Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Lately, we’ve been going through the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Finally, the Watchtower has got to the topic of what the Bible itself says about the doctrine. We shall continue that tonight.
Of course, the Watchtower brings out John 17:3 (Sometimes I wonder if they know there are other verses in the Bible.) which is not a problem for a Trinitarian. The Son and the Spirit would be subsumed under the identity of the Father and thus would also be included as the only true God.
The Watchtower makes a big deal about no one else being called Almighty. While I think this is an important point, it is also not a problem for Trinitarians either. Jesus would be included in the identity of the Father. That does not mean He is the Father of course, but He would have been seen as included in the divine identity.
There is also the point that plural forms are used for God in the Old Testament in his name, but the Watchtower dismisses this saying most would see it as the plural of majesty and not as teaching the Trinity. Again, what’s the difficulty? I would have no problem with a plural of majesty, but it is interesting that plural nouns are used so often whereas in pagan literature, one god is not normally referred to as plural.
Also, God is referred to doing activities in the singular. Again, this is not a problem for a Trinitarian but more of a problem for those who approach it from a fully Western perspective. Since there is one God with more than one persons in that identity, there is still a singular being acting and of course the actions will be expressed in the singular.
Why would it be used for other gods? This would be an exception but would also be comparing the Elohim of Israel to a supposed Elohim outside of Israel. The Watchtower says also that this would mean that we have to be guilty of worshiping three gods and that most Trinitarian supporters reject the view that the Trinity is made up of three gods.
Most?
Could the Watchtower point to the Trinitarian supporter who says that the Trinity consists of three gods?
Also, other beings are called gods. Yes. This is not a problem. Moses could be seen as a god because he was functionally acting as a god. The Watchtower is again doing an all-or-nothing game. One wonders if we can say “Moses is called God, but that’s insufficient for him to be God,” if that would mean that since YHWH is called Almighty, that that’s insufficient to say that He is Almighty. Is it even sufficient to show that He is God?
Again, I find the Watchtower extremely lacking. There is no interaction with other scholarship and as has been said before, “Beware the sound of one hand clapping.” Unfortunately, most Witnesses only get one side of the story. Will you make sure they get the other side?
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