I lurk mostly. I enjoy reading the posts. I shake my head at some, nod with others and have endless sympathy for many posters. My interest tends toward history. If you've read my previous posts you know this. I recommended the new book on Nelson Barbour. You should read it. It's fun to see straight history as told by a Witnesses with little toleration for either Watchtower or anti-Watchtower nonsense.
I follow the author's blog. It's lain fallow for a while, but I see he's been posting his research again. (I wish he'd learn how to formant things!) His newest post consists of rough draft of material on the first Watchtower tracts. I see that he intends much more with this than he's posted thus far. What struck my interest is that he probes into the background of Russell's belief system, and he doesn't spare Russell when he's being idiotic. Of course some of us will ask, "When was he not being a bit idiotic." But we won't argue that point now.
In the current post he delves into Russell's belief that the existence of evil was essential. He traces it to an English clergyman from whom Russell borrowed with out credit or reference. While analyzing one of the early Bible Student Tracts and the influences behind it, he writes:
"Neither Russell nor Warleigh relied on Biblical proof for any of this. Instead they relied on a chain of inferences, some of them quite flawed. Warleigh’s definition of pity was especially flawed, and both Russell and he limited the scope of Adam’s perfect intellect so that they presupposed a need for experiential learning. Apparently neither of them thought Adam or Eve capable of abstract reason.
Russell liked what he read of Warleigh’s work and adapted it uncritically. Warleigh wrote: “Man was the masterpiece of all creation” This viewpoint may be more understandable in him because he was Trinitarian and saw Jesus as uncreated, a part of the ‘godhead.” Still, it is hared to forgive him this bit of nonsense in the light of the Psalm that has man a little less than angels. Russell borrowed this though wholesale, writing that man was “the masterpiece of God’s workmanship.” At least Russell had the good sense to limit that status to man’s state among earthly creatures. Even then the though implies that the rest of God’s earthly creation was only practice and not as well formed.
This is a history and not a theology text, and I will not discuss the theological merit of these ideas at length. The two most obvious problems were that Warleigh and Russell after him relied on “reason” and not scripture. They denied that their scheme made God the author of sin, but if He saw it as “necessary” so man could be taught “good,” planned for it, made it inevitable – who else was?
This belief undercut his more thought-out view of Atonement and Reconciliation, though it was scant few of his opponents that saw the flaw. Many of them shared his admiration for Warleigh. Most of this doctrine was abandoned by Jehovah’s Witnesses under J. F. Rutherford. Many Bible Students continue to believe it, though without any understanding of its roots."
In these few tame and scholarly words, this Witness writer does more to expose Russell as the theological bumbler he was than almost any of the sensationalist material that floats around on the web. I love this! Dry history? Yes, I suppose. But such gems hidden in this research!
Visit the blog. Wade through the history and look for the gems! http://truthhistory.blogspot.com/
And I recommend his book too: Nelson Barbour: The Millennium's Forgotten Prophet. (lulu.com)