The Watchtower concept of “paradise” is actually not of their own invention. It is, however, a perfect demonstration of what happens when you have only half the information at your fingertips and even that is being taught by those uneducated in religious things.
As I state in a lot of my answers, what I’m about to say shouldn’t be construed as reflecting my current personal convictions, but it is factual. The paradise on earth hope IS NOT unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is one of the foundational beliefs of Christianity that precedes the Bible, and is found in both the Apostle and Nicene Creed—both rejected by the Governing Body and those that adhere to their teachings.
Differences notwithstanding, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants (including most Evangelistic Fundamentalists) believe that God will make the earth a paradise and that humankind will enjoy life upon it for age upon age into eternity. The only difference between what the Witnesses teach and this piece of eschatology is that in Christianity it is a sort of “heaven on earth” situation, and it is enjoyed by all Christians including God himself. —Revelation 21:3.
What Christendom Has Taught Since the Beginning
The basics are that there will be an end to time itself. It, as a dimension, will come to a halt, and history as we understand it, will be interrupted. At this point all who are dead and in heaven or hell will be raised in supernatural (or, as the NWT puts it “spiritual”) bodies. This is what Christians call the “resurrection of the just and unjust” or “righteous and unrighteous.” In Christianity’s copy of the dictionary, resurrection refers to the raising of the corporeal body to life. Souls that enter heaven and hell after the death of a person have yet to be resurrected (the non-corporeal spirit like angels cannot be “resurrected,” for example) unlike in the Watchtower’s “version” of trusty ole Webster’s.
Now in a body like Christ, the final judgment occurs. Afterward in this new and powerfully incorruptible physical form, history begins anew. The “new heavens and new earth” begin with God coming to “dwell WITH mankind,” and not the other way around. More than this, however, Christianity has little to add for nothing more exists in either Apostolic Tradition or Scripture.
True, many find the paradise that the Witnesses draw up as unsatisfactory for who doesn’t want to see their Maker face-to-face, or live as something more wonderful than in a mere perfectly healthy human body?
‘Don't Engage in Higher Education Lest Ye Learn Something From It!’
I’m not going into detail about Hell or Purgatory or limbo or anything like that—those are related and have answers, but that’s not the point of this comment.
Because there is no one educated in religious history connected with the Watchtower (or because there is a definite prejudice to reject anything that might make the Witnesses less “different” and thus eat away at their feelings of triumphalism and solidarity) this never gets taught to the Witnesses.
Few of us knew our religions (or previous convictions if they weren't religious ones) very well before we became JWs. We might think we did, even have been brainwashed by the Witnesses to believe that our lack of understanding of our formal ways of life was an above-average understanding (it is, after all, a religious system that strokes heavily the ego), but as many of us who have been out can firmly attest, if we had known more and been on guard more we might never have been sucked in by the constant scarecrow-reasoning “magic act” that the Governing Body has been putting on for over 100 years—the hat is old and worn and the rabbit is so dead it is stiffer than rock.
That is not a very settling thing to live with. I didn’t believe it at first. Then 10 years later I realized it, and now almost 20 years later I have come to grips of the truth that I practically knew nothing at all—so of course I was perfect prey for them! They don’t really make much headway with theologians and scholars, with scientists and philosophers, historians and linguists, do they? But if they really knew these subjects as they claimed they did, wouldn’t they have these types just busting over the tops of the Kingdom Halls?
So if we missed this teaching the first time around, don't be too upset. It plays to their advantage that some don't know these things even now. Why else would they forbid higher education (at least look down on it) if they weren't afraid of what people might really come to learn?
It’s not a unique teaching of theirs as they claim. The resurrection of the body is one of the last things recorded in both the creeds I mentioned (which are usually recited by most Christians each Sunday in various denomination settings). My father, who was Pentecostal, had Pentecostal books and artistic works that described the resurrection and paradise earth. My mother’s copy of the Catholic catechism has a whole section about it. I remember even telling the one I studied with before entering the “Watchtower compound” this, much to no avail (telling Witnesses things like this gets that ‘smiling-dismissal’ result like we don’t know what we are talking about because it can’t be true because nothing that goes against Watchtower teaching is true).
2,000 years old—oft repeated—sometimes not remembered, but nonetheless official, the doctrine of life on a renewed earth of paradise is a great way to show how uneducated the Witness leadership is. Crack not open the catechisms of the great faiths for you just might learn something.
But who wants to learn when you got all the truth you need anyway. There’s no room in the belly for food even when it’s full of junk.
