(which I suppose is due to the tension between the popular affirmation that "God is a person" and the theological formulation that "God is three persons," which calls for questioning the meaning of "person") this may explain, in part, the confusion in WT argumentation.
Yes. Glad you brought this up. Skip if you don't like to read.
The three spiritual Persons or hypostases of the triune God are not to be confused with material human beings, persons like you or I.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses erroneously think of “Person” as an individual self-conscious human person (Encyclopedia of Religion, 57), and we humans don’t engage in the kind of conduct the three Persons of the Trinity do, such as inner dialogue where people combined within a human person speak to each other. Or, they argue that the Holy Spirit cannot be a person because it appeared as a dove or flames of fire, never in the form of a human. And, it seems irrational to them that one such person can inhabit another person, so the Holy Person cannot be a person (Should You Believe, Chapter 6). They write:
On one occasion the holy spirit appeared as a dove. On another occasion it appeared as tongues of fire - never as a person. (Should You Believe, Chapter 8).
[R]egarding Samson, Judges 14:6 relates: “The spirit of Yahweh seized on him and though he had no weapon in his hand he tore the lion in pieces.” (JB) Did a divine person actually enter or seize Samson, manipulating his body to do what he did? No, it was really “the power of the LORD [that] made Samson strong. (TEV) (Should You Believe, Chapter 6) (emphasis added).
A comparison of Bible texts that refer to the holy spirit shows that it is spoken of as ‘filling’ people; they can be ‘baptized’ with it; and they can be “anointed” with it … None of these expressions would be appropriate if the holy spirit were a person. (Reasoning from the Scriptures [New York, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985], 380) (Reasoning)
First, the Jehovah's Witnesses fail to recognize that we are dealing with spirit, not flesh (the Holy Spirit is, after all, spirit), and the Bible is replete with examples of spirit persons entering individuals such as the spirit person Satan who entered Judas (Luke 22:3), and spirit demons who routinely inhabit people (Matthew 8:29-31). Furthermore, Jehovah is a spirit person and is the Holy Spirit who dwells in the Christian believer (2 Corinthians 3:17, 18 NWT), as does Christ (Romans 8:9-11; see also John 4:24). The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ objections in this regard are groundless.
And simply because the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove or tongues of fire and not a human person does not mean He is not a spirit person. After all, the Almighty is a spirit person though invisible (Colossians 1:15). Angels are spirit persons who took human form, but their mere appearance as humans does not mean they are angels, or that angels who never took human form are not spirit (Genesis 18).
Second, “Person” should be regarded as a contemporary misnomer, an imperfect expression because it connotes a separate rational and moral individual. It is a word erroneously derived from the Latin persona and misapplied in the English modern era, as the Jehovah's Witnesses have done.
Persona: A Latin word regularly used to refer to the three ‘persons’ of the Trinity and to the one ‘person’ of Christ. It therefore fulfills the role in Latin theology performed by hypostasis in Greek. The natural translation into ‘person’ in English is misleading. Persona originally meant a ‘mask’ and then a ‘role.’ It is used to indicate an individual in his or her external presentation, and does not convey the idea of self-consciousness or the internal psychological content suggested by the English word ‘person’ with its close link to the word ‘personality.’ (Oxford, 1210)
Third, as mentioned above, the hypostatic “Person” refers to a form in which the divine essence exists, not a created human, but three personal self-distinctions (The New Bible Dictionary [Grand Rapids, Michigan, W. M. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962], 1300) (New Bible Dictionary).
In most formularies the doctrine is stated by saying that God is one in His essential being, but that in this being there are three Persons, yet so as not to form separate and distinct individuals. They are three modes or forms in which the divine essence exists. ‘Person’ is, however, an imperfect expression of the truth in as much as the term denotes to us a separate rational and moral individual. But in the being of God there are not three individuals, but only three personal self-distinctions within the one divine essence. (New Bible Dictionary, 1299, 1300)
Fourth, while each Person is self-conscious, He never acts independently.
[P]ersonality in man implies independence of will, actions, and feelings, leading to behavior peculiar to the person. This cannot be thought of in connection with the Trinity; each Person is self-conscious and self-directing, yet never acting independently or in opposition. (ibid.)
Fifth, The Jehovah’s Witnesses argue,“ Thousands of times throughout the Bible, God is spoken of as one person. When he speaks, it is as one undivided individual…. Why would all the God-inspired Bible writers speak of God as one person if he were actually three persons? … What purpose would that serve except to mislead people?” (Should You Believe, Chapter 6).
This line of argument illustrates their confusion. The triune God is not split into three. He is one undivided individual as just mentioned. His diversity manifests itself in operations and characteristics:
When we say that God is a unity we mean that though God is in Himself a threefold centre of life, His life is not split into three. He is one in essence, in personality, and in will. When we say that God is a Trinity in unity we mean that there is unity in diversity, and that diversity manifests itself in Persons, in characteristics, and in operations. (New Bible Dictionary, 1299, 1300)
We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity,” (Catholic Catechism, 75). “[T]he Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.” Athanasian Creed; DS 75; ND16)” (Catholic Catechism, 79).
Sixth, there is subordination of relation and order among the three Persons, but not in nature:
Moreover, the subsistence and operations of the three Persons are marked by a certain order involving a certain subordination in relation, though not in nature. The Father as the fount of deity is First: He is said to originate. The Son, eternally begotten of the Father, is Second: he is said to reveal. The Spirit, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, is Third: He is said to execute.
While this does not suggest priority in time or in dignity, since all three Persons are divine and eternal, it does suggest an order of precedence in operation and revelation. Thus we can say that creation is from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. (New Bible Dictionary, 1299, 1300)
Seventh, the three Persons are permanent features of God’s three distinct manners of His activity:
Trinitarian theology is par excellence the theology of relationship. Its fundamental principle is that God, who is self-communication and self-giving love for us, is from all eternity love perfectly given and received. The traditional formula “God is three persons in one nature” compactly expresses that there are permanent features of God’s eternal being (the three persons) that are the ontological precondition for the three distinct manners of God’s tripersonal activity in the world (as Father, Son and Spirit). (Encyclopedia of Religion, 55)
Eighth, each Person has the divine nature, but each has it differently:
Whatever is other, distinct, plural, personal, and proper in the Godhead is exclusively a matter of relationship. Father, Son and Spirit do not differ as God, but in the way each is God with respect to the others. Each has and is the divine nature, but each has it differently: the Father from Himself, the Son from the Father, the Spirit from both the Father and the Son. God, then, is one in substance, three in Person, and what is significant about this distinction, what makes it non-contradictory, is that what is personal in the Godhead is not something absolute, but something purely relative, (Council of Florence, 1442). (Catholic Encyclopedia, 303)
Ninth, the doctrine also holds that the divine Persons exist in their relationships to one another:
The three divine Persons exist in their particular, unique natures as Father, Son and Spirit in their relationships to one another, and are determined through these relationships. It is in these relationships that they are Persons. Being a person in this respect means existing-in-relationship. (Trinity and the Kingdom, 172)
[T]he three divine Persons possess the same individual, indivisible and one divine nature, but they possess it in varying ways. The Father possesses it of himself; the Son and the Spirit have it from the Father (ibid., 172). The Trinitarian Persons subsist in the common divine nature; they exist in their relations to one another. (ibid., 173)
“A divine Person is a non-interchangeable existence of the divine nature.” By the word ‘existence’ - existential - [he] meant: existence, in the light of another” (ibid., 173).