I have begun preparing an outline for what I think is an untapped market of opposition to the Watchtwoer. I will post part one of an outline after this explanation. Please feel free to PM with additional thoughts.
1. Most criticism of the Watchtower in print has either (a) focused on very specific doctrinal issues or (b) socio-theological criticism or (c) apologetics from other christian sources.
2. There is a pronounced lack of general philosophical arguments directed against the internal logical integrity of the Jehovah's Witnesses core theological beliefs. Other religions have been well covered on core subjects in this arena.
My intention is to take a traditional philosophical and securlar criticism of basic watchtower beliefs. If this works out and people like commenting on these, I'll make it a regular post. In particular, I'd like any reminders of things which have changed in the last few years if I nail anything wrong.
Ten challenges for Jehovah’s Witnesses
- Divine free-will and how Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have an internally consistent concept of the basic nature of God. According to the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses, God is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good. Omnipresence is not often mentioned in contrast to the avowed creeds of earlier protestant Christians. Omnipotence has traditionally been understood to mean the idea that God has no natural physical or temporal constraints. Most theologians would agree that God cannot perform acts which are logically impossible because such questions are in themselves nonsensical. For example, God could not create a round square, neither could he create a mountain he could not lift, nor a puzzle he could not solve. Omniscience has generally been considered the possession of all knowledge, including knowledge of the inner states of human beings and the outcome of all future events. These supposed qualities of God create a number of contradictions.
- If one assumes that God has a perfect knowledge of the outcome of all future events, then one has discounted the notion of free will for individuals as well as for God himself.
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- If one assumes that God can perform all logically possible actions then additional problems are raised for other aspects of the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some may for example add a caveat to omnipotence in that this quality of power is constrained by definition in other qualities God possesses. For example, God cannot perform immoral actions. This has often been termed divine Will. In other words, it is to be understood that if an all powerful being exists, nothing can transpire in conflict to divine will. I will leave the definition problem aside, because this ties quickly into what philosophers have traditionally called the Problem of Evil.
i. If an entity is said to possess free-will, one can assume this entity selects from available alternatives based off of some personal quality or character in combination with externalities including a rational survey of the data available.
ii. If God is omniscient, the outcome of all future decisions is either known or knowable by him. This distinction is not meaningful. In essence, Jehovah’s Witnesses have attempted to say that perhaps God “chooses” not to know some things. This accomplishes nothing as a defense. A human who reads a book and chooses not to read the last page first may perhaps enjoy the process more, but that does not change the fixed nature of the conclusion.
iii. Further, it seems nonsense to say that a being knows all his own future actions. If God knows all things, then he knows future events and his future actions because he knows the actions of all players involved. If God knows his future actions then God does not have free-will because free will by definition involves choosing between alternatives. It seems to me post impossible by definition and comprehension that God could have free will and know the future. I can comprehend of no possible way a being could be both omnipotent and omniscient.
iv. As an aside, some theologians have attempted to say that it is logically impossible to know the future, yet this does no good for Christians who believe in a literal reading of the bible. The bible is quite clear that God knows the outcome of future events.
i. If God is omniscient and it is logically possible to know the future, no event can take place which he did not know would take place for a certainty before hand.
ii. Furthermore out of any logically possible series of events God foresaw before he created the universe, the state of affairs we currently possess was selected from all available alternatives and every single event which transpires has occurred with divine foreknowledge and choice.
iii. Traditional religions can deal with these problems in a variety of theological arguments, but Jehovah’s Witnesses can not deal with these contradictions because they teach that the original divine will was subverted and that the world we have is not as God intended it. This seems logically impossible for the reasons listed above. Something must be sacrificed. The future is not knowable and God is not omniscient or else the future is knowable and neither God nor humans have free will, and God is not omnipotent.