1989 Should You Believe in the Trinity brochure--PDF! Click the link at the bottom of the next page. http://www.sendspace.com/file/yxjidc N.
Should you believe in the Trinity book says...
by middleman 16 Replies latest watchtower bible
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middleman
Perry, thank-you for the comparisons, those will be very helpful to refer to. Atlantis, thank-you for those scans, it's good to have this on PDF. Meeting Junkie No More, right click on the images and you should be able to save and print them.
The Watchtower loves to muddy the waters about what the trinity really is. They like to mix the varying beliefs of Tri-Theism, Modalism, and Trinitarism - using them interchangably. After they have done so they say that it's a doctrine of confusion and can't be understood, not even the slightest. They'll say a RIGHT statement on what it is citing the Athanasian/Nicene Creed (ONE God in three distinct persons of the same essence/deity) then they'll say something like "well did Jesus pray to himself in the Garden of Gethsemane, how could he"? This thought starts to muddy the waters and walks right into Modalism. Of course a trinitarian would say that Jesus is not the father but the son.
Blessings...
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Leolaia
"(A) Trinity book says 'Justin Martyr, who died about 165 C.E., called the prehuman Jesus a created angel who is other than the God who made all things. He said that Jesus was inferior to Go and never did anything except what the creator ...willed him to do and say." Page 7."
Presented in this way, Justin Martyr's christology sounds almost identical to that espoused by the Watchtower Society. But this omits many features of Justin Martyr's characterization of Jesus and distorts others. First of all, he did not conceive of the Son as a "created angel". He described the Son as "Angel" in role and function, rather than nature, and thus "Angel" is a "title" or something he is "called" (cf. Dialogue 34, 60-61, 76, 128, 1 Apology 62-63), whereas the Son is not only "called" God, but "he exists as God (theos huparkhei)" (1 Apology 63). When he discusses the Son's origin, he specifically denies that Jesus was a created angel:
"I do not consider that teaching true which is asserted by what you call a heretical sect of your religion, nor can the proponents of that heresy (hairesis dogmatizei) prove that he spoke those words [i.e., 'Let us make man in our image'] to angels (aggelois elegen), or that the human body was the result of an angel's work (aggelon poiéma én to sóma to anthrópeion). But this Offspring (gennéma), who was truly begotten of the Father (tói onti apo tou patros probléthen), was with the Father and the Father talked with Him before all things were made (pro panton ton poiématon), as the scripture through Solomon clearly showed us, saying that this Son, who is called Wisdom by Solomon, was begotten (egegennéto) both as a beginning before all his works (arkhé pro panton tón poiématón), and as his Offspring (gennéma)" (Dialogue 62).
Here the Son is not an "angel" like the created angels, in fact such a view is rejected as a Jewish heresy. Instead, he characterizes the Son as an "Offspring" (gennéma) who was "generated" or "begotten" (egegennéto) instead of "made" (epoiésan), and his generation was "before all creation" and "before all his works", i.e. the Son was not created. In the previous section, Justin went further into detail on what he meant by the "begetting" of the Son.
"God had begotten of himself a certain rational Power (gegennéke dunamin tina ex heautou logikén) as a beginning before all creatures (arkhén pro pantón tón ktismatón)....When we utter a word, it can be said that we beget the word (logon gennómen), but not by cutting it off (ou kata apotomén), in the sense that our power of uttering words thereby be diminished. We can observe a similar example in nature when one fire kindles another (hopoion epi puros horómen allo ginomenon), without losing anything (ouk elattoumenou ekeinou), but remaining the same; yet the enkindled fire seems to exist of itself (to ex autou anaphthen) and to shine without lessening the brilliancy of the first fire" (Dialogue 61).
These are analogies of generation, and tho the word "substance" is not used, Justin suggests that the Son was begotten from the Father like a fire is enkindled from another fire without lessening it...sharing the same "fire" stuff as the source fire, and which can burn with its own brilliance and glory beside the first fire. The analogy of words being begotten by thought is similar, and Justin notes that similarly the ability to utter words is not diminished by any individual word, and words are also not "cut off" from the source through dividing it. Later, Justin does use the word "substance" to describe the begetting of the Son:
"For I stated that this power was generated from the Father (tén dunamin tautén gegennésthai apo tou patros), by his power and will, but not by abscission (ou kata apotomen), as if the substance of the Father were divided (hós apomerizomenés tés tou patros ousias); as all other things, once they are divided and severed (merizomena kai temnomena), are not the same as they were before the division. To illustrate this point, I cited the example of fires kindled from a fire; the enkindled fires are indeed distinct from the original fire (paraléphein ta apo puros anaptomena) which, though it ignites many other fires, still remains the same undiminished fire" (Dialogue 128).
The Son is begotten from the Father's "substance", generated from it like a fire lit from fire...the substance is not itself divided. This is far closer to Tertullian's notion of the Son and Holy Spirit as derived from the Father than the idea of the Son as a "creation", for the Son is clearly described as produced from the ousia of the Father. This is very different from the later Nicene trinity, which posits the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as equally co-eternal. The Son is derived from the Father for many second-century apologists, and thus is subordinate to him. And like Tertullian, Justin also emphasized the numerical distinction of the Son from the Father. In the preceding paragraph, he took issue with the Jewish "Two Powers in Heaven" theology that treated the Word as a mere hypostasis of God, i.e. that the Word is a springing forth of the power of God "and when he [God] chooses, he makes it return to himself" "indivisible and inseparable from himself," reducing the power to the form out of which it sprang. Tertullian similarly was engaged in a polemic against Praxeas who endorsed a modalist theology. But what Justin lacked was Tertullian's concept of a persona (i.e. Person) that can maintain this distinction within one God. Hence, Justin essentially had two Gods....the Son being derived from the Father, of the same substance of the Father, but not explicitly comprising a single Deity with the Father. So what we find in Justin is a development intermediate between the simple binitarianism of the NT and the later economical trinity of Tertullian, which itself was intermediate between between older views and the later ontological trinity of the third and fourth centuries AD. There was thus a gradual and intelligible trajectory of theological development from a diverse first-century Christianity -- not a later "apostacy" that abruptly replaced an earlier theology with the "trinity".
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AllTimeJeff
Have you encountered ex-JWs that speak against the Trinity, using the WT arguments? I have. It is very difficult to discuss how the WT is distorting the Trinity doctrine without coming across as a promoter of the Trinity. It makes my head hurt.
All the time. That is the point. They do not wish to discuss the subject, but instead to frame it in the only way that is favorable for them.
My point in saying this isn't to promote the trinity, which I reject because of similar lines of evidence related to YHWH. My point in bringing this out is that the GB is disingenuous and dishonest.
It is clear that one who decides to believe in the trinity has way more evidence to stand on in the NT then the erroneous idea of Jehovah appearing in ancient MSS 237 times, as the GB alleges.
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Leolaia
Have you encountered ex-JWs that speak against the Trinity, using the WT arguments? I have. It is very difficult to discuss how the WT is distorting the Trinity doctrine without coming across as a promoter of the Trinity. It makes my head hurt.
Frequently, the Society characterizes the belief as if it were a sort of modalism -- displaying an ignorance of what the trinity claims. Or they make other errors, such as claiming that the trinity has three Gods in one person, or that the trinity cannot have the Son interact with the Father as separate persons.
*** ZWT 9/15 1902 pp. 277-278 ***
They still hold the dark ages view of Trinity -- that three times one is one. That Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three names for one God. Hence, that the Father and Holy Spirit died if Christ died. But that since God cannot die, and the universe could not be supposed to go on for even one day without its Creator and Ruler, and since Christ is "the same in substance" with the Father and Holy Spirit, therefore Christ cannot have died really, but merely in appearance -- deceptively.
*** Finished Mystery 1917 p. 11***
Which God gave unto Him.— "The declaration that ‘the Son can do nothing of Himself,’ if it were not backed up as it is by a score of other testimonies from the same interested and inspired Teacher, is a contradiction to the common thought of Trinitarians, that the Son is the Father."
*** Reconciliation 1928 pp. 117-118 ***
The trinitarians say: 'God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are one, equal in power, in person, and eternity, and are three in one.' Jesus said: "My Father is greater than I." (John 14:28) The clergy say: ‘Jesus was his own father.’ They do not tell the truth. The true relationship between God and Jesus is that of Father and Son, and this relationship is always acknowledged .... Jesus’ own words are given as further proof that he was not his own father.
*** Let God Be True 1946 pp. 83-84 ***
God-fearing persons who want to know Jehovah and serve him find it a bit difficult to love and worship a complicated, freakish-looking, three-headed God. The clergy who inject such ideas will contradict themselves in the very next breath by stating that God created man in his own image; and certainly no one has ever seen a three-headed human creature.
*** w62 9/15 pp. 554-555 "The Word"—Who Is He? According to John ***
Christendom believes that the fundamental doctrine of her teachings is the Trinity. By Trinity she means a triune or three-in-one God. That means a God in three Persons, namely, "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost." Since this is said to be, not three Gods, but merely "one God in three Persons," then the term God must mean the Trinity; and the Trinity and God must be interchangeable terms. On this basis let us quote John 1:1, 2 and use the equivalent term for God, and let us see how it reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the Trinity, and the Word was the Trinity. The same was in the beginning with the Trinity." But how could such a thing be? If the Word was himself a Person and he was with the Trinity, then there would be four Persons. But the Word is said by the trinitarians to be the Second Person of the Trinity, namely, "God the Son." But even then, how could John say that the Word, as God the Son, was the Trinity made up of three Persons? How could one Person be three? However, let the trinitarians say that in John 1:1 God means just the First Person of the Trinity, namely, "God the Father," and so the Word was with God the Father in the beginning. On the basis of this definition of God, how could it be said that the Word, who they say is "God the Son," is "God the Father"? And where does their "God the Holy Ghost" enter into the picture? If God is a Trinity, was not the Word with "God the Holy Ghost" as well as with "God the Father" in the beginning? Suppose, now, they say that, in John 1:1, 2, God means the other two Persons of the Trinity, so that in the beginning the Word was with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost. In this case we come to this difficulty, namely, that, by being God, the Word was God the Father and God the Holy Ghost, the other two Persons of the Trinity. Thus the Word, or "God the Son," the Second Person of the Trinity, is said to be also the First Person and the Third Person of the Trinity. It does not solve the difficulty to say that the Word was the same as God the Father and was equal to God the Father but still was not God the Father. If this were so, it must follow that the Word was the same as God the Holy Ghost and was equal to God the Holy Ghost but still was not God the Holy Ghost. And yet the trinitarians teach that the God of John 1:1, 2 is only one God, not three Gods! So is the Word only one-third of God? Since we cannot scientifically calculate that 1 God (the Father) + 1 God (the Son) + 1 God (the Holy Ghost) = 1 God, then we must calculate that 1/3 God (the Father) + 1/3 God (the Son) + 1/3 God (the Holy Ghost) = 3/3 God, or 1 God. Furthermore, we would have to conclude that the term "God" in John 1:1, 2 changes its personality, or that "God" changes his personality in one sentence. Does he? Are readers of The Watchtower now confused? Doubtlessly so! ....However, according to Trinity teachers, when "the Word became flesh," Mary became the mother of God. But since they say God is a Trinity, then the Jewish virgin Mary became the mother of merely a third of God, not "the mother of God." She became the mother of only one Person of God, the Person that is put second in the formula "God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost." So Mary was merely the mother of "God the Son"; she was not the mother of "God the Father," neither the mother of "God the Holy Ghost."But if Roman Catholics and others insist that Mary was "the mother of God," then we are compelled to ask, Who was the father of God? If God had a mother, who was his father? Thus we see again how the Trinity teaching leads to the ridiculous.
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Leolaia
***w62 4/15 p. 235 Christendom Has Failed God! After Her End, What?***
Christendom has copied the heathen, pagan nations of Asia in teaching that God is a trinity, three Gods in one Person. But who can explain this so-called Trinity and harmonize it with the book of Christianity, the Bible? Hence when the people, who cannot understand the Trinity, ask for an explanation, the clergymen take to flight by the escape route of saying that the Trinity is a mystery.
*** pe chap. 4 p. 39 God—Who Is He? ***
According to the teaching of the Trinity, there are three persons in one God, that is, there is "one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Many religious organizations teach this, even though they admit it is "a mystery." Are such views of God correct? Well, did Jesus ever say that he was God? No, he never did. Rather, in the Bible he is called "God’s Son." And he said: "The Father is greater than I am." (John 10:34-36; 14:28) Also, Jesus explained that there were some things that neither he nor the angels knew but that only God knew. (Mark 13:32) Further, on one occasion Jesus prayed to God, saying: "Let, not my will, but yours take place." (Luke 22:42) If Jesus were the Almighty God, he would not have prayed to himself, would he? In fact, following Jesus’ death, the Scripture says: "This Jesus God resurrected." (Acts 2:32) Thus the Almighty God and Jesus are clearly two separate persons.
*** jv chap.10 p.126 Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth ***
Brother Russell outspokenly exposed the foolishness of professing to believe the Bible while at the same time teaching a doctrine such as the Trinity, which contradicts what the Bible says. Thus he wrote: "In what a jumble of contradictions and confusion do they find themselves who say that Jesus and the Father are one God! This would involve the idea that our Lord Jesus acted the hypocrite when on earth and only pretended to address God in prayer, when He Himself wasthe same God. . . . Again, the Father has always been immortal, hence could not die. How, then, could Jesus have died? The Apostles are all false witnesses in declaring Jesus’ death and resurrection if He did not die. The Scriptures declare, however, that He did die." Thus, at an early point in their modern-day history, Jehovah’s Witnesses firmly rejected Christendom’s Trinity dogma in favor of the reasonable, heartwarming teaching of the Bible itself.
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JimmyPage
BTTT ... this is a great thread...