As much as the Society wanted to incorporate Jewishness into their religion they really didn't know the basics of Judaism but then neither do the Christian churches.
Christianity stumbled out of the gate and got Genesis wrong and never recovered.
Did God know Adam and Eve will Sin? - JW perspective
by bioflex 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Terry
Has it passed your imagination that "God" could have done all this a billion, zillion, trillion times before because He/she/it is bored to the point of insanity for interest and entertainment?
Like playing a video game with infiinite possibility.
In our particular instance God used the avatar Jesus.
-
thetrueone
A better question might be why did god let a powerful angel known as Satan go to the Garden and tempt those weak human mortals ?
Another one, is why didn't Eve run away in fright seeing a snake talk to her.
I'm sure all the other snakes in the garden didn't talk.
What language did Eve and Adam use and who taught them the language ?
-
cofty
Sin was forknown and prepared for. - Vanderhoven
That was actually Russell's teaching, Rutherford changed it.
Selective foreknowledge is nonsense. If god COULD foreknow an event if he wished then that event is inevitable anyway. ie the book is written whetehr he decides to read the next page or not.
An omniscient god cannot be a personal god, he is not subject to genuine interaction with his creatures.
-
thetrueone
Was it fair, loving and just for all humanity to pay for the single action of one or two people ?
Aggggh .... I just got hit with a bolt of lightning .... I guess that answers my question agggh !!!
Why didn't god tell Eve this is what would happen to her and Adam is they were to eat that apple ?
Aggggh ... another bolt of lightening ...... Ok Ok never mind
-
darth frosty
Terry: Has it passed your imagination that "God" could have done all this a billion, zillion, trillion times before because He/she/it is bored to the point of insanity for interest and entertainment?
Here is a story for ya Terry.
-
exwhyzee
Jehovah wisely uses his ability of foreknowledge selectively.
How the Hell do they know what Jehovah does or doesn't do with his foreknowledge or anything esle for that matter ??
Who do they think they are, to make such statemets and do so with such authority??
Even If he does use his foreknowledge selectively, it seems like finding out whether or not he'd eventually have to condemn the entire human race, would have been a good use of that particular ability.
-
designs
Strict Predestinationism to Open Theism- Luther, John Calvin, the RCC, Arminius there is a long list of guys that predated Russell and Rutherford on this issue.
-
aqwsed12345
This is an interesting topic too, as the theology of the Watchtower captures the divinity of the Father in a rather interesting way, read this article:
https://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/JehovahWatchtower.htm
A distorted, anthropomorphic image of God: can be offended, changes his mind, the creation required energy from him, one needs to "gain" his "approval", etc. God is not omnipresent, but literally dwells in a place (Pleiades); has a (spiritual) body (rather than being simply spirit), is not absolutely omniscient in the first place, but only has the possibility/ability fore foreknowledge, which he either uses or not, these are based on a literal interpretation of certain (mainly Old Testament) anthropomorphic descriptions. This god does not suggest pure theism, but is just a magnified human, a kind of pagan image of God.
A classic example of this is their belief that God did not know "in advance" that Adam and Eve would sin. According to them, even God is not omniscient in an absolute sense, and they refer to verses such as Genesis 18:20-21. However, this view is not pure theism, and it is a figurative anthropomorphic expression, with which they want to prove this absurd statement. On the other hand, God alone is omniscient (1Kings 8:31-32, Psalm 44:21-22, 94:9-10, 139:2, Job 21:22, Daniel 2:20, Romans 11:33-34). The Father is omniscient (Mt 6:4,32, 10:29-30), the Son (Lk 2:46-47, Jn 2:25, 4:19,29, 16:30, 21:17, Colossians 2:3, Mt 25:31-45, Hebrews 4:12-13) and the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2, 40:13, Daniel 4:6, Jn 14:26, 16:13, 1 Corinthians 2:10-11), yet there are not three omniscient Gods, only one.
From Biblical statements like that God "regrets" things, one cannot draw the conclusion that there are multiple plans in God, or that he occasionally closed his eyes and did not see the future. The biblical description that God "regretted" creating man at the time of the flood is an anthropomorphic description because otherwise we know (1Samuel 15:29): "Also the Eternal One of Israel will not lie or have regret; for He is not a man that He should have regret." The authors of the Bible indeed use such human images for the sake of a more dynamic description, but we should know that in the final analysis these do not answer the questions of the relationship between divine and human will.
The point is that the human language, adapted to the terrestrial and material world, cannot fully express the infinity and complete spirituality of God, and therefore - in the past and today alike - can only speak of God with expressions taken from the human world. The Old Testament scripture, especially in its first parts, is full of such so-called anthropomorphic (= attributing human shape, hand, foot, eye, etc. to God) and anthropopathic (= attributing human emotion, anger, regret, etc. to God) expressions, which however should not be taken in their literal sense. This is how we should understand, for example, at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, that "God said," although God did not say anything but created by pure will.
Therefore, the strong anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms of Scripture, especially of the Old Testament (God shows anger, regret, etc. - Genesis 6:6; Psalm 106:40, Hosea 1:6) etc.) should be measured and adjusted to the basic faith truth of God's immutability. These are said because of the observable outward effect, not because of the similarity of emotions. So "God regretted that he made man" means: what God did because of people's depravity achieved effects similar to when people regret their actions. So, of course, God did not decide the flood when the Bible indicates it, but decided it from eternity. And of course, God was not "grieving" in the strict sense of the word "in his heart", these (and similar) expressions are only used by Scripture because humans can only speak of God in a human way, and because it wants to teach man through them: to see how great the sin is, and to know that if the measure is full, God's punitive "hand" will reach him. So this is a human expression for God punishing the sinful man, and that because of his infinite holiness, he detests sin.
The Bible therefore uses the method of speaking about God in anthropomorphisms. It can only make God's personhood, his active behavior perceptible if it compares him to man. It talks about God's face, eye, ear, hand, ways, feet. These do not want to depict God's shape, but the way God affects man. The anthropomorphisms do not depict God himself. The prophetic visions do not show his shape either, but rather make his effect on humans perceptible. The Semitic spirituality is not interested in the external shape and the limbs, but rather their function. This is why, for example, we read in the book of Isaiah that the mountains rejoice and the trees clap their hands (55:12). When prophetic literature speaks of God in human terms, it does not provide a visual image of Him, but rather attempts to express His entire essence and personality, much like how individual parts are representative of activity and characteristics. God's personality is best illuminated by His being the sovereign actor, the creator of the world, the director of history, and humans being His image by subduing the earth (Genesis 1:26-28). God's personality is further elucidated by images that detail His activities: He sees, hears, speaks, laughs, gets angry, and reconciles. But human behavior can only be a tool of comparison because it is backed by spiritual consciousness, personality. Jehovah cannot be portrayed using animal depictions. The Old Testament does not forget that the distance between God and man is infinite (Genesis 18:17; Exodus 3:5; Isaiah 28:29). The prophets also adopted anthropomorphism because they saw no danger to the concept of God. Only theological reflection and the guidance of the people's thinking led later Greek and Aramaic translators to occasionally soften expressions that could endanger pure transcendence. Looking back from the New Testament, we can see the preparation for incarnation in anthropomorphism.
So, in explaining anthropomorphism, we always have to think of God's absolute spirituality, infinity, immutability, omnipresence, and sovereignty. For example, when it is said that He gets angry and reconciles, it is not He who changes, but we project the change in our relationship with Him.
The Watchtower merely speaks of God's "possibility" (!) of foreknowledge. Well, this proposition is simply false even logically. It would present God as if He were not omniscient by nature, but just has a kind of crystal ball, and if He feels the need to know what the future holds, then He peeks into it. But if He is "not curious" about the future, then He can plug his ears, like the clerk in the commercial, saying "pa-pa-pa-pa."
No, from omniscience, it directly follows that God cannot not know anything. This is wrong for the simple reason that God does not exist in time but above time, so from His point of view, everything that happens in the created world essentially happens "all at once." And if He knows what happens in the created world (and He does), then He knows everything that will ever happen in the created world. Therefore, if you rigorously consider the JW's argument in this regard, it significantly discounts God, portraying Him as figuratively biting His nails, worried about whether the first human couple will fall into sin, realistically hoping that it won't happen. This is complete nonsense.
Divine omniscience means He knows the past, understands the present, sees the future, and nothing is unknown to Him. God fully understands Himself and everything outside of Him. From God's infinity, it directly follows that nothing is unknown to Him. Infinity is only infinite if it is limitless in all respects, including in terms of knowledge. So God knows even the smallest, most insignificant, most hidden things, and even the world of possibilities, desires, and plans is not hidden from Him, whether they are realized or not. He knows about events even before they occur, and He never forgets a single moment.
In the face of divine eternity, there is no past or future, everything is constantly present before Him; eternity equals every moment of time, and is simultaneous with every point in time, just as every point on the circumference of a circle is in the same relation to the center. Consequently, God perceives future things in the constant present of His eternity, and this perception does not influence our future events any more than the observer on the tower influences the possible direction of a troop passing below him. Just as our remembrance does not change and does not influence the past, His foreknowledge does not influence the future. So we can formulate it like this: Something doesn't happen because God knows it in advance, but because it happens, He knows it.
God does not merely foresee the future like a seer, but is present at every point in time, therefore also in the future. God sees the future because what is an uncertain future for us is present for Him, therefore the future is as certain to God as the past. This means that God knows the future, and nevertheless man has free determination.
The Watchtower relativizes God's real omniscience to a possibility, like deciding whether to take my beer out of the fridge at all, to drink it, and if so, when. However, God's omniscience does not stem from some optional fortune-telling talent, but from the absolute and infinite reality, which means that He is conceptually beyond all created beings, so it is perfectly natural that all those dimensions (space, time), which organize our existence into limits, do not exist for Him.
The key thing is that in God, the knowledge of the creaturely world is not a skill or ability that he must want to use, but rather he has real, essential omniscience. This thesis automatically follows from the fact that time itself is a created reality, and the creator cannot be limited by a created reality. Furthermore, temporality implies limitation, but God has no limits, he is always present at the same time, which we perceive as a timeline. But regardless of this, the Holy Scriptures also claim God's real omniscience, so even if you deny this basic tenet (which you can't refute anyway), you should still accept it because the Bible declares this. Of course, it can be justified most easily metaphysically: just as every point on the circumference of a circle is equidistant from the center of the circle, every point on the timeline that denotes the change in the creaturely world is equally present to God. The infinity of God is in the Bible, I quoted a few such things in some letters. And countless times it is also in there that God's reality is infinitely more perfect than what can be described with human words, and this should be taken into account when "theologizing" about God himself. Time is the measure of change, so only a changing thing can be described by temporality, but God is unchangeable, this is even explicitly in the Bible! The infinity of God does not mean infinity in a mathematical sense, that you can add as much as you want, etc., but rather that the quantifiability and quantity are in fact creaturely categories, the creator God cannot be characterized by them.
The JWs relativize God's transcendence, essentially claiming covertly that God is somehow bounded by a structure He created, specifically time. Think about it: before He created the world, time did not exist, but God did not create the grid of time for Himself so that the clock starts ticking over Him from now on, this only applies to the created world. When talking about time in theology, it's important to logically define the concept of time. The concept of time is nothing more than that time is the measure of change. So the passage of time measures the degree of change, just as a video recording consists of frames. And the Bible says this about God in this regard: "He never changes or casts a shifting shadow." (James 1:17) Now if time is the measure of change, it follows that where/who does not change, time does not apply. For God, every moment of the entire created world condenses into a single moment, a cosmic "now": From God's perspective, the fall of man into sin occurred at the same "time" as the present moment. For God, there is no past, present, and future. For Him, it is always "today", there is no passage of time for Him, He doesn't have time, so from His perspective, it makes no sense to talk about "seeing into the future", because for Him, what is future for us is present for Him.
-
aqwsed12345
https://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/JehovahWatchtower.htm
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/jehovahs-witnesses-and-the-watchtower-1180
http://daenglund.com/the-watchtower-rejects-biblical-authority-regarding-gods-foreknowledge/
The critics of the Watchtower Society, or Jehovah's Witnesses, who are familiar with their theology, are aware of their stranger than strange doctrines (end-time calculations, the resurrected Jesus is actually a recreated Michael, and similar), and we are familiar with the heresies that have occurred in their history (Arianism, millenarianism). However, there are only two doctrines that they likely have invented themselves. The second of these has been addressed by quite a few critics, but the first – although largely derived from the first – has been addressed by relatively few.
1. Anthropomorphic image of God
Although the Scriptures nowhere call the Son either a creature or Michael, they nevertheless profess this, thus belittling Jesus Christ. However, they also degrade the Father, because what they claim about "Jehovah" is a very anthropomorphized, paganic image of God, in which God essentially exists in space and time, shows change, changes his mind, and is taken by surprise.
w92 2/1 p. 9. They write that Jehovah has a huge, dynamic energy reserve (Isaiah 40:26). "At creation, when he created the matter of the universe, he had to use some of this energy." So he did not create from nothing (creatio ex nihilo), as Christians teach, but from his "energy reserve", which are apparently not infinite, but only "huge".
They exist so much in space that they even said that he lives in the Pleiades, and it took "time" for him and his angels to "get here" to Earth if he wanted something. I read somewhere that a child's letter was read at one of their conventions – it was read positively – the child wrote to NASA not to beam radio signals into space because they "disturb" Jehovah. The Pleiades teaching was dropped in 1953, but they still claim that there is literally a certain place in heaven somewhere in space.
They also claim that he exists in time, not in the traditional Christian teaching of unchanging eternity, but in the flow of time. This is absurd because time and space are created realities, and God cannot exist within the limits of created realities. This is related to their teaching that God is not inherently omniscient, but only has a "foresight ABILITY", which he exercises at his discretion.
This is such a mythical pagan image of God, as the Greeks imagined the gods living on Olympus, or as a 5-year-old child imagines God, sitting literally above the clouds in a literal chair, with a big beard, and gets angry if he finds out you ate the chocolate that Mommy forbade. Allegedly, Ottoman soldiers had similar conceptions about Allah, that since he is "up there", he does not see them if they drink alcohol or commit adultery in a covered place.
2.The two-class doctrine of redemption, and the restoration of the Garden of Eden
From the absurd theory of "selective foresight ability" comes the view that the fall of man into sin somehow caught God by surprise, and therefore he came up with redemption as a kind of backup plan, which for them is nothing more than the restoration of the Garden of Eden, because that is what must happen no matter what. Therefore, they inserted into the New World Translation that Jesus was a "corresponding" ransom, so he had to restore only the Adamic sin. In contrast, according to the Scriptures, the plan of redemption was ready before the creation of the world, see Romans 3:25, Ephesians 1:4. The New Testament says nothing about the Watchtower's class distinctions.
