What Influenced It?

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the booklet of the Watchtower called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’re right not discussing the doctrine of the Trinity and how the Watchtower says it came to be. Let’s go to what they say now.

The Watchtower goes with scholarship of a past era asserting that Christianity copied the Trinity from pagan religions. (Not letting their readers know that the same theory holds that the entire Christian story was copied from pagan religions, including beliefs that the Watchtower holds to like the virgin birth.) Let’s look at some of their claims.

For instance, consider what they say Will Durant says.

“Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. . . . From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity.”

This is one of the worst deceptions in the whole book. Fortunately, this was also one of the books I managed to find at my local library. What is horrible about this is that the Watchtower puts a period after “trinity” in this quote. There is no period. There is a comma and Durant lists beliefs of “The Last Judgment” and “reward and punishment.” That the Watchtower did not use an ellipsis here is shameful and if you can get your hands on this book, show it to your Witness friends.

The next quote is from Morenz. I urge the reader to look up in Google Books the book “Egyptian Religion” and see what else he says is of Egyptian origin. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is one. Also, the association between a ship rudder and the tongue. Also, a Pauline formula on the supremacy of the creator. These can be found on page 254.

The next source is Gibbon and again, the Watchtower does not mention that Gibbon thinks other beliefs are pagan, like the virgin birth. Once again, the Watchtower is willing to embrace the opinions of scholars and show them, but they selectively show them. If they say the Trinity is pagan, well the Trinity is pagan. If they say the virgin birth is, well we need to step back some.

The reality is that this kind of idea while popular on the internet today is not seriously discussed in academic circles. Scholars of Mithraism today for instance know that Christ is not meant to be seen as a copycat of Mithras. If anything, the reverse is true. The believers of Mithraism copied from Christianity.

There are several sources one can go to to verify these points. The chief one I’d point to is that of my ministry partner, J.P. Holding, at tektonics.org. There, he has a page with copycat Messiah figures demonstrating that these are not valid copies. There’s also Ronald Nash’s book “The Gospel and the Greeks.” Finally, Lee Strobel’s book “The Case for the Real Jesus” has a short interview with Mike Licona on this topic as well as a longer one with Edwin Yamauchi. The interested reader is encouraged to go there for more information.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Apostasy Foretold

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been going lately through the Watchtower booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” The next section is about Athanasius whom we’ve already discussed. I prefer to move on ahead past that then to the section on Apostasy Foretold.

Apostasy is an important part of the Watchtower system, as it is part of the Mormon system. The Mormons talk about the great apostasy and they would see the Watchtower as part of that. The Watchtower talks about an apostasy and would see the Mormons as part of that. Christians can believe there are apostates and would see both groups as part of that, in that they are falling away from the true teaching.

For the Watchtower, this hinges on prophecy. Followers of the Watchtower should know that they don’t have a good track record on prophecy. How many times has Armageddon been predicted now and been wrong? What exactly is going on with the 1914 generation? Those of us who are regularly countering cults like the Watchtower are wondering what is going to be done when those in charge of the organization pass away and there is no one left in the generation to take over.

Of course, the Watchtower assumes a futurist stance. If someone does not hold to this stance, then they will handle what the Watchtower says differently. However, let us suppose one does not. Again, there is no need to take what the Watchtower says seriously. As we have seen, the evidence is not on the side of the Watchtower, particularly when we looked at the church fathers.

The question to ask the Watchtower is to ask them how they know they’re not the apostasy. Then, once can present the material that has been presented earlier in this blog to them. If they really want to be on guard against an apostasy, is it not reasonable for them to check and make sure that they are not the ones who are being apostates?

In reality, I believe that the draw is powerful for Witnesses in this area. It would be very exciting to believe that you are part of a group fulfilling prophecy and you alone have the truth no one else has because your organization is in connection with the Almighty. While prophecy is not our focus here, there are enough sources of information, online and offline, about the history the Watchtower has with prophecy and the Witness should be confronted with these.

Also, while what the Witnesses say could be consistent with what Christ teaches, that does not mean that is what Christ had in mind. I do not wish to go into eschatology, but both the preterist and futurist camps can answer this. One might want however to engage the Witnesses on eschatology and particularly when it comes to personal eschatology and get into the question of what they must do to be saved.

However, the Watchtower is sure they know where the teaching of the Trinity came from if not from the church, which is a good question. If it was so contrary and outside of Scripture, then where did it arise and why was it Arius that caused a stir and not Athanasius?

Hopefully we can start that tomorrow.

Further Development

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking at the Watchtower booklet called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’re on the section now about how the doctrine of the Trinity developed and tonight, we’re going to be looking at the section called “Further Development.”

The Watchtower is correct that Nicea did not end the debate. Indeed, you could often tell how the debate was doing just by looking at where Athanasius was at the time. If he was in exile, then the Arians were winning the day. Arianism has not died out of course and there were pockets of it throughout the Medieval period up to today when we have groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, our modern-day Arians. Of course, they’re not the only ones, but they’re the most well-known.

The Watchtower however is leaving much out. For instance, the booklet talks briefly about the Council of Constantinople in 381. What is not mentioned at all is that the teaching of Apollinarianism was under discussion. This was the belief that Jesus did not have a human rational mind, but that the divine logos took the place of that mind. This would have called into question the full humanity of Christ. To be sure, while we should rightly condemn Arianism, we also need to realize that it is in fact just as much a heresy to deny Christ’s humanity as it is to deny his deity, and implicitly many of us might do that in the church today.

The Watchtower does not mention this at all and one would think it would be important to state that about the Council. The Watchtower does say that this doctrine was further developed throughout the medieval period. With this, we have no qualm. Of course it was developed. So was our doctrine of God concerning any of his attributes. There has not been a point for instance where it has been said “Okay! Now we know about omnipotence! There’s no need to study that any further!”

In fact, we should still be studying this. We should still be studying the doctrine of the Trinity further today and developing it. If our doctrine of God ever ceases to develop, and I don’t mean in our personal theologies but in our theology in general, then we are in a sad case. Who are we to say we have plumbed the depths of the knowledge of God and have reached the point where we can know no more? Of course, some knowledge of God will always be beyond us, but we don’t stop reaching. Sinless perfection is beyond us in this lifetime, but we don’t stop reaching.

I recommend for those interested in this time period reading works like Harold O.J. Brown’s book “Heresies.” For those who are interested in the development of the doctrine, an excellent example of a fine work on it in the medieval period would be Augustine’s “On The Trinity.”

We shall continue tomorrow.

Constantine’s Role At Nicea

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re continuing our look at the booklet of the Watchtower called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’re going to be going to the subheading that this post is named after. I do agree with the Watchtower at the start when they say Nicea was not to discuss the Trinity but the nature of Jesus. I think this is something Christians should be aware of. However, I have much disagreement with what they say later on.

It’s not a shock that Constantine gets a lot of blame for everything. I’m not going to defend him for everything either. There is much question as to if Constantine was a Christian or not. That is irrelevant for my purposes here. This is what the Watchtower says their source, Henry Chadwick’s “The Early Church” says:

“Constantine, like his father, worshipped the Unconquered Sun; . . . his conversion should not be interpreted as an inward experience of grace . . . It was a military matter. His comprehension of Christian doctrine was never very clear, but he was sure that victory in battle lay in the gift of the God of the Christians.”

This book can be found through Google Books. The first quote is nowhere near the second one. I can’t even find where the first one is in relation. It’s that much of a difference. Looking at the second part, before that sentence Chadwick says “But if.” This is a great change. He is not saying his conversion should not be interpreted as an inward experience of grace, but says, if it is not that, it is something else.

As for the claim of the Encyclopedia Britannica that Constantine presided and gave the idea of the formula to be used, I would have loved to have seen an actual church historian quoted on this. Constantine pretty much called the event and stayed out of it. He had no theological understanding and if anyone was the main speaker here, it would have been Athanasius.

Note also that Constantine was the one later who gave an order for Arius to be admitted back into the church and was himself baptized on his deathbed by an Arian, so it would not make sense for him to be their main opponent. As has been shown also, the early church did indeed teach a view that is firmly in line with what was decided by the orthodox at Nicea.

The Watchtower finally asks that if the Trinity had been a clear Bible truth, why not propose it at that time?

Probably for the same reason that they did not need to propose that Jesus came back from the dead.

The reality was that no council was ever called to deal with the teaching that Jesus is of the same substance of the Father, but to deal with the teaching that he isn’t. Arius’s teachings were those that were going contrary and to maintain order, the council was called so the issue could finally be debated out.

Such tactics from the Watchtower at this point are not surprising.

Watchtower and Church Fathers Conclusion

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been looking lately at the Watchtower booklet called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” We’ve spent the past few days looking at the church fathers. Of course, we could not do an exhaustive search, but I recommend the reading of the fathers for all interested. We did see the Watchtower’s undocumented claims were quite contrary to what the fathers themselves taught. Tonight, we’re going to give a final conclusion.

The Watchtower cites Alvan Lamson as an authority that the church did not teach the Trinity. What is left out is that Lamson was a member of the American Unitarian Association. Does this make him wrong? No. It doesn’t. However, you would not know that he was a member of that group by reading their booklet. You could be thinking this is a Trinitarian who is giving embarrassing testimony that the church indeed did not teach this.

Note also how long ago Lamson lived. He died before the 1900’s. Again, this does not make him wrong, but the Watchtower has a tendency to cite the oldest materials out there, probably counting on their readers to not know this. Could it be that the Watchtower has to go back this far before they find something that they believe to be scholarship that agrees with their opinion?

When doing research of this kind, with some exceptions, one needs the latest and greatest material. In history, one uses ancient material to cite primary sources, but one needs the latest scholarship that is based on the latest finds in an area. This is the same with science. I consider philosophy and theology to be different. I have no problem with reading the latest material in these areas, but there is an important distinction.

For instance, in philosophy, most of us either lean towards Plato or towards Aristotle and the whole of the debate is often more towards which school is right. While I hold to Aristotle, I do not think we can go around saying “Plato has been debunked entirely.” In theology, it is the founders of the religion that are discussed and we build on their past teachings. We cannot change the teachings of Jesus for instance. We can only change our understanding of them.

What we saw repeatedly instead is that the Watchtower has only given snippets of what has been said and has done so without a documentation. Some of these quotes could not be found or maybe they exist but were found in a different translation that reads them differently. We cannot know because the Watchtower does not provide sources.

Note also that they speak of the testimony of the Scriptures and yet, not once did we see a portion of Scripture cited. To their credit, they will present some Scripture later, but one can hardly give half a page and think that in doing so, one has covered what Scripture says. The section on the Old Testament has four paragraphs and the section on the Greek has nine. By what standard can this really count as a look at the teaching of the Bible?

Tomorrow, we shall start looking at how the Watchtower says the Trinity developed.

Origen

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been looking lately at the Watchtower booklet called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Right now, we’re reviewing the church fathers. Tonight, we’re going to look at Origen and to do an exhaustive look at his work would be nigh impossible. Even Jerome once asked if anyone has read all that Origen wrote.

For now, let’s start with what the Watchtower says about Origen:

Origen, who died about 250 C.E., said that “the Father and Son are two substances . . . two things as to their essence,” and that “compared with the Father, [the Son] is a very small light.”

To begin with, Origen’s view is very difficult to understand. He did hold to some opinions that would be considered unorthodox. However, we will point to some instances where he does affirm an orthodox view.

Let’s look first at the sixth section of book 1 on his commentary on John:

Now the Gospels are four. These four are, as it were, the elements of the faith of the Church, out of which elements the whole world which is reconciled to God in Christ is put together; as Paul says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself;” of which world Jesus bore the sin; for it is of the world of the Church that the word is written, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” The Gospels then being four, I deem the first fruits of the Gospels to be that which you s have enjoined me to search into according to my powers, the Gospel of John, that which speaks of him whose genealogy had already been set forth, but which begins to speak of him at a point before he had any genealogy. For Matthew, writing for the Hebrews who looked for Him who was to come of the line of Abraham and of David, says: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” And Mark, knowing what he writes, narrates the beginning of the Gospel; we may perhaps find what he aims at in John; in the beginning the Word, God the Word. But Luke, though he says at the beginning of Acts, “The former treatise did I make about all that Jesus began to do and to teach,” yet leaves to him who lay on Jesus’ breast the greatest and completest discourses about Jesus. For none of these plainly declared His Godhead, as John does when he makes Him say, “I am the light of the world,” “I am the way and the truth and the life,” “I am the resurrection, “I am the door,” “I am the good shepherd;” and in the Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” We may therefore make bold to say that the Gospels are the first fruits of all the Scriptures, but that of the Gospels that of John is the first fruits.

Chapter 26 of book 2 against Celsus:

This Jew of Celsus still accuses the disciples of Jesus of having invented these statements. saying to them: “Even although guilty of falsehood, ye have not been able to give a colour of credibility to your inventions.” In answer to which we have to say, that there was an easy method of concealing these occurrences,–that, viz., of not recording them at all. For if the Gospels had not contained the accounts of these things, who could have reproached us with Jesus having spoken such words during His stay upon the earth? Celsus, indeed, did not see that it was an inconsistency for the same persons both to be deceived regarding Jesus, believing Him to be God, and the subject of prophecy, and to invent fictions about Him, knowing manifestly that these statements were false. Of a truth, therefore, they were not guilty of inventing untruths, but such were their real impressions, and they recorded them truly; or else they were guilty of falsifying the histories, and did not entertain these views, and were not deceived when they acknowledged Him to be God.

Here, Origen says that the writers of the gospels knew that Jesus claimed to be God on Earth. They did not make it up and they were not deceived when they acknowledged him as God.

Section 8 of book 1 of De Principiis:

In order, however, to arrive at a fuller understanding of the manner in which the Saviour is the figure of the person or subsistence of God, let us take an instance, which, although it does not describe the subject of which we are treating either fully or appropriately, may nevertheless be seen to be employed for this purpose only, to show that the Son of God, who was in the form of God, divesting Himself (of His glory), makes it His object, by this very divesting of Himself, to demonstrate to us the fulness of His deity.

I conclude that while Origen had views that are unorthodox, and wherever we find those we should disagree with them, he also did not hold to the position that the Watchtower thinks he does and while there could be more nuances there, I believe the Watchtower is misusing him. Again, without references, it’s hard to tell.

We shall sum up this part next time.

All references can be found here:

http://earlychristianwritings.com/origen.html

Hippolytus

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Watchtower booklet lately called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” I won’t deny that this has been a very enjoyable part of this for me. I am looking forward to the next time Witnesses come by and I hope some of you can put this to use and if somehow you do, by all means let me know. Tonight, we’re going to look at Hippolytus. Here’s what the Watchtower says about him:

Hippolytus, who died about 235 C.E., said that God is “the one God, the first and the only One, the Maker and Lord of all,” who “had nothing co-eval [of equal age] with him . . . But he was One, alone by himself; who, willing it, called into being what had no being before,” such as the created prehuman Jesus.

Once again, note the lack of citations. I hope readers have been able to find the quotes I’ve been citing. It will be especially helpful to show a Witness where in the church fathers something is said and to note that the fathers themselves do not say what they are reported to say.

I believe the reference comes from Chapter 28 of book 10:

The first and only (one God), both Creator and Lord of all, had nothing coeval with Himself; not infinite chaos, nor measureless water, nor solid earth, nor dense air, not warm fire, nor refined spirit, nor the azure canopy of the stupendous firmament. But He was One, alone in Himself. By an exercise of His will He created things that are, which antecedently had no existence, except that He willed to make them.

What is going on however is not giving us God’s ontology. The Witnesses are assuming that to say God is by Himself is to assume that He is one person by Himself. Of course, a Trinitarian could say that in the beginning there was only God Himself and not have any problem whatsoever.

Chapter 29 begins this way:

Therefore this solitary and supreme Deity, by an exercise of reflection, brought forth the Logos first; not the word in the sense of being articulated by voice, but as a ratiocination of the universe, conceived and residing in the divine mind. Him alone He produced from existing things; for the Father Himself constituted existence, and the being born from Him was the cause of all things that are produced. The Logos was in the Father Himself, bearing the will of His progenitor, and not being unacquainted with the mind of the Father. For simultaneously with His procession from His Progenitor, inasmuch as He is this Progenitors first-born, He has, as a voice in Himself, the ideas conceived in the Father.

Of course, to be sure, let us look at what he says in the next paragraph of that chapter:

The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. Now the world was made from nothing; wherefore it is not God; as also because this world admits of dissolution whenever the Creator so wishes it.

Note that Hippolytus makes a point here that what is created is not God, but he says the Logos is not created, therefore the Logos could be God, as he has said earlier. Indeed, this is the case explicitly made. The point is at least that Jesus is not included in the creation.

And in chapter 30 we find this:

For Christ is the God above all, and He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings, rendering regenerate the old man.

While we may not have as much, keep in mind that this is one book of Hippolytus. The earlier portion of his work was spent going over the heresies that were taught in his day. Let that be a lesson to us also to know our enemy.

We shall continue tomorrow.

All quotes came from one work which can be found here:

http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/hippolytus10.html

Tertullian

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Watchtower booklet known as “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Right now, we’re dealing with what the early church fathers said. Today, we’re going to be looking at Tertullian.

Our look begins with what the Watchtower says:

Tertullian, who died about 230 C.E., taught the supremacy of God. He observed: “The Father is different from the Son (another), as he is greater; as he who begets is different from him who is begotten; he who sends, different from him who is sent.” He also said: “There was a time when the Son was not. . . . Before all things, God was alone.”

Both of these quotes exist. Let’s look in Chapter 9 of against Praxeus for the first:

Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that They are distinct from Each Other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole,x as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another.

But what is this about? It is about the idea of modalism. This was the belief that the Father, Son, and Spirit were identical in person. Here is what Tertullian said in the second chapter of the same book:

Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her — being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.

And later:

As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds.

Tertullian is in fact writing out a defense of the Trinity. Now there are still some ideas to be worked out, but we see the formation of the doctrine coming along. It could be that Tertullian is wrong in what he taught, but we cannot be wrong in saying that he taught it.

In fact, Tertullian even says in the third chapter that he and fellow Christians are often accused of worshiping three gods. Anyone who has dialogued with JWs knows that they often present the Trinity as if it was a triad, which seems to be the exact same idea that Tertullian was having to argue against in his day!

What about the other? It’s in chapter 3 of Against Hermogenes:

He adds also another point: that as God was always God, there was never a time when God was not also Lord. But it was in no way possible for Him to be regarded as always Lord, in the same manner as He had been always God, if there had not been always, in the previous eternity, a something of which He could be regarded as evermore the Lord. So he concludes that God always had Matter co-existent with Himself as the Lord thereof. Now, this tissue of his I shall at once hasten to pull abroad. I have been willing to set it out in form to this length, for the information of those who are unacquainted with the subject, that they may know that his other arguments likewise need only be understood to be refuted. We affirm, then, that the name of God always existed with Himself and in Himself–but not eternally so the Lord. Because the condition of the one is not the same as that of the other. God is the designation of the substance itself, that is, of the Divinity; but Lord is (the name) not of substance, but of power. I maintain that the substance existed always with its own name, which is God; the title Lord was afterwards added, as the indication indeed of something accruing. For from the moment when those things began to exist, over which the power of a Lord was to act, God, by the accession of that power, both became Lord and received the name thereof. Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father. In this way He was not Lord previous to those things of which He was to be the Lord. But He was only to become Lord at some future time: just as He became the Father by the Son, and a Judge by sin, so also did He become Lord by means of those things which He had made, in order that they might serve Him. Do I seem to you to be weaving arguments,

Tertullian is not talking about existence here but titles. The Son did not always exist as Son for Tertullian. That does not mean I agree, but let us be clear on his position. He is saying the Father is not always Lord for there was not always something for him to be Lord over, and with that I agree. This does not constitute a change in the substance of God but a change of relation.

We see Tertullian’s Trinitarianism again however in response in chapter 25 of Against Praxeus:

Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are, one essence, not one Person, as it is said, “I and my Father are One,” in respect of] unity of substance not singularity of number

And in Chapter 27:

But the truth is, we find that He is expressly set forth as both God and Man; the very psalm which we have quoted intimating (of the flesh), that “God became Man in the midst of it, He therefore established it by the will of the Father,” — certainly in all respects as the Son of God and the Son of Man, being God and Man, differing no doubt according to each substance in its own especial property, inasmuch as the Word is nothing else but God, and the flesh nothing else but Man. Thus does the apostle also teach respecting His two substances, saying, “who was made of the seed of David;” in which words He will be Man and Son of Man. “Who was declared to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit;” in which words He will be God, and the Word — the Son of God. We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in One Person — Jesus, God and Man.

I conclude that while there are some statements that can be seen as problematic, there are many more that are much harder for the Witnesses to explain. While we may not agree with all Tertullian said in this regard, we can be sure that he would not be on the side of the Watchtower today.

All works can be found at the following:

http://earlychristianwritings.com/tertullian.html

Clement of Alexandria

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the booklet of the Watchtower, the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, called “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Tonight, we’re going to look at what they have to say about Clement of Alexandria and compare that to what he really said.

Once again, I must remind everyone that for this statement, the Watchtower gives no references whatsoever.

Clement of Alexandria, who died about 215 C.E., called Jesus in his prehuman existence “a creature” but called God “the uncreated and imperishable and only true God.” He said that the Son “is next to the only omnipotent Father” but not equal to him.

Book 1 of the Instructor, chapter 2:

Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father’s will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father’s right hand, and with the form of God is God.

Chapter 3:

The Lord ministers all good and all help, both as man and as God: as God, forgiving our sins; and as man, training us not to sin. Man is therefore justly dear to God, since he is His workmanship.

Chapter 5:

By the same prophet is declared His greatness: “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; that He might fulfil His discipline: and of His peace there shall be no end.” O the great God! O the perfect child! The Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son. And how shall not the discipline of this child be perfect, which extends to all, leading as a schoolmaster us as children who are His little ones? He has stretched forth to us those hands of His that are conspicuously worthy of trust. To this child additional testimony is borne by John, “the greatest prophet among those born of women:” Behold the Lamb of God!” For since Scripture calls the infant children lambs, it has also called Him–God the Word–who became man for our sakes, and who wished in all points to be made like to us–“the Lamb of God”–Him, namely, that is the Son of God, the child of the Father.

Chapter 7:

But our Instructor is the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity. The loving God Himself is our Instructor. Somewhere in song the Holy Spirit says with regard to Him, “He provided sufficiently for the people in the wilderness. He led him about in the thirst of summer heat in a dry land, and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of His eye, as an eagle protects her nest, and shows her fond solicitude for her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, and bears them on her back. The Lord alone led them, and there was no strange god with them.”

Now that the Word was at once Jacob’s trainer and the Instructor of humanity [appears from this]–“He asked,” it is said, “His name, and said to him, Tell me what is Try name.” And he said, “Why is it that thou askest My name?” For He reserved the new name for the new people–the babe; and was as yet unnamed, the Lord God not having yet become man. Yet Jacob called the name of the place, “Face of God.” “For I have seen,” he says, “God face to face; and my life is preserved.” The face of God is the Word by whom God is manifested and made known. Then also was he named Israel, because he saw God the Lord. It was God, the Word, the Instructor, who said to him again afterwards, “Fear not to go down into Egypt.” See how the Instructor follows the righteous man, and how He anoints the athlete, teaching him to trip up his antagonist.

Chapter 8:

Nothing, then, is hated by God, nor yet by the Word. For both are one–that is, God. For He has said, “In the beginning the Word was in God, and the Word was God.”

Chapter 11:

The divine Instructor is trustworthy, adorned as He is with three of the fairest ornaments–knowledge, benevolence, and authority of utterance;–with knowledge, for He is the paternal wisdom: “All Wisdom is from the Lord, and with Him for evermore;”–with authority of utterance, for He is God and Creator: “For all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made;” –and with benevolence, for He alone gave Himself a sacrifice for us: “For the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep; ” and He has so given it. Now, benevolence is nothing but wishing to do good to one’s neighbour for his sake.

Book 3, chapter 1:

For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God.

Book 3, Prayer to the Paedagogus:

Be gracious, O Instructor, to us Thy children, Father, Charioteer of Israel, Son and Father, both in One, O Lord. Grant to us who obey Thy precepts, that we may perfect the likeness of the image, and with all our power know Him who is the good God and not a harsh judge. And do Thou Thyself cause that all of us who have our conversation in Thy peace, who have been translated into Thy commonwealth, having sailed tranquilly over the billows of sin, may be wafted in calm by Thy Holy Spirit, by the ineffable wisdom, by night and day to the perfect day; and giving thanks may praise, and praising thank the Alone Father and Son, Son and Father, the Son, Instructor and Teacher, with the Holy Spirit, all in One, in whom is all, for whom all is One, for whom is eternity, whose members we all are, whose glory the aeons are; for the All-good, All-lovely, All-wise, All-just One. To whom be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

All of this has come from one of his works and should be sufficient to establish that the Watchtower has not fairly represented Clement. As we go further into this series of course, more writers wrote a lot more and there’s no way we can mine it indefinitely.

However, the following is where all quotes come from:

http://earlychristianwritings.com/clement.html

If any in the Watchtower think I have handled Clement wrong, they are welcome to state their case.

Irenaeus

Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Jehovah’s Witness booklet of “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Right now, we’re discussing if the early Christians taught it. Tonight, we’re looking at the church father Irenaeus. The following is what’s found in the booklet about him:

Irenaeus, who died about 200 C.E., said that the prehuman Jesus had a separate existence from God and was inferior to him. He showed that Jesus is not equal to the “One true and only God,” who is “supreme over all, and besides whom there is no other.”

Thus, in about fifty words, the Watchtower wants you to think you have a full view on Irenaeus. Note once again that there is no reference given whatsoever.

Let’s not do that here.

Chapter 10 of Book 1:

1. The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensationsof God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess”to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,”and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

Note the referring to Jesus as our Lord and God and also saying there is an invisible Father. Irenaeus also says that this is the belief of the church received from the apostles.

Paragraph #2 of chapter 19 of book 3.

2. For this reason [it is, said], “Who shall declare His generation? ” since “He is a man, and who shall recognise Him? ” But he to whom the Father which is in heaven has revealed Him, knows Him, so that he understands that He who “was not born either by the will of the flesh, or by the will of man,” is the Son of man, this is Christ, the Son of the living God. For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that pre-eminent birth which is from the Most High Father, and also experienced that pre-eminent generation which is from the Virgin, the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify of Him: also, that He was a man without comeliness, and liable to suffering; that He sat upon the foal of an ass; that He received for drink, vinegar and gall; that He was despised among the people, and humbled Himself even to death and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men; -all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.

Notice again the strong terminology Irenaeus uses to describe Jesus and notice also his source. He’s not pointing to Greek philosophy, which I do not view as evil of course, but he is pointing to Scripture.

Book 3, chapter 20, paragraph #4. Notice this excerpt:

Thus he indicates in clear terms that He is God, and that His advent was [to take place] in Bethlehem, and from Mount Effrem, which is towards the south of the inheritance, and that [He is] man. For he says, “His feet shall advance in the plains: “and this is an indication proper to man.

Book 3, chapter 21, paragraph 1:

God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us, giving us the token of the Virgin. But not as some allege, among those now presuming to expound the Scripture, [thus: ] “Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bring forth a son,”

And in paragraph 4:

Carefully, then, has the Holy Ghost pointed out, by what has been said, His birth from a virgin, and His essence, that He is God (for the name Emmanuel indicates this). And He shows that He is a man, when He says, “Butter and honey shall He eat; “and in that He terms Him a child also, [in saying, ] “before He knows good and evil; “for these are all the tokens of a human infant. But that He “will not consent to evil, that He may choose that which is good,”-this is proper to God; that by the fact, that He shall eat butter and honey, we should not understand that He is a mere man only, nor, on the other hand, from the name Emmanuel, should suspect Him to be God without flesh.

Section 53 of fragments from the lost writings:

With regard to Christ, the law and the prophets and the evangelists have proclaimed that He was born of a virgin, that He suffered upon a beam of wood, and that He appeared from the dead; that He also ascended to the heavens, and was glorified by the Father, and is the Eternal King; that He is the perfect Intelligence, the Word of God, who was begotten before the light; that He was the Founder of the universe, along with it (light), and the Maker of man; that He is All in all: Patriarch among the patriarchs; Law in the laws; Chief Priest among priests; Ruler among kings; the Prophet among prophets; the Angel among angels; the Man among men; Son in the Father; God in God; King to all eternity. For it is He who sailed [in the ark] along with Noah, and who guided Abraham; who was bound along with Isaac, and was a Wanderer with Jacob; the Shepherd of those who are saved, and the Bridegroom of the Church; the Chief also of the cherubim, the Prince of the angelic powers; God of God; Son of the Father; Jesus Christ; King for ever and ever. Amen.

And section 54:

He is the Salvation of the lost, the Light to those dwelling in darkness, and Redemption to those who have been born; the Shepherd of the saved, and the Bridegroom of the Church; the Charioteer of the cherubim, the Leader of the angelic host; God of God; Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Once again, while we do not see full Trinitarian language, we see the doctrine forming. Do we really find what the Watchtower tells us to find? Not at all. We find several explicit statements and considering how much the Watchtower has made a big deal about explicit statements, we can be sure they’d welcome these and recant their position.

Well, maybe not, but we can pray for that can’t we?

All references come from the following:

http://earlychristianwritings.com/irenaeus.html