just lifting material from the Watchtower without bothering to look it up themselves.
In starting this section, the Watchtower tells us that if the Trinity is true, it should be clearly and consistently presented in the Bible. Unfortunately, this term is a bit vague. How is something clearly and consistently presented? Does it have to have chapter and verse? How often? How clearly must it be presented? Does it have to outright express the doctrine of the Trinity?
Kind of like it does the Watchtower doctrine of the Theocratic Kingdom?
What of other doctrines? Do we have a commandment in the Bible to gather together books and call them the New Testament? Now we can piece together from what we have that there would be a New Testament, but we receive no such command from the Lord that is explicit.
However, I do believe the Trinity is clearly taught in the New Testament and the Bible as a whole when one studies the actual text. The information is there to show that the Bible teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. It also teaches that there is only one God.
The Watchtower does at least point to the authority of Scripture in this, to which there is no disagreement. The problem however is not with their doctrine of Scripture but with the hermeneutical method that they espouse. It sounds like a great idea to say that something must be clearly taught, but it depends again on what that means.
Most people don’t take the time to realize that doctrine is very systematic. It is not just taking one verse here and basing your whole doctrine on that. It means taking all of the verses together and getting the information that they share and then bringing together all of that to form the doctrine.
What the Watchtower is doing is in fact stacking the deck. They are saying that if the Trinity is true, it must be presented in this way, not realizing that that is not the way Bible doctrine is presented. When the Watchtower gives their position on a doctrine such as the fate of the dead, do they go to just one verse? No. They go to numerous verses and try to pull them together. Of course, they misinterpret the verses, but that is closer to what ought to be done.
Christians should be aware of this tactic by the Watchtower. They need to realize that they need to make sure they do not agree to the wrong rules of the game which the Watchtower will often try to do. Realize that Bible teaching is rarely directly explicit but is based on a thorough understanding of the whole of Scripture.
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