| Answers In-Depth to Questions about Christianity |
| The Dogma of the Holy Trinity IS Defensible |
QUESTION: My sister is sixty-one years old and is being confused by Jehovah's Witnesses. They have her saying things like, "The Trinity does not seem quite right. It does not seem to fit the Bible, and it appears almost like widely-believed nonsense." On the one hand, she seems too scared to give up her belief in the Holy Trinity, since she grew up in a time when the Church emphasized this belief as necessary for salvation. On the other hand, she wants to be honest with the Bible and her ability to think carefully. Would you carefully clarify exactly why the arguments Jehovah's Witnesses use against the Most Holy Trinity fail to disprove this dogma of our Faith? Answered by Rev. Paul L. Rothermel |
| Introductory Note from Father Rothermel: Unless the Bible clearly excludes all interpretations of God other than that of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they have no way of knowing that their view of God is correct, since they do not claim to know any truth about religion apart from the Bible alone. Even if the Bible does not clearly exclude all interpretations of God other than that of Roman Catholics, they claim other ways to know that their view of God is correct. The rug can be pulled out from under Jehovah’s Witnesses by showing that every Bible passage that they propose to exclude the Catholic view really allows for it. J.W. ARGUMENT # 1: God does not have a God. Yet Jehovah is the God of Jesus (Matthew 27:46). Even after the resurrection, this remains true (Revelation 3:2,12). “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Jehovah’s Witnesses assume that Jesus changed natures and had only one nature at a time. We Roman Catholics assume that Jesus had two natures at once. For us, He is one Divine Person with two natures, one human and one Divine. The divinity of Jesus does not have a God, but the humanity of Jesus does, and, once Jesus became incarnate, He remains forever so (Hebrews 13:8), even after the resurrection. Jesus is now the Son of God and the Son of Man. Matthew 27:46 looks at Jesus as dying, and so as a man. John 20: 17 looks at Jesus as rising from the dead, and so as a man. Revelation 3:2 and 12 look as Jesus as “son of man,” and so as a man. At one point during His earthly ministry, Jesus declared that the Father is greater. This is because the Sender is always greater than the Messenger (John 13:16). Jesus’ earthly mission ends with His ascension into heaven, and so He is no longer sent, and no longer inferior in the sense that John intended. Of course, His abiding humanity is always inferior to His divinity. J.W. ARGUMENT # 2: God does not have a beginning. Yet Jesus had a beginning; He was created as an angel. He is the beginning of Jehovah’s work (Proverbs 8:22-24), and is called “the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:16), and “the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3: 14). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: The humanity of Jesus had a beginning, but the Divine Person did not. The topic of Proverbs, chapter eight, is not Jesus, but Old Testament wisdom (Proverbs 8:12), which is personified as a female able to bear sons (Proverbs 8:1-3,32, cf. Proverbs 7:4), not only in the Old Testament but also in the New (Luke 7:35). God’s eternal wisdom created all the wisdom in creation. As the “Word,” Jesus is the eternal wisdom of God, not His created wisdom. Jesus’ eternal wisdom as God played a part in creating His human wisdom. As “the firstborn of all creation,” Jesus will one day inherit the whole universe. As God, Jesus is the firstborn of the Father from all eternity, but as the man who rose first in the new creation, He is “the firstborn of all creation.” Colossians 1:16 states that Jesus is responsible for creating everything that was created, not every “OTHER thing”(NWT) that was created except Himself. In Hebrews 1:6, the “Firstborn” is superior to “all the angels,” and so the “Firstborn” is not an angelic creature. God is the ruler of God’s creation, and the Greek of Revelation 3:14 may be stating this about Jesus, since “arche” can mean “ruler” as well as “beginning.” This verse proves nothing for the Witnesses. J.W. ARGUMENT # 3: God is self-sufficient, but, like other creatures, Jesus depends on the Father (John 6:57). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: This verse is about Jesus as man, not as God. John 6:57 is looking at Jesus as “flesh and blood,” and so as a man, and so it is no wonder that Jesus claims to “live” because of the Father. As God, Jesus also depends on the Father, but this is not the focus of this verse. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one God are self-sufficient, but the Son and the Spirit as two distinct Divine Persons depend upon the Father for their shared, self- sufficient Being. J.W. ARGUMENT # 4: God knows everything, but Jesus did not know the day of tribulation (Mark 13:32). If the Son and the Spirit knew this, why is the Father alone said to know it (Matthew 24:36)? A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Because Jesus Christ, the Son, has two natures, He has two minds, one human and one Divine. Some of what He knew as God He did not know as man. This information about the end times is only one example. Jesus is saying that no human or angelic mind can figure out the date fixed. God can reveal such matters to humans and angels, however. False prophets (Mark 13: 21-22) claim to possess such knowledge, but because they lack God’s approval, this knowledge does not come to them from God. The Spirit knows “concerning” end-time matters, as First Corinthians 2:10-11 and Revelation 3:10,13, show us. The Son and the Holy Spirit have revealed partial information about the end times to the apostles (First Thessalonians 4:15 – 5:1-3), and through them to the Catholic Church, but “that day and hour” have never been revealed by God to any human or angelic mind, within the Catholic Church or outside of it. Has God revealed the year of the Parousia? Witnesses have thought so, but their predictions concerning 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, and 1975 have proved disappointing to many of their most ardent readers and hearers. J.W. ARGUMENT # 5: God is invisible; no one has ever seen God (John 1: 18). When Thomas saw Jesus, did he see Jehovah (John 20:28)? In the immediate context, John identifies Jesus Christ as “the Son of God,” not as God (John 20:31). God cannot be His own Son, and early Jewish Christians believed that only one Person is God, the Father. Had Thomas believed that Jesus is Jehovah, he would have tried to convince other Christians, and would have been expelled from the Christian congregation for trying to do so (First Corinthians 5:13). He did not try this, obviously because he did not believe this, and he did not declare what he did not believe. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Orthodox Catholics do not believe that God is His own Son. Early Christians believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share a deep, mysterious unity. Despite certain biblical statements about Moses (Exodus 33:11) and the angels (Matthew 18:10), God as God is invisible, but God as man is veiled in visible flesh. According to John 1:1,14, just as God’s presence was hidden in the visible Tabernacle of the Old Testament, so God “tented” among us in Jesus Christ. When Thomas saw the Risen Christ, He saw God as much as Moses did and the angels do. Today the Church claiming to have been founded by Thomas in India believes that Jesus is God. Calling Jesus “God” in emotional, poetic, or intuitive moments (John 1:1,18, Romans 9:5, and Philippians 2:6) did occur in the Apostolic age, and some of its worship practices implied this belief long before the Apostles explicitly taught it, BUT they did teach it, not only in the gospel of John and the book of Hebrews, but also in Colossians 1:19. Thomas was not the only Apostle with this Divinely-given insight, and so would not have been expelled by the others for teaching it. Near the end of the Apostolic age, John was twice unintentionally misled by an angel’s words into thinking the angel was really Jesus, and so he worshipped him (Revelation 19:9-10, and 22:7-9). Two cases of mistaken identity are much easier to explain than an Apostle being so obtuse as to worship an angel TWICE, once after being rebuked by an angel for this very act! J.W. ARGUMENT # 6: The way the Apostles related to Jesus in the first century is different from the way they would have related to Him if they knew He is Jehovah. They were not astonished to be with Him. They proclaimed that Jesus is the Christ, the fulfillment of Jewish expectations, not that He is God (Acts 17:2-3), contrary to Jewish monotheism. The Jewish leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy for claiming to be the Christ, not for claiming to be God (Matthew 26:65, 22:15). Why did these Jews attack Him for breaking the Law instead of for claiming to be God? Surely they would have used the strongest charge to bring Him down to death, and so it is rather obvious that He never claimed to be Jehovah. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: At times the twelve Apostles were astonished at Jesus, especially at times of momentary insight into His Divine nature (Matthew 7: 28-29, 14:33, 15:30-31, 16:16, 17:5-9, Mark 4:41, John 18:6, First John 1:1-2, 5: 20). Because God as man is veiled, these insights were often fleeting and not sustained. George’s argument proves too much. Most people walking with a man who had once been the highest angel of God, the Witnesses’ view of Jesus on earth before His resurrection ( cf. Matthew 28:4, when He returned to being an angel again) would be as astonished, IF they knew so, as people would who were walking with God, the Catholic view of Jesus, IF they knew so. It is not surprising that the Apostolic message stressed what could attract Jews to Christianity instead of what could repel them. If claiming to be the Messiah can be blasphemy, how much more can claiming to be God be! The Gospel of John shows the Jewish leaders attacked Jesus, not only for breaking the Law, but also for claiming to be God (John 5:18, 8:58-59, 10:31-33). The inspired New Testament writers often quote Old Testament verses that clearly are referring to God (Yahweh) and state that these verses are referring to Jesus (John 12:41 with Isaiah 6:1, Romans 10:9-13 with Joel 3:5, Philippians 2:10-11 with Isaiah 45:23, Hebrews 1:6 with Psalm 97:1,7-9 and Deuteronomy 32:36-43, 1 Peter 2:3-4 with Psalm 34:9). If Jesus is the Most High God when He is also a man, then we would expect Him to have had an unusual entrance into our world, to have lived without sin, to have done miracles in our midst, to have known that He is God and very different from other men, to have spoken the greatest words ever spoken, to have had a lasting, universal impact on mankind, to have exercised power over evil (death, disease, demons), and to have satisfied spiritual needs. This fits the picture recorded in the four Gospels. J.W. ARGUMENT # 7: Once again, early Jewish Christians believed that only one Person is God, the Father. This is because Jehovah did not reveal that Jesus is Jehovah, and the earliest disciples had “the mind of the Father” on this matter (First Corinthians 2:16). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Once again, early Christians believed that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share a deep, mysterious unity. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9). First Corinthians 2:16 states, “‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” In the first part of this verse St. Paul is quoting Isaiah 40:13, and so George knows that “mind of the Lord” must mean God’s mind. Since George believes that God is the Father only, he summarizes this as “the mind of the Father.” but the Bible nowhere actually uses this phrase. The original Greek of this verse is revealing. Notice the word translated “But.” St. Paul uses the Greek word “de” (meaning “But, additionally”), NOT the Greek word “alla” (meaning “But, by way of strong contrast). St. Paul does not see any significant difference between “the mind of Christ” that is within us and “the mind of the Lord” that was largely unfathomable in the Old Testament. Elsewhere, the Corinthians are told that they possess the Holy Spirit, and that this Spirit “knows” God’s thoughts (First Corinthians 2:11, 6:19, 7:40). Unlike St. Paul, Jehovah’s Witnesses are people who deny that the Spirit is a Person Who knows. J.W. ARGUMENT # 8: Satan did not know that Jesus is Jehovah (which he wasn’t), and Satan and the demons had encountered Jehovah before they were expelled from heaven. They knew Him. The angels that fathered the Nephilim (Genesis 6:4) are the same ones that were thrown out of heaven by Michael and His angels (Revelation 12:7). Between these Bible book-end events, the Bible refers to them as “demons.” How could God be the seed of the woman that God created (Genesis 3:15)? Impossible! The demons knew Jesus was God’s Son, not God (James 2:19). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: In the Bible, “God” often refers to the Person of the Father. In this way the Son of God is the Son of the Person of the Father. He is also God the Son, because every son has the same nature as his father. If the father is human, then the son is human, and if the Father is Divine, then the Son is Divine. This means that if God the Father is eternal and uncreated, then so is God the Son. The Son is begotten, but not created. George asks, “How could God be the seed of the woman that God created?” In light of the promise of Isaiah 9:6, we respond, “Why not?” J.W. ARGUMENT # 9: Satan and the demons knew that God cannot be His own Son. Since Satan knew that Jesus was not Jehovah, he could set out to test Him (Matthew 4:1-11). He really did test Him. It would be utter nonsense for Satan to try to get God to sin. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: It would also be utter nonsense for any creature to stage an attack on his Creator, but Satan’s pride blinded him to the futility of this and caused him to lead a large angelic rebellion in the beginning. He seems to have known even less about the Incarnation (First Corinthians 2:7-8). J.W. ARGUMENT # 10: According to the biblical book of Job, chapter one, originally Satan questioned God’s right to rule over mankind and to decree what is right and wrong (Genesis 3:1-5), and he claimed that he could turn any mere man away from God (Job 1:9). He claimed that human beings serve God only because of what they can get out of Him. Satan accused Jehovah of planting a protective hedge around Job, and in effect, bribing Job to be faithful. The charge concerns a selfish misuse of God’s sovereign power. Proof that God does not bribe anyone but is served voluntarily by men and women of integrity would vindicate God. Jehovah accepted Satan's challenge and removed his protection around Job and entered into a contest with Satan that would depend, in part, on all human motivation down through time. It is about God’s sovereignty and love, and our integrity to God. Jehovah’s Witnesses call this “The Universal Issue,” the vindication of Jehovah's character in the eyes of every rational creature. To clear His name, God is obligated to allow the Devil to rule for a time, so that all may see that God is right and just in His government of the universe, and that some can serve Him freely and with integrity. Otherwise, doubts about Jehovah's goodness might still persist. Who Jesus was, a perfect man of integrity, and what He accomplished, a voluntary, corresponding ransom for us, were the greatest vindications of the justice of God’s character. Once known, it would appear to be a sign of weakness on Jehovah’s part, and a virtual admission of defeat, IF He had somehow “stacked the deck” by becoming the One Whom Satan tested but could not cause to sin. Even if Satan could be hood-winked on this matter, the good angels would have seen through this charade and known that Satan was the real winner, because his original charge had proven to be correct. Rather, Satan tested Jesus, a mere man, and Jesus gave the strongest proof of Jehovah’s righteousness. The issue due to be settled has to do with whether we will trust God— no matter what. God trusting God makes no sense. “The Universal Issue” was already a spiritual focus in the Garden of Eden. Satan told Adam that Jehovah is a liar, and that Adam was much better off to decide what is good and bad by himself, without God (Genesis 3:1-14). Jesus was like Adam, except for sin. God cannot choose to be without God, but both Adam and Jesus could so choose, and Adam unfortunately did. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: In a strict sense, God does not “decide” what is good and what is bad. Certain actions are necessarily good or bad only because God is Who He is. God’s righteous nature determines what is good and what is bad. Who is lying about the other, God or Satan? And who says that the issue has not yet been settled for all rational creatures of good will? It is already obvious to millions of us that Satan failed with Job. But pride can blind the most intelligent of creatures. Only Satan’s boastful pride keeps him and his minions deluded about the sure outcome of this matter. When Satan first fell from Yahweh’s approval, he quite knowingly attacked God Himself. Any creature foolish enough to do this, that is, to attack God as God, might almost irresistibly attack God as man, as occurred when Jesus was tempted in the desert. True, it was impossible to cause Jesus Christ to sin. He has a human free will, and so He COULD have sinned IF He had wanted to sin, but He could NOT have WANTED to do so, because He is God. If this looks like Yahweh was somehow stacking the deck against Satan, it must be clearly admitted that even a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Jesus in this situation would have been stronger than Satan, because a mere man “full of” God’s Spirit (Luke 4:1) and bearing all of God’s authority (John 3:34-35) would still be stronger than Satan (First John 4:4). How much more would the highest angel (Jesus as Michael) be stronger than a lower one (Satan)! According to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jesus pre-existed as the highest angel, then became only a man full of God’s Spirit and bearing God’s authority, then ceased to exist for a few days at death, and finally “rose again” to return to being the highest angel. At no time was Satan stronger than Jesus, even according the belief system of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The main practical difference between the Catholic view and the Witnesses’ view concerns the ability of Jesus to WANT to sin. Witnesses claim He could while Catholics claim He could not. Since neither position makes God unjust or unloving toward anyone, neither one is necessary to vindicate Yahweh’s righteous and loving character as the Sovereign of the universe, or to prove the moral integrity of Jesus’ voluntary, sacrificial actions. J.W. ARGUMENT # 11: God cannot die. He cannot offer His life to Himself. Jesus is the pure sacrifice offered to God. Only a mere man Jesus, a perfect man, can give his life as a “corresponding ransom” for the life of another mere man Adam, a sinful man. The death of a God-man would provide an infinite ransom when only a finite one is required. This would be all out of proportion to the need, yet “exact correspondence” is part of the clear meaning of “anti-lutron,” a Greek word used in the New Testament writings to describe Christ’s death as a ransom for mankind’s sins. Jehovah cannot be a “corresponding ransom” for Adam (First Timothy 2:5-6), unless Adam was really equal to God. We recall that this equality was Adam’s own grand, Satan-inspired self-illusion! A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: The death of a man is the separation of his body from his soul, not the extinction of his person. Since Jesus joined the Father and the Spirit in raising His body from the dead (John 2:19-22), Jesus did not cease to exist when He died. As God, He could not die, but as man He could. If Jesus were only God and not also man, George, despite the appearance of Deuteronomy 15:15 in its Septuagint rendering, might make a strong point, but Jesus is both God and man at the same time. If Jesus were only a man, He could have died for only one man, but He did so for every man (Hebrews 2:9). While it is true one person cannot give up his life as an offering to himself, one Divine Person can give up His human life as an offering to another Divine Person. George stresses Christ’s atoning ransom as a “corresponding” one, that is, as an exact, no-more-no-less compensation to God for the sin of Adam. Would it really offend God’s justice for a God-man to provide the “ransom for all”? Not if we can judge from the Old Testament Law. In Leviticus 6:2 Yahweh required through Moses that a deceiver compensate his victims by returning what he had taken by fraud plus twenty percent. God sets a no-less requirement for compensations but not a no-more requirement. Zacchaeus proposed to compensate his own victims by returning what he had taken by fraud plus three hundred percent, not twenty percent, and Jesus seemed very pleased with the idea (Luke 19:8). Does “anti-lutron” require a meaning of an exact, no-more-no-less compensation? For any word, context is still the most important determinant of meaning. What any lexicon indicates is "the basic meaning" of a word is really a scholarly generalization, an induction from all the known existing contexts in which the word appears. Often, when it comes to an ancient word, the number of known contexts in which it appears is less than ideal for possessing the highest degree of scholarly certainty in knowing its "basic meaning." How often does “anti-lutron” appear in the extant Koine Greek of the New Testament era? Few words have only one meaning, and etymological analysis can lead us a bit astray. I am thinking of the Latin scholar who first heard of the bicycle very soon after it was invented and assumed that it consisted of only two wheels. Yes, a bicycle has two wheels, as the basic meaning of its name suggests, but there is always more to an actual bicycle than two wheels. Based upon the same sort of false reasoning about the biblical use of the word “stauros,” Jehovah's Witnesses conclude, with guidance from their governing body, that Jesus died on a stake without a cross-beam. Similarly, one must be very careful about using an etymological analysis of “anti-lutron” to rule out a greater compensation than was strictly required in Christ's actual ransom, even though it is true that the compensation of every “anti-lutron” always meets the requirements of justice in the eyes of those who accept the compensation. I doubt if the Greek word can be proven to mean anything more than that. One can argue that a focus on legal aspects of the atonement was missing among Christians until the Middle Ages. Because the corresponding ransom theory of the atonement is built upon this medieval and largely Western tradition, it seems to have been missing until Charles Taze Russell in modern times. Was the modern- day founder of what became Jehovah’s Witnesses led to this conclusion by the teachings of the Bible alone? If so, why was Russell the first one to discover it in the Bible? Perhaps he was led to this by the New Testament alone, a set of first- century documents, but his manner of relating verse to verse, the networking and configuration pattern of the biblical data he assembled for it, was no doubt nineteenth-century, not first-century, in origin and form. To put it another way, there was an historical order in which Christians tackled theological issues down through the centuries since the days of the Apostles, and the conclusion of one issue often became the presupposition in dealing with the next one. The orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ as the God-man were in place before Christian theology focused on legal aspects of the atonement. It seems that Pastor Russell had different views about Christ and death in place before he concentrated on the atonement. Perhaps he had come to the point of believing that no one before him had done it right. It could be that this was an influence of the common nineteenth-century Adventist doctrine that the prophesied "Great Apostasy" was already underway. From a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox perspective, however, Russell boldly set out to re-invent the wheel, with the conviction that our wheels are really not round at all. While the actual Adam in the Garden included the potential for all mankind to exist and the potential for all their sins to exist, a ransom for Adam AND all his actual descendants would be a ransom for more than Adam, simply because each one of Adam's descendants have added their own actual sins to that of Adam. Adam and more (equal to the "all" in First Timothy 2:5-6) MUST NECESSARILY BE more than Adam, no matter how many mental gymnastics one tries to use in order to get around it, and more than Adam cannot equal Adam alone. If Jesus were merely a man, he could substitute his life for the life of only one other man. Since millions of actual men were actually living at the time of Christ's death on the cross, His life was equal to millions of Adams, and therefore, His life at that time could not have been that of a mere man. |
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| In late 1987 and early 1988, half way around the world, as a thirty five year old man living in Rome, I had the distinct pleasure of interacting with a very intelligent, English-speaking Jehovah's Witness. He would visit me and try to convert me. Mr. George Ellis was a true gentleman and a scholar, a retired, lower-level executive with Firestone Corporation, European branch, and an elder in one of the Kingdom Hall congregations in Rome, Italy. He firmly believed that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not God. Despite his great abilities, he failed to prove his case. Over the years he had carefully crafted his criticisms in the heart of one of the most important Roman Catholic countries. I asked him to compile all his reasoning against the truth of the Catholic Dogma of the Holy Trinity. His arguments are listed below. I have stylized them, but they faithfully represent the substance of the thoughts of George Ellis himself. Please note that my response is "A" Catholic response, not THE only one that may be given within the boundaries of Catholic teaching and sound reasoning. |
| sacrifice to Himself. Jehovah sent Jesus (Galatians 4:4), Who came willingly, but could have chosen to say, “No,” instead (John 5:30). Jesus is the chief divine messenger, which is the meaning of the word, “angel.” In the book of Revelation, Michael conquers Satan and His demons. Because Jesus is Michael, the only archangel, He has the keys to the abyss into which the demons shall one day be cast (Revelation 20:1-3), just as He, as the Messiah, has the key of David (Revelation 3:7). Like other angels, Jesus is pictured as a star (Revelation 9:1). He is rightly called “the bright, morning star” (Revelation 22:16). The demons are fallen angels who are called “unclean spirits” (Mark 1:23-27). They know certain things. They know Jesus is the Son of God, not God (James 2:19). They once feared that He came to earth to prematurely destroy them (Ephesians 6:12), before the future appointed time. This greatly bothered them during His ministry (Matthew 8:29), because they did not want Him to send them into the abyss before the appointed time (Luke 8:31). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Once again, while it is true one person cannot give up his life as an offering to himself, one Divine Person can give up His human life as an offering to another Divine Person. Also, again, Jesus COULD have said “No” to the Father’s Plan, IF He had wanted to do so, but He could NOT have WANTED to do so, because, since all Three Persons are one God in total harmony, the Father’ s eternal Plan is also the Son’s and the Holy Spirit’s eternal Plan. While Catholics can agree with much of the teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses about angels and demons, we must disagree strongly with their identification of Jesus with Michael. All agree that Jesus is a Being higher than Lucifer, but Michael’s rebuke of Satan by means of “the Lord” implies that Lucifer was created a higher being than Michael is (Jude 9). Michael could not rebuke the Devil, but Jesus can. Even on earth, Jesus declared, “Get behind me, Satan.” Jude’s favorite word for Jesus is “Lord” (Jude 4,9,14,17,21,25), so Jesus seems to be the “Lord” Whom Michael relies upon for a rebuke of Satan. It also seems that Jude inserted “Lord” (“kurios”) into the original Greek of the quotation from First Enoch 1:9 in order to refer to Jesus Christ as the judge at the Parousia of the evil slaves He purchased but who denied Him by their actions (Jude 4 with Second Peter 2:1). Jesus, the One who controls evil angels for judgment (Jude 6) can also rebuke them, including Satan (Jude 9; cf. Mark 8:33). Jude likely read First Enoch 20, which mentions “archangels” in the plural, and so the Greek article in “Michael the archangel” (Jude 9) most likely indicates which Michael is meant, not that he is the only archangel. The links that George finds between Jesus and other angels in the book of Revelation fall short of proof that Jesus is the highest created angel. The angel in Revelation 20:1-3 is unnamed. It could be Gabriel or another angel besides Michael. Jesus is not a star that falls to earth (Revelation 9:1), but HAS the stars (Revelation 1:16). Since Jesus GIVES the bright, morning star to those who overcome (Revelation 2:28), He is not that star (Revelation 22:16). According to Hebrews 1:13-14, the King on David’s throne is not an angel. The Bible twice mentions “the King of kings and Lord of Lords.” There can be only one such King, yet Jesus has this Name in Revelation 19:16, while Yahweh has this Name in First Timothy 6:15. Therefore, Jesus is Yahweh (if A=C, and B=C, then A=C). Jesus is present with the New Israel like Yahweh was present with the Old Israel, because Yahweh dwelt in the Tabernacle and then in the Temple just as Jesus dwelt among us in His human flesh and blood, as His tabernacle and temple (John 1:14, 2:19-21). J.W. ARGUMENT #13: Although the existence of demons shows that a spirit can have a personality, we do not ever read in the Bible that the Father or the Son addressed the Holy Spirit as a Person within the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is not God or a person less than God. Rather, the Spirit is Jehovah’s power (Romans 15:13,19, Revelation 17:3), that is, His active force (the KJV calls the Spirit “virtue”), a force that can imbue human beings with a certain degree of the fullness of God’s control. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: If “power of the Holy Spirit” in Romans 15:13,19 and Acts 8:39 can reasonably equate “holy spirit” with God’s power, then “Spirit of Yahweh” in Second Corinthians 3:17 can just as reasonably equate the Spirit with Yahweh. (“The power of” is not in the Greek of Revelation 17:3.) There is some evidence to suggest that “Spirit” in the Old Testament usually IS God’s power (Job 27:3, Isaiah 11:2), while in the New Testament, Spirit usually means a Divine Person who is all-powerful, the One Who HAS God’s power (cf. Mark 5:2) or IS ASSOCIATED WITH God’s power (Acts 10:38), although sometimes the word indicates the Spirit’s Divine influences controlling someone. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit knows (First Corinthians 2:10-11), has a mind (the Greek of Romans 8:27 vs. NWT), teaches (John 14:26, First Corinthians 2:13), can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30 cf. Isaiah 63:10), has a will (Acts 16:7, First Corinthians 12:11), testifies (John 15:26, Romans 8:16, First Peter 1:11), guides (Acts 8:39, Romans 8: 14), convinces (John 16:7-8), commands (Acts 10:13-19, 13:2), and pleads for us in prayer (Romans 8:26). The Holy Spirit can be lied to (Acts 5:3-4), blasphemed (Matthew 12:31), insulted (Hebrews 10:29), can reach a good decision (Acts 15:28), and shares the Divine Name with the Father and the Son (Matthew 28:19). The Holy Spirit is clearly more than God’s active force. If a person can be full of demons as conscious, spirit beings (Mark 5:8-9), why can a person not be “full of the Holy Spirit” as an all-knowing, all-powerful Divine Person (Luke 11:24-26)? For the Holy Spirit to be Yahweh, it is not logically necessary for the Father or the Son to say so expressly in the Bible. It is only necessary for at least one verse of the Bible, God’s Word, to present the equation of the Spirit with Yahweh. Even if we eliminate five verses in John as personifications of God’s active force (John 14:16, 15:26, 16:13,14,15), which is unlikely, we have at least four clear verses (Acts 5:3- 4, Second Corinthians 3:17, Matthew 28:19). The same can be said about Jesus. We have at least five clear verses from Peter, Paul, and John (John 12:41, John 12: 42, John 20:28, Hebrews 1:6, Hebrews 1:10, First Peter2:3, First Peter 2:4), especially because of the way these inspired New Testament writers used the Old Testament writings. Many verses that refer to “Yahweh” in the Old Testament are applied to Jesus in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit addresses the Son as God in John 12:41-42 and in First Peter 2:3-4 by implying that Jesus is “Yahweh” of the Old Testament. The Father addresses the Son as God in Hebrews 1:6 (in which “him” refers to “Yahweh” in the Old Testament) and 1:10 (in which“you” refers to “Yahweh” in the Old Testament). Since the Holy Spirit worked miracles through Peter in the book of Acts, that same Spirit declared Himself to be God through Peter’ s mouth (Acts 5:3-4). The Risen Christ taught with His full power that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit share the same Divine Name (Matthew 28:19-20). The teachings of the Son are also the teachings of the Father (John 5:19,30). J.W. ARGUMENT #14: What belongs to God is not God. The Spirit belongs to Jehovah (Acts 2:33, 8:39). The Spirit was used in creation (Psalm 104:30, Genesis 1:2), and to bring Israel out of bondage in Egypt (Numbers 14:13). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three Divine Persons, belong to each other as one God. As the One True God, all three Divine Persons took part in creation and Israel’s exodus. J.W. ARGUMENT #15: God is not separated from God. Yet Jesus received the Spirit (Luke 3:22, 4:1, 10:21, 11:13, John 14:26). At certain times the Spirit went out from Him (Mark 5:30, Luke 6:19, 8:46), and He used the Spirit for healing (Luke 5:17). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Even Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that God’s active force is everywhere in creation. So they agree with us that the Holy Spirit is never really separate from any creature in God’s creation. “Receiving the Holy Spirit” means that a person shows remarkable signs of God’s influence present in his or her life. The Holy Spirit, a Divine Person, causes certain effects, chiefly Divine influences on a human being. “The Spirit going out” of a person means that the Holy Spirit clearly present within one person has visibly influenced the healing of another person. J.W. ARGUMENT #16: The Apostles also received the Spirit (Acts 2:3), and it gave them power (Second Timothy 4:17). They passed on the Spirit (Acts 10: 44, 8:17, 9:17), which a magician tried to buy, but could not (Acts 8:18-20). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: When George claims that “it [the Spirit] gave them [the Apostles] power,” his words seem to betray him a bit. It sure looks like he is unintentionally admitting that the Spirit is not exactly the same as the power that “it” gave. Many of the verses that George mentions above (Numbers 14:13, Mark 5:30, Luke 5:17, 6:19, 8:46, 9:1, and Second Timothy 4:17) do not, in the original language, mention “holy spirit” at all, but only “power.” Simon the Magician tried to buy the Holy Spirit’s power manifested through the Apostolic laying-on of hands, not the Holy Spirit as such. In effect, he tried to buy the Apostolic office, a deed that gave rise to the word, “simony.” J.W. ARGUMENT #17: The Son of God is to God what Isaac was to Abraham. Both Isaac (Hebrews 11:17-18) and Jesus as an angel, who was called “the Logos” before He was sent to become only a man (First John 4:9), were “monogeneis,” which is often translated “only-begotten” but means “one of a kind.” Every father is older than his son and exists before him, and the same is true of Jesus. Since there were other angels (called “sons of God”), Jesus as “the Logos” was the unique Son of God because He is the only angel whom God Himself created directly without the agency or cooperation of any creature. He is the only one whom God his Father used in bringing into existence all the other creatures. He is “the firstborn” and chief one among all other angels. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: God is unique. God the Father is the only eternal Father, while all other fathers are created. Therefore, the Son of God is unique. God the Son is eternally begotten, not created or made. Created fathers have created sons younger than they are, but an eternal Father has an eternal Son as old as He is, that is, existing from everlasting to everlasting. What an eternal Father and a created father share in common, though, is that both generate a person who has the very same nature as themselves. Because Witnesses imagine Jehovah to be an eternal, angel-like Being Who is not present everywhere and does not know everything about the future, they see no awesome difference between God and the highest angel, except that “the Logos” was created directly by God alone. Their God is too small and lacking the mystery of the Catholic God. J.W. ARGUMENT #18: The Bible does not restrict “god” to Jehovah alone (John 1:1), and the biblical usage of “gods” for unjust human judges is meant to be taken at face value (John 10:30-36). As representatives of the Most High, these judges were rightly called “gods” (Psalm 82:6). To the degree judges fail to mete out justice according to God’s holy standards, to that degree they fail to be “one with” Him in His purposes. This biblical usage of the Greek word, “theos,” in John’s Gospel, allows Jesus to be a created god separate from the one and only uncreated God, Jehovah, the Most High. Jesus succeeded where these judges of Israel failed. They were meant to shepherd God’s people, but only Jesus is “the Good Shepherd” (John 10:8- 18). Though a separate being from Jehovah, Jesus was always “one with” Jehovah in His righteous purposes (John 10:30). A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: While it is true that the Old Testament uses the Hebrew expression "gods" (or "as gods") to refer to various different kinds of human and angelic authorities (e.g. Exodus 4:16), Jesus is clearly presented as God in a very different and higher sense. For example, several times in John's Gospel (John 8:58, John 18:5-6), Jesus refers to Himself as "I AM" --that is, the very Name of God (see Exodus 3:14). Here the guards fall to the ground (struck by His Divine power) when He says "I AM" in John 18:5-6. Also, in John 8:58-59, the Jews are clearly scandalized when Jesus says "I AM," and they pick up stones to kill Him. Indeed, Jesus could not have validly referred to Himself as "I AM" unless He is One in Being with the Father in a way not true of "lesser god." For the Name "I AM" ("Yahweh" in Hebrew, the Name mistakenly rendered as "Jehovah" by translators who were ignorant of Hebrew tradition) refers to God as the essential and fundamental Being, upon Whom everything else in existence depends for its existence --the Creator of all. And this, of course, is also the role assigned to Jesus in John 1:3. Psalm 82 is inspired and was written by Asaph. Because the “gods” are condemned with divine authority in verse seven, it is God Who is also speaking through Asaph in verse six, “I [God through Asaph] called you gods.” In this passage, to be “gods” (v.6a) is also to be “sons of the Most High” (v.6b). In John’s Gospel, chapter 10, Jesus has just been accused of blasphemy by the Jewish leaders. First He meets this serious charge by getting His enemies to admit that His works are not works of blasphemy (John 10:32-33). Then, using Psalm 82, He argues that His words are not words of blasphemy. Just as Jesus had argued elsewhere that He as the greater David, and his companions, could not rightly be accused of breaking God’s Law by eating grain on the Sabbath day, because the lesser David, and his companions, did something very similar without blame (Mark 2: 23-28), so here He argues that He, the greater Son of God, cannot be accused of saying words of blasphemy when He claimed oneness with Yahweh as “ the” Son of God (John 10:30, , because lesser “sons of the Most High” are called “gods” by no less than God Most High Himself, and God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures is infallibly true. Jehovah’s Witnesses wrongly assume that Jesus is merely putting Himself on the same level as the “gods” mentioned by Asaph, but He is really using a form of rabbinic argument called “from the lesser to the greater: if that, how much more this.” Indeed, Jesus is playing a very crafty rabbinical game with these Jews by showing that He, a Jew under the Law, is not breaking the letter of the Law by making Himself equal with God. Here He continues to use the term "I AM" (John 10:36,38), almost as if He is playfully taunting these Jews, or, more likely, reaffirming the Christian faith of "those with ears to hear" --that is, the intended audience of John's Gospel. In Psalm 82, if these “gods,” “sons of the Most High,” are angels, then Jesus, the only-begotten Son, is greater than any angel (cf. Hebrews, chapter one). If these “gods,” “sons of the Most High,” are merely unjust human judges, then Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is greater than any human judge, as One on the level with the Father (John 5:22-23). When we look at Revelation 22:8- 9, St. John is told by an angel that he (John) is not to fall down and worship him, because he, the angel, is merely John's "fellow servant." However, in the same Book of Revelation, we see the twenty-four heavenly presbyters constantly falling down and worshipping the Lamb, Who is Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:8)—AND they give this same type of worship to "the One Who sits on the Throne," Who is God the Father (Revelation 4:10-11). Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestants worship the Son just as they worship the Father (John 5:23), while Jehovah’s Witnesses do not. J.W. ARGUMENT #19: Anthropomorphisms can be used of the Spirit when “spirit” does not refer to a real persons. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: While objects and other non-persons can be personified, John is likely not personifying God’s active force as the Paraclete in John 14:16, 15:26, and 16:13-15. In First John 2:1, one other Paraclete is mentioned in John’s writings, and this One is clearly a Divine Person, Jesus Christ, not a personification. One Paraclete, Jesus, a Divine Person, sends another Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, also a Divine Person. J.W. ARGUMENT #20: The Son’s oneness with the Father was just like ("even as") the oneness of believers with the Father and the Son, and Christian believers are separate beings from each other and from God. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Christ’s humanity is forever united to His divinity, and so the Son will never cease to be human. Faithful Christians will be united with God for all eternity, yet never cease to be human. They will be one with the Father “just as” the Son as man is (John 17:11, 21-23), NOT one with the Father just as the Son as God is. If “even as” in John 17:11 can reasonably equate the oneness of believers with the oneness of the Father and the Son, then “even as” in John 5:23 can just as reasonably equate the worship and honor of the Son with the worship and honor of the Father. J.W. ARGUMENT #21: Trinitarianism as an orthodox theological concept is esoteric, and therefore not important even if it is true, too complicated for the uneducated masses to follow, variously interpreted by its competing advocates, post-biblical in its development, and evolved over hundreds of years. A CATHOLIC RESPONSE: Would anyone say that modern medical science is untrue and unimportant because the technical knowledge of doctors seems hidden and confusing to the average person, or because doctors disagree with one another on some aspects of this science, or because this accurate human knowledge of the human body was not attained all at once but took more than a few centuries? It is largely common sense to realize that God might very well be harder to understand and to describe accurately than the awesome human body that He designed and brought into existence. Who God is and What God is are so central to God’s true religion and the welfare of His true people, that no doctrine’s development would have been more protected by Him than these two! Only the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity does justice to every verse of every biblical book. This solution took hundreds of Church leaders hundreds of years to accomplish. This was because of two factors. Not only does Who God is and What God is touch on the interpretation of almost every verse of the Bible, but also this major task could not be completed until the exact extant of the New Testament canon of books was known. Canonization, too easily ignored by Jehovah’s Witnesses, was a drawn-out, post-Apostolic process taking a few hundred years to complete. How can a Catholic present his beliefs about the deep, mysterious unity of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the best way for a Jehovah’s Witness to appreciate? I suggest that he declare: “There is only one true God, but the one true God is not the only reality. Only God has always existed. Everything else, whether it is spirit or matter, God has created out of nothing. Creatures will exist forever, but God is the only Spirit from eternity (John 4:24). Besides God and whatever God has created out of nothing, there is nothing else. All creation comes forth from the Heavenly Father (Genesis 1:1) —and from His Son (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:2) and from His Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2, Psalm 104:30) in some way. Whatever exists, including the Son and the Holy Spirit, comes forth in some way from the Father. The Son and the Holy Spirit, however, were not created out of nothing. They exist from all eternity; the Father is causing the Son and the Spirit to share His eternal Being. The Son is distinct from the Holy Spirit, and vice versa. As long as the Son is the Son and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, they are distinct from the Father (John 1:1, 14:17-23). The Holy Spirit is ever distinct—but never separate—from the Father and the Son. There is only one true God. The Father is ‘the only true God’ (John 17:3), but the Father ONLY is NOT ‘the only true God.’ Because of the Father, it is ALSO true that the Son (First John 5: 20), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4) are ALSO ‘the only true God.’ Jesus expected His followers to honor Him ‘just as’ they honor the Father (John 5: 23). Because there is only one true God, degrees of divinity within God’s Being are excluded. The Son’s activities reveal Who and What He is. The Son is like the Father (John 5:19-20). As long as the Son is the Son, He is like the Father. How much is the Son like the Father? The Son is PERFECTLY like the Father (Hebrews 1:3), and so He is ‘equal to the Father’ (John 5:18), except the Father has never been begotten or human (John 1:18). Because St. Paul teaches that Jesus will be a ‘man’ when the Last Judgment takes place (Acts 17:31), it seems that the One Who often called Himself ‘the Son of Man’ (John 5:27) never laid aside His humanity, not even in the death He suffered as a ransom for sinners. The human life He voluntarily laid down He chose to take back (John 10:18). ‘The man Christ Jesus’ ‘is’ the Mediator Who ‘ransom’-ed ‘all’ (First Timothy 2: 5). The theological idea that only a mere human being who is not a sinner can ransom other mere humans who are sinners is by no means biblically certain (Jeremiah 31:11, 31-34). The Father shares everything He possesses with the Son. Because the Son is the perfect expression of Who and What the Father is, He is called ‘the Word’ in His pre-existence (John 1:1-3). ‘The Word’ became human flesh and shares the Father’s glory (John 1:14). ‘The Word’ is begotten long before He takes on human flesh and spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the beginning of everything that came into existence out of nothing, ‘the Word’ already ‘was’ (John 1:3). Because ‘the Word’ is said to have been ‘with God’ before He is identified as ‘God’ (John 1:1-2), already in the beginning, at the moment when creation and time began, ‘the Word’ existed as ‘true God from true God.’ For as long as the Son exists, He is the only begotten Son of the eternal Father. As Jesus Christ boldly announced to His enemies, ‘Before Abraham was, I AM’ (John 8:58). The Son is like the Father in all things (John 14:8-11), but the Father is not like Him in all things, because the Father never existed as a human being, unlike the Son. ‘The Word’ never existed as ONLY human ‘flesh.’ The Son has always been the Spirit Who is God, but never the Person of the Holy Spirit. As long as the Son is divine, He is in many ways equal to the Father. So Jesus was speaking the honest truth when He taught that ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30). The Risen Christ’s human spirit has become a life-giving one (First Corinthians 15:45). Because the Son’s spirit is now glorified and under the Holy Spirit’s control (John 7:38- 39, First Corinthians 15:44), His humanity serves to channel His divine Life to others. The Son is the invisible Life-Giving Spirit Who is God—as are the Father and the Holy Spirit also (John 1:12-13, 3:6-8). The only true God is the only Spirit able to give life to human spirits and human bodies, now and forever (John 4:24, 5:25-29, Romans 8:11). Humanity is always subordinate to divinity (First Corinthians 11:3). As long as the Son is human, He can in some true way be said to be subordinate to the Father. So Jesus was speaking the honest truth when He taught that ‘My Father is greater than I’ (John 14:28). If the Son is human for all eternity, it can be readily explained why our Lord Jesus Christ has been revealed to be subordinate to the Father for all eternity (First Corinthians 15:28). Even if Christ’s humanity were forever united to His divinity, it would not cease to be human. Faithful Christians will be united with God for all eternity, yet never cease to be human. They will be one with God ‘just as’ the Son’s humanity is (John 17:11, 21-23). At the pinnacle of the created order, there can be only one true Sovereign. Jesus is the ‘only’ Sovereign (Jude 4)—yet so is the Father (Acts 4:24, Second Peter 2:1-4). So this Sovereign Lord is not one Person (Matthew 10:25, First Corinthians 8:6, Acts 4:24, 29). The Lord above all others is revealed to be the Father (First Timothy 6:15), and the Son (Revelation 19:16, Philippians 2:9-11), and the Holy Spirit (Second Corinthians 3:17). Baptism is the Christian’s oath of allegiance to the Sovereign Lord of the universe. By means of this rite, we have consecrated ourselves to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Since the Father and the Son share the Divine Name with the Spirit, it is natural to understand all three as being Persons Who are ‘the only true God.’” THE END. |
