by givecake 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Hello guys,
I was talking to a JW friend recently, and he couldn't quite communicate to me an understanding of the belief about Jesus. I managed to find that JW's believe that Jesus is a god, but not God the Father, is that true? That would mean two living gods right?
Thanks for any clarification.
GC
Jesus is a problem for Jehovahs witnesses. Firstly they believe that he is a god only in the sense that he is divine. Secondly he is parceled off as Michael the archangel and also as a mediator between a very small number of "born again" JWs which they identify as the little flock. Thus they make Jesus' mediatorship inaccessible to the majority of JWs who are told that they are of the great crowd of Revelation headed for paradise earth under the rulership of Jesus. However Jesus has no direct role to play even in the new world as the faithful and discreet slave class have the authority of being his mouthpieice. They tend to make up stuff as they go along, some of it is quite bizarre and doesn't really make sense to outsiders.
But anyway welcome to our discussion forum.
JWs deny the Deity of Christ. Jesus is the firstborn of Creation, to them. He's Michael, the angel. They subscribe to Arianism.
You can listen to a detailed discussion of how the JWs view Jesus, below. (RealPlayer Required)
http://www.waltermartin.com/audio_clips/trinity.ram
http://www.waltermartin.com/audio_clips/trinity2.ram
-LWT
Jehovah's Witnesses believe similar to the early church father Origen that Jesus is a 'second god' (deuteros theos) although they do not use that terminology. Jehovah's Witnesses also believe, along with many Bible commentators, that angels are called 'gods' in certain parts of the Bible. Since Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is the archangel it makes sense that they view Jesus as a god in some sense too.
Here is quite a good defense of the JW belief that Jesus is a god but not God almighty.
http://jehovah.to/exe/general/monotheism.htm
And another on the same theme.
slim I was reading something very interesting the other day about the reformation and how, Luther, among others wanted to stamp out any and everything that was considered natural religion. I think JWs ideas about montheism stem quite a lot from that movement rather than from earlier.
! Wow.. Thanks QL, LWT, and SBF =)
Really useful =) But the belief still doesn't make sense to me..
still listening :P I'll post again.
Well I think there are points of contact for JW Christology from the early church and from the Reformation.
There was a strand in Reformation thought that the Trinity was part of the 'tradition' that must be swept away in order to get at plain Bible truth. In fact Calvin was accused by some his opponents of being sympathetic to Arianism. He strongly rejected those accusations of course, indeed his persecution of Servetus may be viewed as a extreme reaction which was intended in some way to prove his orthodox credentials on the Trinity. Poor old Servetus for getting caught in the crossfire though.
This is an excellent book on Arianism through the ages if you have not come across it before.
But the belief still doesn't make sense to me
Don't fret. The Trinity doesn't "make sense" to the JWs.
The JWs use the Trinity as a litmus test. Namely, they believe that anyone who believes the trinity worships the Devil. Either you reject the Trinity -- or you're not a "real" Christian. There is no wiggle room on this belief.
you are right slim - I did not have a book I'm reading to hand. During the reformation they did mostly turn against natural religion (magic, Mary worship and other gods/godesses) and emphasized the bible but I could not find the connection with monotheism that I thought was there.
Slim, I had a look over those links. Thanks.
Kinda confusing :S The guy doesn't seem to have a flare for writing! I can't say I agree with him.. but then, I'm biased =) Not sure if I agree with Bowman either. Don't really know his arguments. How thoroughly boring :D I guess if I was a more educated man, I could find some interest in it.
