Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re continuing our look today at the Jehovah’s Witness booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Our look so far has revealed that the Watchtower does not often name authors, editions, or page numbers. (Strangely enough however, they have citations for all the artwork in the pamphlet.) Tonight, we’re going to look at the sub-heading of “Not A God Of Confusion.”
The first point given is that a doctrine like the Trinity requires divine revelation. With this, I agree. The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be discovered by human reason alone. I do hold that there are truths that can be known about God apart from Scripture, but there are some that cannot be known. For a parallel, you can know from history that Jesus was crucified. You cannot know from studying history apart from the teaching of Scripture that he died for the sins of the world. You could not even know that as the purpose of the resurrection without the teaching of Scripture.
The main thrust in this paragraph is that God is not a God of confusion according to 1 Cor. 14:33, so surely God would not have a doctrine that is confusing.
If they want to say that that is a valid argument, then I would love to meet the Witness who thinks he’s totally wrapped his head around how God is an eternal being. Of course I believe that He is, but it is a concept that while I can grasp, I can surely not apprehend. By the standard of the Watchtower, I ought to abandon that doctrine.
What is going on in the passage? There are church services getting disorderly and if men are acting out of sync with the gospel in their services, then God is not with them. This says nothing about the complexity of doctrine but is a call on how worship services are to be held. After all, Romans 11:33-36 is in the Bible and speaks of the sheer mystery of God’s ways and knowledge.
The Watchtower also asks us if we have to be theologians to know the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
It’s kind of like asking if to know your wife, is it really necessary that you be married to her?
Of course you have to be a theologian. Now you don’t have to be a professional theologian, but I have often told my wife that you cannot avoid doing theology and philosophy. The question is will you do good theology and good philosophy or bad theology and bad philosophy or some combination thereof? The Watchtower is practically saying “This is too deep to understand and since Christ spoke to simple minds their intellects would not be able to grasp an idea like this.”
Apparently, the Watchtower wants to hold to an “Ancient People Were Stupid” idea I’d expect more from the new atheists. (The way they cite 1 Cor. 14:33 is also an example of this kind of reasoning)
Yes. Many of the Jews were not trained like the elite were, but they did know their Torah and they could tell when Jesus was making an allusion to it. They lived in a society where these ideas needed to be known. The average person back then would know more about what they believed than the average person does today.
The question is not how did the religious elite not recognize the truth of the claims of Jesus, including those to be the Messiah. The trouble was not the recognition of the claims but the belief in the claims. The elites knew all too well what Jesus was claiming and he never denied that they were wrong in it. The crucifixion could have easily been prevented by saying “Sorry. You’ve misunderstood me.” It was never said. Jesus did know the crucifixion was essential to his mission, but he would not use deception in what he said. Every word was true.
The real reason for this however is for the Watchtower to get the reader to shun academics. That is, except for in the cases where the Watchtower cites academics. In those cases, we are to trust the scholars, but as soon as you present an intellectual defense of the Christian message, you’ll find that the Watchtower will quickly put down any reading of that material and say they just want to go with the Bible. (Of course, not the Bible minus their little booklets like “What Does The Bible Really Teach?”
Don’t fall for it. If the Watchtower wants to have a book like this that we’re reviewing claiming to use scholarly sources, then it’s fair game to say they need to examine those resources for themselves. They have brought the usage of others into the field and if they want to play that game, they have no right to call “Foul!” when we do the same.