Blotty
Wondering what could be the cause of the fact that handling, listening and interpreting longer texts could possibly be indicative of ADHD (or the uncluttered writing style - answering your comments takes almost as much time as figuring out what the factual statement is -, and non-standard grammar for dyslexia), it is not a personal attack, since these conditions are not moral categories, the people involved are not responsible for them.
"Jesus isnt said to be created or "come into being" so he never was shall I list the instances of things that arent stated in the bible?" - You can compile a list of them, but this is only a problem for such denominations that - in principle or in fact - stand on the principle of 'sola Scriptura' (Scripture alone), such as the Watchtower Society. This is a serious problem for them, if the Bible does not state one of their most important doctrines.
No matter what your sources claim (they are not scholars, nor linguists, but WTS apologists), you can check in any grammar book that the Greek copula (eimi, "to be") does not have an aorist form, so the verb γίγνομαι (gígnomai, "to come into being", "to become") was used for this. Consequently, "en archē ēn ho Logos" (John 1:1a) is not aorist, but simply imperfect indicative.
" The combination of "beginning" and "was" doesnt always equate to "eternity", actaully never does.." - Since this is the only place in all of Scripture where this phrase ("In the beginning was X...") occurs, especially in such a solemn context as in the Prologue of one of the Gospels, you can't go anywhere else to understand its meaning. If "in the beginning" refers to Genesis 1:1, then it is understood in the sense of 'bereshith' found there, which denotes "the beginning" in absolute sense, the creation of the world. John says that the Logos already "was", thus existed then. And he continues in verse 3 "apart from him nothing was made that has been made", so John does not classify the Logos among the things that "that has been made", in fact he explicitly separates and distinguishes them from them. Also: the Watchtower forgot to put the word "other" in the NWT here as well ;-)
It is not clear why other persons should be declared "only-begotten" and "firstborn" etc. in other contexts, if according to the Holy Scriptures this title belongs only to the Son, also according to the Watchtower. Anyway, "only-begotten" (monogenes, μονογενής) has two primary definitions, "pertaining to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship" and "pertaining to being the only one of its kind or class, unique in kind". [Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BAGD, 3rd Edition)] Its Greek meaning is often applied to mean "one of a kind, one and only" (LSJ Dictionary Entry).
You say that "the language I use" is "Greek philosophy", well that's enough for me to reject, that's just the Watchtower's stupid rant against anything more sophisticated reasoning, anyway according to my belief "the philosophy" is usually not some satanic horrible thing in itself that has to be feared. According to Catholic Teaching, "faith seeks understanding, reason seeks faith" ("fides quaerens intellectum..."), and this fideist-fundamentalist-bibilistic approach is anything but a Christian requirement.
"There are also signs of a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God. One currently widespread symptom of this fideistic tendency is a “biblicism” which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scripture the sole criterion of truth." (John Paul II - Fides et Ratio)
Chapter 1 of the Epistle to the Hebrews clearly distinguishes the Son from "all the angels" (v14: "Are not all angels ministering spirits ...?"), the translators of your denomination must have forgotten to insert their favorite word "other" here as well ;-)
I have given several examples where we can see that the Holy Scriptures do call creatures "creatures", so it knows the category it classifies as creatures. But where does he list the Son among them? He just contrasts the only-begotten of the Father with all the creatures, who were all "made by/through him".
""The genitive does not at all mean that he is included" - again show me an instance where this is not the case..." - Why should I do such a thing for it to be like this, if the Son is unique, why should the Scriptures declare similar things about anyone else. The phrase "something of something" does not at all mean "belonging to a category" in any language (not even in English), in itself it just expresses a kind of relation. What that relation is, is expressed by the specific statement and the broader context.
It is not difficult to understand what the "Firstborn of the whole creation" means. It is enough to see what the title "Firstborn" title means: preeminent, distinguished heir, ruler, etc., therefore it's a lordly title, is also related to the Davidic-Messianic title - even according to the Watchtower, cf. Aid to Bible Understanding p. 583-584.
What kind of relationship this "Firstborn" has with "the whole creation" mentioned after it, well, that it is a part of it, does not follow at all from the linguistic meaning of this term, nor from a narrower or broader context. Once "Firstborn" is a lordly title, and "the whole creation" (which by definition is subject to this ruling Firstborn - also according to the WTS) mentioned mentioned after, then it is much more reasonable that this person enjoys the status of the "Firstborn" over "the whole creation" rather than being classified as a part of it. The whole context is a passage glorifying the Son, it is completely foreign if you rewrite the second half of Col 1:15 to say that he is "the first created being", then it would become completely meaningless. Is he "the first created being, BECAUSE all [other things was created in him"? What?
The funniest thing is that this is the standard interpretation of these words ("the firstborn of all creation"), that this means that the Son is "the Firstborn", therefore the Lord, the Ruler of the whole creation, otherwise it is completely compatible with the theology of the Watchtower too, but they still cannot admit it, they have to stick to it until they break the nails, because they NEED this "one-liner" "proof" text, if the Scriptures do not declare the Son to be a creature anywhere.
""any more than "Lord of worlds" means that the Lord is also a world himself, or "the king of the country" means that the king is also a country himself." - no but they are part of the "world" they are king of and the king is part of the country he is king over - however king and lord are superior titles so they are above what they are connected too." - Wrong. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, for example, the king was not considered part of the nation over which he ruled. The king is not part of the nation, but a supranational agent. And with that logic, if God is the Lord of the created world, then he is also a creature, since according to you the classification as being "part of" always follows from the genitive.
"Christ is a highly exalted divine being - yes, but never said to be God in the NT" - There are no demigods, "gods" (only the so-called "false gods" of the pagans) in the New Testament, and in fact, the New Testament calls the Son "THEOS" in many places, the Watchtower does not dispute this either, they only play tricks with the initial letter, even though in the time of the apostles there was no distinction between lowercase and uppercase letters, the Son just is declared the same initials "THEOS" as the Father.
This is where the Watchtower brings in the completely baseless argument that if the Holy Scriptures say "THEOS" without the article ("HO", "the"), it actually means only a demigod, and only the form provided with the article ("HO THEOS") means full deity. In addition to being a completely artificial construction, Matthew 1:23 and John 20:28 use "HO THEOS" in relation to Jesus. In the case of the latter, the text specifically indicates that apostle Thomas said this to Jesus (αὐτῷ, "to him", cf. Kingdom Interlinear Translation), who, according to the testimony of the next verse, interpreted these words of Thomas as a confession of faith.
""The Son is eternally begotten, not made or created" - you will have to prove that with scriptural references..." - I've already done.
On the one hand, the burden of proof is on you, thus, being founded only in 1879, claiming that we were all wrong for two thousand years, well, the minimum is that you should prove your claim, along with all the other claims, including whether there is such a prophecy in the NT, that "true Christianity" will disappear for 1800 years, and then Russell will "restore" it. The New Testament verses used by Jehovah's Witnesses to allegedly predict the alleged "great apostasy" do not claim that those specific false teachers will completely take over the Church to the extent that they will completely erase the "original" teaching without anyone noticing, and that it will then need to be recreated from scratch in 1879. Rather, they simply say that "there will be some false teachers" whom the apostles caution against, but there is no mention of the complete deterioration of the Church. Moreover, if they were going to take over power anyway, why caution against them? The inspired apostles should have known that everything would be in vain since the first-century Church was destined to burst like a soap bubble within a few decades. Therefore, there was actually no purpose in establishing local congregations or the entire existence of the first-century Christian community, as the only goal was for the New Testament writings to be written so that Russell could calculate 1914 from the Scriptures 1800 years later.
However, the argument also refers to the positive promises that the true Church will not disappear ever, that the Holy Spirit will always be with it, that "the gates of hell will not prevail against it," and so on. Consequently, according to the Scriptures, only a Church that has continuously and visibly existed since the time of the apostles, with historical continuity, can be true. The later arrival of "gurus" and self-proclaimed "pastor" does not hold any weight according to the Scriptures.
It is very easy to prove the statement, the New Testament declares countless times that the Son is "begotten" (gennao), "born" (tikto) of the Father, but that he was "created" (ktizo), or "made" (poio), precisely nowhere. The Scriptures clearly state that the Son receives his existence from the Father in a qualitatively different way than the creatures. If you claim that this strict terminological difference means nothing, then the burden of proof is on you.
"being eternally begotten makes no sense (by definition in general)" - Why wouldn't it make sense? It is very reasonable: temporality and temporal succession is a character to the created world, only the processes within the created world are characterized by temporality, there is no change in God, there is no time, no temporality in God, so what God doesn't do in relation to the created, world is his eternal act. This is what the Epistle to the Hebrews also says, that the Father begot the Son "today", but in God the "today" is the eternity.
""You should just answer the rhetorical question YHWH God asks in Isaiah 44:24" - ok I will. Job 38:5-8 The angels were with YHWH" - ... but it doesn't say that they participated in the creation, on the contrary, Job 9:8 declares that God "alone" created.
"now to the actaul context of Isaiah (you isolate that scripture from its immediate context)" - The context does not flatten the meaning of what Isaiah 44:24 states, that is, that YHWH God created "alone", and this "alone" excludes not only false gods (who actually don't exist), but everything and everyone else. So there is no room left for a secondary co-creator demigod-archangel participating in creation, where the Watchtower tries to put the Son. Thus, if the Scriptures state that the Son also participated in creation, then it also follows from Isaiah 44:24 that then the Son is YHWH God, just like the Father. If YHWH God creates actually "through" and "in" someone else, who is not YHWH God, then he does not create "alone".
"So in some sense this is strictly between God and the man made idols, it does not exclude anyone from being with God at all as Job 38:7 proves outright." - This verse doesn't excludes that they may have been present with him, but it excludes that anyone other than YHWH God participated in the creation, and the New Testament expressly states this about the Son, moreover, on numerous occasions. Neh 9:6, Isa 45:12, 48:13, Psalm 95:5-6 also say the same thing. Consequently, all persons of whom creation is claimed in Scripture must be God. Hebrews 3:4 says the same thing.
The New Testament doesn't restricts the description of the Son's participation in the creation to the preposition "dia" (=by/through Him) in John 1:3, but also with "en" (=in Him) in Colossians 1:16, and Hebrews 1:10 attributes the creation of the world to the Son in the most explicit way possible. (On the latter, even the Watchtower admits that this is an Old Testament quote originally referring to "Jehovah" applied here to the Son). If you combine these statements with all the Old Testament statements above that only YHWH God created "alone", nothing else comes out than that the Son is just as much YHWH God as the Father.
"Wisdom was assosiated with Christ" - Association and typology is not identification. For example, Jesus, as a messianic king, also draws a typology with David, yet we do not apply the statement about David one-to-one to Jesus.
"the nicene councel never denied this" - The council did not discuss the extent to which the concept of Chokhmah, which can be read in the Old Testament wisdom literature, can be identified with the Son, so it did not "not deny" it, but did not even deal with it.
"This isnt an invention by the Watchtower either as other ancient texts prove." - No one said that they invented it, but they use this place to support their doctrinal claim, even though according to the established exegesis, the Chokhmah of the Old Testament is not literally the Logos of the New Testament, but at most a type, a foreshadowing. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament, which also includes the book of Proverbs, cannot be used to support doctrinal teachings, taking into account its genre characteristics. Wisdom is personified. It is a quality within a Person, and the quality, itself, is personified. That Person is not yet revealed. "From everlasting was I poured" is an everlasting begetting. It is not a creation, it is a begetting, everlastingly. 'Time' has no meaning in this context.
Also, translations of Proverbs 8:22 in the Septuagint, word κτίζω can mean with a double accusative "to make somebody something", e.g., "to make/set somebody free" (cf. Aeschylus "Choephori" 1060), that is to say, cause somebody's getting free. In this last meaning the adequate literal translation of the Septuagint will be: "Lord caused/made me (brought me forth) to be the beginning of His ways towards His deeds", for there is not an "ἐν ἄρχῃ" in the text, but a double accusative ("[ἔκτισεν] με ἀρχήν"), like in the abovementioned quote from Aeschylus ("ἐλεύθερόν σε [κτίσει]"). Therefore, the translation "He created me in the beginning of his ways" is totally misleading, while "He caused/made me to be the beginning/principle" is grammatically more plausible with the double accusative construction. Thus, the Septuagint suggests that God was necessitated to bring forth, bring about, or cause something to be the principle ἀρχή for doing His deeds (ἔργα); therefore, by logic of this, this something is not included in those ἔργα but is outside of them as the God-derived principle for their coming into being.
Later in theology, through the Arian controversy, there happened a clear technical division between "creation" (κτίζω) and "begetting" (γεννάω). However, Septuagint translators did not yet have this terminologically tense agenda and thus put the verb in a looser sense of "making somebody something" or "bringing forth", not at all investing this term with a necessity of a contingency and createdness,i.e. non-eternity, of a being that God has brought about (ἔκτισεν).
"should be noted all the meanings to the word imply "something that was not possesed before" or in other words a new thing to the subject." - But there is no temporality, temporal succession in God, and because of God's perfection, immutability, and being an "actus purus" it is impossible that there was a time when he did not possess, lacked something.
""while "begotten" suggests an eternal relationship, with no beginning" - it really doesnt... "born" and "begotten" are used as parralels and basically mean the same, only slight variations" - God should not be understood with concepts taken from the created world and with logic (see Isaiah 55:8-9, Acts 17:29), so from the fact that e.g. people are born in time, it does not follow that when God begets "today", thus in his eternal-timeless reality, it also happens in time. Generation in the created world comes with a (temporal) "beginning", but within God, since there is no temporality, change, succession, no. At the same time, the concepts of "birth" and "begetting" are apt, since if a man begets, then not an ontologically inferior being is born from him, but also a human being.
""sharing the same divine essence with the Father." - but humans also share the divine nature with them? are they then God?" - The saved are God's adopted sons of God, and Sonship in the same sense as that of the Son is not declared about them. Eph 3:14 means that the faterhood of Father to the Son is the pattern, model to our adopted filiation, this is to be understood as Matthew 5:48.The adopted child is also an heir, and the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance (Romans 8:17). In the writings of John, there is also a linguistic distinction: Jesus is the Son (huios), and we are the children (teknon). Divine sonship is the true characteristic of the believer's state. The grace transformation is indicated by being "born of God." Not by natural means, but by the gracious action of the Holy Spirit. The new birth happens through water and the Spirit (John 3:5), but for now, it is hidden and will only become evident when Christ appears, and we will see what we have become (1 John 3:2).
If you are referring to 2 Peter 1:4, it is about the essence of Christianity, that through redemption and sanctification, we enter into a relationship and communion with God, since through this we are born again as His children, and in this rebirth, God imparts His grace and, in a sense, Himself to us. However, this does not mean becoming gods, of course. The Greek Church Fathers used the term "theosis" to express the effect of grace, but it always remained a more neutral expression than the "deification" used in paganism. In the formulation of Paul the Apostle, the salvation of mankind became a reality through God's initiative in Jesus Christ, and everyone can attain it through faith (Romans 3:21), which includes repentance and forgiveness of sins. Baptism is a holy act that aims at perfection (Romans 6:4-10; Titus 3:12), so it is quite different from the deification in myths. In the writings of John, fellowship with Jesus establishes fellowship with God. The original model is the unity of the Father and the Son (John 10:30). We are in communion with God only analogically (1 John 1:3), and we remain in Him (2:5), but it is still a real life-communion, and alongside it, there is the hope of eternal life that is achievable for everyone. The characteristic features of "theosis" are: God remains as the creator and lord with absolute personal authority. His presence has an eschatological effect, pointing towards salvation, not an immanent mystical event. It contains the tension between the present and the future and the moral requirement. In this sense, the other statements in the Johannine literature should also be interpreted: being born of God (1 John 2:29), being children of God and being born again, putting on Christ (Galatians 3:27), and the formation of the new man (Ephesians 4:24). However, if you want to reduce the divine nature of the Son to this, you are on the wrong track.
"what about angels? (Who are literally called gods)" - Yes, I know this WTS argument in connection with John 10:30-36, but Jesus does not say that he is "god" only in the same sense as the angels and judges were called "elohim" in the Psalms. First it should be noted that while in the Old Testament this usage of the word "gods" (elohim) does occur, in the New Testament it does not, there are only two categories of "THEOS": 1. the one true God, and 2. the false gods of the pagans (possibly Satan, as "the god of this world "). In John 10 Jesus gave a parable to his accusers which means: if even they can be called gods (in a certain sense), then how much more the only begotten Son then? So it's clearly in the text He is God in a superior sense than the judges were called "gods" in the Psalm. In what sense namely then? He does not explain here exactly, but he makes it clear that it is not just in the same sense, but in a higher, superior sense. "Argumentum a fortiori" arguments are regularly used in Jewish law under the name kal va-chomer, literally "mild and severe", the mild case being the one we know about, while trying to infer about the more severe case. The Jews understood this and that's why they wanted to stone him "again" (v39).
"Athanasius was well known to state things that contridict the bible - you can research that yourself, infact he was sometimes downright dishonest." - This are not very specific statement, and anyway, no one claimed that Athanasius was infallible, but the Council of Nicaea was. And the truth of the Nicene Creed does not depend on the person of Athanasius.
"should also look up teh history of that councel.." - I did what are you referring to specifically?
""God created the time for man when He separated the days from each other " - dont think so, not according to other bible commentators and scholars.." - I did, and according to Christian teaching, time and temporality did not always exist (only God is eternal, nothins else, the time either), time is also God's creation, and "in the beginning" there was no time.
""the Son is begotten from the Father before all aions, not made" - meaning "the world" "the system of things" as in not time itself" - This term "system of things" occurs exclusively in the terminology of the Watchtower, so why do you claim that you are not a member of the JW denomination? But here, of course, we are not talking about the punctual English translation of the Greek word αἰών, but how do you accept the statement of the Nicene Creed that Son "was begotten from the Father, before all αἰώνs"?
"Jesus being the archangel would put him in an elevated class over the other angels that appeared after him." - Yet where does the Scripture call Jesus an archangel? The term "other" that I highlighted in bold is not in Hebrews 1, there it is contrasted with "all angels" and the Son is distinguished, and by definition he is not included among the angels And the archangel is just as much an angel as the archbishop is a bishop.
Where does the Bible declare that Son is the same as archangel Michael? Nowehere. Jesus Christ, "who is over all, the eternally blessed God" (Rom 9:5), "through whom everything was made" (Heb 2:10; cf. Jn 1:2-3), in whom "all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form" (Col 2:9), who is "the true God and eternal life" (1Jn 5:20), the "only Lord" (Jude 1:4), "the first and the last" (Rev 1:17-18; 2:8; cf. Is 44:6), "the Lord of lords and the King of kings" (Rev 17:14) cannot be identified with an angel, with Michael, who is "one of the chief princes" (Dan 10:13, cf. Hebrews 1). The New Testament never calls Jesus an angel (cf. Hebrews 1:5), let alone Michael.
The difference between Jesus and Michael is also well illustrated by their relationship with Satan: Jude's letter establishes the truth that Satan has greater authority than Michael. The apostle Jude writes that Michael "did not dare" to bring condemnation/judgment on Satan (Jude 9; cf. 2 Peter 2:11), but Jesus pronounced a clear judgment on him (Jn 16:11; cf. John 5:22, 27; 1 John 3:8; Col 2:15).
The verse they refer to (1Thess 4:16) is so forced that I can only marvel at anyone who falls for it. It does not say that the voice of Michael is Jesus's voice, but rather that it's the voice of the archangel, accompanying the arrival of Jesus. The phrase "His archangelic voice" is not present in 1 Thess 4:16, instead it simply states: "with the voice of the archangel." It continues to say "with the trumpet of God." Therefore, if Jesus, according to this misinterpretation, is an archangel, then the same logic proves His deity.
