How Did Watchtower Sell the "Jonadab" Concept ?

by Sea Breeze 57 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

Sea Breeze

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5znVUFHqO4Q&ab_channel=BiolaUniversity
@TouchofGrey

Here you go. (see above)
Can you please provide evidence for the miracles that atheists believe in?
Touchofgrey

https://www.gcrr.org/post/minimalfactsapologetics
The minimal facts argument has been debunked also on this forum.
I don't believe in miracles.
Sea Breeze

@TouchofGrey
Would you please present your evidence for the miracles that atheists believe in?

I don't believe in miracles.
Sure you do. YOU are a miracle.
Atheist Miracles:
1. Existence Comes from Non-existence
2. Order Comes from Chaos
3. Life Comes from Non-Life
4. The Personal Comes from the Non-Personal
5. Reason Comes from Non-Reason
6. Morality Comes from Matter
Touchofgrey

https://share.google/MCkv8ig53h5EzHX5q
Can you please define what you mean by the term nothing.
You have yet to provide verified evidence of the empty tomb mythology?
Miracles depend on a supernatural powers so no I don't believe in miracles.
joey jojo

JoeyJoJo,
A man walked out of a tomb, and predicted before he died that he would raise himself from the dead. Then he did it. Nothing has been the same since. He said that if you trust him, you will walk out of your own tomb. It's that simple. Very easy to understand even if you don't believe it.

If you can present anything that can compare to that, let's hear it. Whatcha got?
Ok - ill give it a shot.
A man without a body rolled into a bar - he was only a head.
He said to the bartender - "do you play darts here?" The bartender says "sure".
The man said, "well put a dart in my mouth -feathers first".
"Right - now throw the fucking board at me!"
aqwsed12345

The atheist critique here attempts to dismantle the “minimal facts” argument for the resurrection and to frame both the Christian worldview and classical theism as epistemologically deficient compared to speculative modern physics. Allow me to expose the philosophical confusions, category errors, and selective skepticism underlying this entire polemic, and to demonstrate that the intellectual foundations of classical Christianity remain not only intact, but unshaken by such superficial objections.
Let us begin with the assertion that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” This oft-repeated slogan is, in fact, itself an extraordinary assertion—one never actually demonstrated in philosophy of science, but only ever intoned as a rhetorical device. The standard for evidence, in any rational discipline, must be proportionate to the nature of the claim and the type of reality under consideration. When the subject is an event unique in history—such as the resurrection—the evidence must be adequate, not “extraordinary” in some undefined, self-serving sense. In fact, to demand “extraordinary” evidence for the unique is to betray a category error: by definition, no evidence for a singular event can be “ordinary.” Nor is this how we reason in other fields. The Big Bang, for example, is also a unique, unrepeatable, and wholly extraordinary event, but cosmologists do not demand “extraordinary” evidence in the sense the critic wants; they demand what is rationally sufficient given the phenomena and the available data.
The critique moves on to the “minimal facts” approach, claiming that it is methodologically flawed, subject to selection bias, and, ultimately, unable to bridge the gap between “the disciples believed Jesus rose” and “Jesus actually rose.” Let us be clear: the “minimal facts” method is simply a tactical concession to skeptical standards, demonstrating that even if we use only those facts most widely accepted in critical New Testament scholarship—including the non-Christian and the non-theist—the best explanation of these facts remains the bodily resurrection. If one wishes to dismiss the method as “apologetics,” the burden remains: what better alternative account actually explains the data without itself resorting to ad hoc speculation? It is not enough to intone “psychology” or “legendary accretion” as if such terms themselves did explanatory work. The radical transformation of the disciples, the emergence of Christian faith in the very city where Jesus was executed, the conversion of hostile witnesses such as Paul, and the virtual absence of an early veneration of Jesus’ tomb (which would have immediately short-circuited resurrection claims had the body remained) all demand a coherent account. To simply appeal to “human psychology” or “hallucination” is to collapse into a far more speculative hypothesis—especially when such explanations cannot account for group experiences, empty tomb traditions, and the birth of a resurrection-centered movement in a fiercely monotheistic and skeptical Jewish environment.
The further complaint that “resurrection violates the Standard Model of Particle Physics” reveals a basic misunderstanding of both classical theism and the metaphysical structure of miracles. The Christian claim is not that Jesus rose from the dead by natural causes, but that the Author of nature—who creates ex nihilo and is not bound by secondary causes—has acted in history. The Standard Model itself does not, and cannot, exclude the possibility of supernatural agency any more than the axioms of geometry can exclude the possibility of a painter painting on a canvas. If the Creator exists (and classical theism, especially in its Thomist form, offers the only rationally consistent account of why there is something rather than nothing, why there is order, causality, intelligibility, and finite being at all), then miracles are possible, and their recognition is not “science-defying” but “science-transcending”—an intervention by the Ground of all being, not an internal anomaly within a closed system.
The objection that “the investigation was never conducted and is impossible now” collapses on basic historical epistemology. All ancient history operates on the basis of testimony, textual analysis, and inference from physical and circumstantial evidence. No one today “verifies” the crossing of the Rubicon, yet only the most radical skeptic would say we know nothing of Caesar. Indeed, the documentary evidence for the resurrection, by any reasonable standard, is more abundant, closer to the events, and less subject to legendary embellishment than for most other events in ancient history.
The charge that “the argument is circular” because it presupposes a Christian worldview is patently false. The “minimal facts” approach, again, explicitly brackets confessional commitment and appeals to the standards of secular, critical scholarship. The conclusion—that the resurrection is the best explanation—is reached precisely because alternative naturalistic hypotheses do not account for the facts. To claim circularity is to misunderstand both the argument and the method.
The assertion that “the earliest followers were pre-scientific, uneducated, superstitious ideologues” is, aside from being patronizing and historically dubious, a textbook example of presentism and ad hominem. It is, ironically, a hallmark of dogmatic rationalism to assume that one’s own age is immune to delusion while earlier centuries were mired in gullibility. The apostles and early witnesses, far from being credulous, were in fact deeply resistant to the notion of resurrection (see the reactions of Thomas, the women, and even the apostles themselves to the first reports). The rise of faith in the bodily resurrection was not a product of “wish fulfillment,” but, by all the evidence, an unexpected and thoroughly disruptive event that forced itself upon them.
Turning to the critique of Habermas’ statistics: it is legitimate to call for methodological rigor, but it is simply false to say that there is no significant scholarly consensus on the core facts of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, the origin of the resurrection belief, and the transformation of the disciples. While there may be disagreement about interpretation, the data are robust. The attempt to discredit the entire field by pointing out that many authors are clergy is also hollow: should we dismiss every work on Buddhism written by a Buddhist monk, or every study of quantum physics written by a physicist affiliated with a research institute? What matters is the argument, not the biography.
Moving from historical to metaphysical terrain, your extended citation on the origins of the universe does not, in fact, rescue the atheist from the abyss of the “something from nothing” problem. The speculative cosmologies—whether Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, the multiverse hypothesis, or “quantum vacuum fluctuations”—do not, and cannot, answer the classical metaphysical question of why there is something rather than nothing, or what grounds the actuality of any possible universe. To say that “the quantum vacuum is seething with particles” is, as David Albert rightly observes, not “nothing” but “something.” A quantum field is a metaphysically thick reality, not the absolute non-being classical theism has always intended by “nothing.” To ask why there is a quantum field, or why there is any physical substrate at all, is to leave physics behind and enter the domain of metaphysics. At that point, only a necessary being—Pure Act, Ipsum Esse Subsistens, as Aquinas defined God—can provide a coherent and non-circular account. The cyclical universe, many-worlds interpretation, or any physicalist “eternal substrate” does nothing but push the explanatory burden one step back, never answering why any actuality exists at all.
Finally, the atheistic rejection of miracles and of the resurrection on a priori grounds is simply an expression of metaphysical naturalism—an unargued presupposition, not a demonstrated conclusion. If one has reason to believe in God, then miracles are not only possible, but certain in at least the case of creation itself. The resurrection stands or falls on the best explanation of the historical data. The Christian does not fear open inquiry or rigorous standards; rather, it is the reductionist, the metaphysical naturalist, who clings dogmatically to a closed universe, unable or unwilling to ask the deeper question—why does anything exist, why does order obtain, and why is there a universe at all?
The Thomistic tradition is not an exercise in fideistic dogma, but the apex of reason seeking its ultimate ground. If you dismiss the arguments for God, do so not by caricature or by shifting the standards of evidence so that only your own worldview can win by default, but by offering a rival metaphysic that can actually explain existence itself, and the emergence of rational beings who—like you—are so mysteriously haunted by the question of truth, order, and finality. Until then, the classical theist, and the Catholic in particular, remains serenely confident that faith and reason, far from being enemies, together disclose the deepest structure of reality.
aqwsed12345

Thomist Critique of the Watchtower’s Diminished God: Why “Spirit” Is Not “Energy” and Jehovah Is Not the True God
One of the most fundamental errors in the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses is their profoundly anthropomorphic and essentially pagan concept of God, a view which stands in direct contradiction to the entire tradition of classical theism—especially as developed by St. Thomas Aquinas. A particular manifestation of this error is their conflation of “spirit” (spiritus) and “energy,” reducing the immaterial nature of God to a kind of hyper-refined “energy” or “spiritual matter.” This mistake is not only philosophically untenable, but theologically disastrous, undermining the very foundation of Christian monotheism and ultimately leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses with a god who is neither infinite, nor eternal, nor even truly divine.
I. The Physics of “Matter and Energy” vs. the Philosophy of “Spirit”
In modern physics, “matter and energy” are, in a real sense, interchangeable—Einstein’s famous E=mc²—and both are quantifiable, measurable, and subject to the laws of the created universe. Everything that can be measured, whether as “matter” or “energy,” is part of the finite, contingent, temporal order. In contrast, classical Christian philosophy, and especially Thomism, recognizes a sharp distinction between the entire created order (which includes not just “matter,” but also anything that is measurable or changeable, including “energy”) and the purely spiritual, which is absolutely and essentially immaterial, unquantifiable, and unconfined by space or time.
To call God “Spirit” (spiritus) in the biblical and philosophical sense is not to say that He is an “energy-being” or a kind of “cosmic force,” as in science fiction or as in the Watchtower’s doctrine. Rather, to be “spirit” is to be completely above and beyond all categories of created existence, whether material or energetic, extended or non-extended, visible or invisible. Spirit is the very opposite of anything measurable, divisible, or subject to change.
In Thomistic metaphysics, matter (in the broadest sense) is that which possesses potentiality; it is “the principle of potency,” always capable of being otherwise. Even the most subtle forms of energy are, in this sense, “material,” since they can change, move, be measured, or be present here and not there. But spirit—as God is spirit—is the principle of actuality, pure act (actus purus), in whom there is no potentiality at all, and therefore no change, division, limitation, or quantification. God is not a “super-energy” being; He is, as St. Thomas says, ipsum esse subsistens—the very act of “to be” itself, subsisting by His own necessity.
II. The Watchtower’s Anthropomorphic and Pagan God
The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ doctrine of God is strikingly limited and materialistic. Their official publications and leaders have repeatedly described “Jehovah” as possessing a “spirit body,” residing in a particular location (even assigning Him a place among the Pleiades, at one point in their history!), and operating within the constraints of space and time. Even when the Pleiades myth was abandoned, the underlying error remained: God is described as being “in heaven,” as an “individual” who cannot be everywhere at once, and who must, if He wishes to act or communicate, send messengers across the cosmos, subject to travel time. This is not the transcendent, omnipresent God of Christianity, but a cosmic king or demiurge—a pagan deity with superhuman powers, yet fundamentally one of “the things that are,” a being among beings.
This error is compounded by the Witnesses’ materialistic account of creation. Rather than holding to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo—that God creates the world out of nothing, simply by His will—they posit that Jehovah utilized a portion of His “dynamic energy reserves” to produce the universe. This would mean that God is not absolutely infinite, but is limited by the quantity of His “energy.” This is the cosmology of myth and science fiction, not Christian metaphysics.
III. The Watchtower God Is Not Immutable, Eternal, or Omniscient
The Witnesses further ascribe temporality and mutability to God. Jehovah is not “eternal” in the classical sense (outside of time), but is simply “everlasting”—subject to temporal sequence, able to “learn” new things, to be surprised, to change His mind, and even to forget or erase things from His memory. Their god can choose not to know certain things, and only exercises his foreknowledge “selectively,” supposedly to allow human freedom. But this, again, is to make God finite and contingent—one being among others, subject to time, change, and ignorance.
The metaphysical consequences of this are fatal to any claim of true divinity. A being who is spatial, temporal, mutable, and contingent is not the necessary foundation of all that exists, but is rather a product of the universe. Such a “god” cannot be the Creator in any meaningful sense, since he is as dependent on space, time, and causal relations as are all creatures. As Thomists have always argued, the necessary being—the true God—must be utterly transcendent, without potentiality, uncaused, simple (without composition or division), and infinite in all perfections.
IV. The True Christian Doctrine: God as Pure Act, Spirit, and Necessary Being
Classical theism, and especially Thomistic philosophy, insists that God is not a being among beings, nor even the “highest” being in the universe. He is Being itself—ipsum esse subsistens—in whom essence and existence are identical. God is not “a spirit” in the sense of a subtle substance, nor an “energy” among other energies, but Spirit in the sense of absolute actuality, subsisting independently, and completely transcending the created order.
God’s infinity is not a matter of extension, but of perfection—He is unlimited because He is pure act, without any unrealized potential. His omnipresence is not a spatial diffusion, but the metaphysical fact that all things exist only by participation in His sustaining act of being. His omniscience is not a process of “learning” or “receiving updates” from angels, but is the eternal, simultaneous vision of all things, past, present, and future, in Himself.
The doctrine of divine simplicity means that God is not composed of parts (as the Witnesses imagine, with a “body” and “mind” and “energy”), nor of attributes “added on” to a substance. All that is in God is God; His knowledge, power, will, and presence are one and the same reality.
V. The Destructive Consequences of a Diminished God
The Watchtower’s conception of God is thus not merely defective, but idolatrous. It reduces the Creator to a cosmic superman, “spiritual” only in the sense of being “energetic” or “invisible,” but still subject to the limitations of created reality. This is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—nor the God of Jesus Christ and the apostles—but the shadow of a god, unworthy of worship or ultimate trust.
Moreover, as many critics have observed (see Magnani, The Heavenly Weatherman), such a god cannot even sustain the Witnesses’ own theology. If God can “choose not to know,” or can make mistakes, or needs to rely on messengers for information, then His promises are no longer absolutely trustworthy, and His providence becomes little more than educated guesswork. The entire structure of revelation, prophecy, and salvation collapses into uncertainty and subjectivity. It is no wonder that this doctrine breeds anxiety, legalism, and an obsession with performance among Jehovah’s Witnesses; their “Jehovah” is not the loving Father who knows and orders all things for the good of those who love Him, but a distant and unpredictable power.
VI. Conclusion: Thomist Theism or Pagan Animism?
In conclusion, the Watchtower’s theology must be rejected as a form of philosophical and theological regression. By collapsing “spirit” into “energy,” and God into a powerful being located within the universe, they have abandoned the biblical and classical doctrine of God for a mixture of pagan myth and modern rationalist fantasy. The true God is not an “energy-being,” nor is He a cosmic weather forecaster, nor a superhuman on a distant throne. He is the one, infinite, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient Spirit—the necessary foundation of all reality, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).
To the modern mind, shaped by materialist assumptions and science fiction tropes, the distinction may seem subtle, but it is in truth the difference between true monotheism and sophisticated idolatry. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, unless God is pure act, infinite, eternal, and simple, He is not God at all, but a creature—subject to the very limitations He is supposed to transcend.
The classical Christian vision of God alone does justice to the divine transcendence and immanence, the mystery of creation, and the hope of salvation. All lesser conceptions—such as that of the Watchtower—must be left behind as inadequate for the human heart, mind, and soul.
Sea Breeze

aqwsed nails it:

The critique moves on to the “minimal facts” approach, claiming that it is methodologically flawed, subject to selection bias, and, ultimately, unable to bridge the gap between “the disciples believed Jesus rose” and “Jesus actually rose.”
Let us be clear: the “minimal facts” method is simply a tactical concession to skeptical standards, demonstrating that even if we use only those facts most widely accepted in critical New Testament scholarship—including the non-Christian and the non-theist—the best explanation of these facts remains the bodily resurrection.
If one wishes to dismiss the method as “apologetics,” the burden remains: what better alternative account actually explains the data without itself resorting to ad hoc speculation? It is not enough to intone “psychology” or “legendary accretion” as if such terms themselves did explanatory work.
The radical transformation of the disciples, the emergence of Christian faith in the very city where Jesus was executed, the conversion of hostile witnesses such as Paul, and the virtual absence of an early veneration of Jesus’ tomb (which would have immediately short-circuited resurrection claims had the body remained) all demand a coherent account.
To simply appeal to “human psychology” or “hallucination” is to collapse into a far more speculative hypothesis—especially when such explanations cannot account for group experiences, empty tomb traditions, and the birth of a resurrection-centered movement in a fiercely monotheistic and skeptical Jewish environment.

Here is a list of the minimum facts:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
- Multiple and varied attestation drastically increases likelihood of event (Tacitus, Josephus, Paul, Gospels - over a dozen in total)
2. He was buried.
- Everyone was sure he was dead.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
- Means they didn't make up a story
4. The tomb was empty.
- Had it not been, it would have likely been memorialized. It was recognized that it could not hold him as was therefore of little importance.
5.The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus.
- A most important proof and very difficult to explain away.
6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.
- If the "leader" was dead, doubters should increase not decrease.
7. The resurrection was the central message.
- Scholars now rate creeds with this belief message to the same year as the crucifixion.
8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
- Where it would be very easy to "fact check" if it wasn't true.
9. The Church was born and grew.
- The church was born from orthodox Jews who are not known to be very susceptible to change.
10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.
- The Sabbath had been the holiest day of the week to Jews for over 14 centuries. All the sudden, Sunday was the holiest day of the week, why?
11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus
- James was a family skeptic
12. Paul was converted to the faith
- Paul was a skeptic and staunch persecutor of Jewish believers. This is strong enemy attestation.

@ Touch of Grey,
So, there you go. Explain these facts away if you can. (Same for you JoeyJoJo)

After that, please provide support for the Atheist presuppositions (miracles) if you can. Then, let's compare the data and see which is more likely. Let's get this settled.

Which list is easier to believe?
Atheist Miracles:
1. Existence Comes from Non-existence
2. Order Comes from Chaos
3. Life Comes from Non-Life
4. The Personal Comes from the Non-Personal
5. Reason Comes from Non-Reason
6. Morality Comes from Matter
Touchofgrey

https://share.google/yYawxxRNmKlVor534
Sea breeze
The definition of a fact is a thing that is known or proved to be true. You have not done that. None of those 12 points are facts they have been debunked on this forum before, and by biblical scholars with PhDs in biblical studies and have published peer reviewed articles and books on the subject.
Atheist don't believe in miracles so please stop making statements that they do.
Regarding the 6 points you have raised I don't have a PhD in any of these subjects so I am not qualified to give answers to those points that you have raised so if you are sincere and are really looking for answers, the best thing you can do is go to a library and read books on these subjects by people who have spent years studying and have a PhD in each particular field. Or you can find information on these things on YouTube presented by people with PhDs.
Sea Breeze

@TouchofGrey
These 12 facts are agreed to by most scholars who publish in the area of 1st century Christianity. This list is a concession to the harshest of skeptics proving that even if we only use the bible books and sources they except, which aren't many, a person can arrive at this minimum list. It is strong evidence.

By contrast, can you provide any examples that would lead you to believe atheist miracles?
Atheist Miracles:
1. Existence Comes from Non-existence
2. Order Comes from Chaos
3. Life Comes from Non-Life
4. The Personal Comes from the Non-Personal
5. Reason Comes from Non-Reason
6. Morality Comes from Matter
I am not qualified to give answers to those points that you have raised.

Since you choose to present ZERO evidence for your worldview, isn't it possible that the same taking snake that deceived our first mother has deceived you as well?

How Did Watchtower Sell the "Jonadab" Concept ?

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