God & universe #1 - God's position and authority

by Anders Andersen 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Anders Andersen

  While thinking about the nature of God, I suddenly thought of something else: How JW speak about God in relation to the universe.

  They say that

  1. Jehovah created the universe
  2. Jehovah is the highest authority /sovereign in the universe
  3. destroying Satan and answering the questions that were raised in Eden will restore peace and unity in the whole universe.

  
  

  Obviously if Jehovah created the universe, He must reside outside the universe himself.

  Which leads me to the following questions:

  
  Why are statements like 2 and 3 above always worded (in JW literature) with regards to our universe only?

  Maybe God created more than one universe?

  Or at least shouldn't it be acknowledged that Jehovah is the highest authority in our universe, and outside of it? That he will restore peace and unity everywhere, not just in our universe?

  
  

  Now the statements seem to sort of decrease Jehovah's glory?....like ants living in a pot talking about how the Potter is the greatest authority in their pot....ignoring the beauty of all other pots and the authority the Potter has there.

  
  

  Are JW statements about this in line with Biblical ideas?

  
  

  I am curious about how you are looking at this.

  FYI 1 a second topic about God's non-physical nature will follow, so please restrict yourself to the topic of JW and God's glory and authority in/out our universe.

  FYI 2 I only did a quick search for Jehovah and universe on wol. There may be statements I have missed...

  
  
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  David_Jay

  One of the reasons it is worded this way is due to the adoption of Adventist ideas by Jehovah's Witnesses. JWs limit all that is known about God to the physical universe because 1.) that is all that is explicitedly discussed in Scripture and 2.) time is an important factor to this religion, and it's theology demands that God be governed by the same laws of time that we are.

  The Judeo-Christian concept of "God" is pre-Biblical and has itself evolved during the time of the Second Temple and up through the formal canonization of the New Testament, which was in the 4th century CE. These concepts, many of which are cultural and part of Jewry, are read into Scripture, especially into Liturgical proclamation.

  Adentists and, by default, Jehovah's Witnesses reject almost all such historical theology as false because it is not explicitedly Biblical. There is no liturgy in either of these religions as a result, and therefore no connection to the cultures that formulated Scripture or direct access to any of their traditions. Witnesses would automatically reject such views anyway since there is no or little Biblical mention of them.

  This is both problematic and illogical becuase without pre-Biblical ideas and an outside and greater authority than Scripture to dictate what is and what is not inspired Writ, the Bible itself could never exist. "True religion" would have to come first before there could be writers equipped enough to compose any texts. Scripture is produced by religion, not the basis for it. In this case the "chicken" has to exist before it can lay an "egg."

  The Witnesses have a theology that limits God's revelation to what is written in the Bible. To them this superceeds the Great Theophany experienced by the Jews at the foot of Mt. Sinai (which is considered by Jews the greatest revelation they ever received), and is more authoritative than the Apostolic witness made up of those who lived side by side with Jesus Christ. In JW theology, only what is "written" is revelation, meaning any other words uttered by Christ are not as authoritative even if there is greater testimony from the Apostolic college or if ever archeological evidence came forth to verify the events of the Great Theophany. It has to be in the Bible or it is "bust"!

  Becuase of this JWs have a very childish concept of the God of Abraham. JWs believe that "God" has a spirit body and lives in a "place" called Heaven. Both concepts, a spirit "body" and the belief that Heaven qualifies as a "place" are contrary and even somewhat forbidden as idolatry in Judaism. Both Judaism and Christianity believe spirits cannot possess bodies since a "body" is coporeal, which according to traditional theology is a thing that can only exist in a material state. "Spirit" by the original tradition defies being limited to a "body," as spirit belongs to the realm outside the temporal state where, according to the same tradition, there is no time or space.

  Without such fundamentals essential to Judeo-Chrisitian thought, JW religion limits "God" to terminology such as "the universe," and refers to God as a being that has to have the ability to "foresee" events much like a psychic. Judeo-Christian views of God claim the universe as a "creation" making time and space things God created and thus not bound to. Becuase of this God does not need the power to "foresee" events in time as, being greater than time (which is a mere creation of God's), the past, present, and future are all immediately accessible at the same moment. These ideas are not directly found in Scripture as they are far older and were simply understood by the traditions that shaped and the cultures that employed these texts. Thus Watchtower-ism is void of them.
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  prologos

  WT believers seem to be subject to a whole spectrum of teachings in the bible about "god". Those go from him walking during the breezy part of the day in the Garden of Eden to the idea expressed at the temple dedication that even the "heavens of the heavens" (whatever that means) can not contain him.

  as to the OP question, The universe seems to strongly controlled by the laws that govern nature, they shape the shapes and mold the behaviour of life forms even. My simplistic argument (for what it's worth) in the "service" was: --The existence of laws are always the sign of [some] intelligence, even if our laws are an ass. so: since we have laws in the universe, there must be an intelligence behind it.-- Was it not Einstein that pondered the question whether "the lord" had any choice in shaping those laws?
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  Mephis

  Their belief system is absolutely in line with Jewish cosmology c.600 BCE. One has to selectively quote to get those ideas to fit into a heliocentric solar system, so forming an explanation for the potential of other universes is really well beyond the pay grade of WBTS theology.

  The focus of Judaism back then was on their God doing things on Earth. Busy God smiting foes, rewarding worshippers, listening to prayers, interacting with other Gods etc etc. His whole attention is centred on Earth. Even when not doing anything, he's chilling out in heaven with his angels, waiting for Satan to pop by and make a bet about an Earthling. It's God as Heavenly King, doing most of the things which Earthly Kings do. The Jewish God isn't so different to any others from that time. One Jewish group even have him popping down to earth to get a woman pregnant. Just the one is quite restrained by God standards to be fair. Zeus couldn't keep his pants on. But there's no conception of there being anything other than Earth and an invisible place God (and other spirity critters) lives in. The JWs have taken that idea and ran with it, which creates the obvious problems 2600 years later.
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  Rather Be the Hammer

  It may be a little beside your exact question, but I had a little discussion about something like this with my husband a few days ago.

  He read this:

  Does God Live in a Specific Location?

  The Bible’s answer

  Yes. God lives in a specific place—the heavens. Consider these Bible passages:

  In a prayer, King Solomon said: “May you yourself listen from the heavens, your established place of dwelling.”—1 Kings 8:43.

  Jesus Christ taught his disciples to address their prayers to their “Father in the heavens.”—Matthew 6:9.

  After Jesus was resurrected, he entered “into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God.”—Hebrews 9:24.

  Those verses clearly indicate that Jehovah God is a real person and that he dwells, not everywhere, but only in heaven.

  My understanding is, that 'heaven' can mean: spiritual place. Or: invisible.

  So 'god and angels are in heaven' then would mean 'they are not material beings, but ghostlike spirits and/or invisible'. Like how JW understand the Bibleverse about 'new heavens and new earth"; it doesn't mean a real 'new heaven' and a literally 'new earth'. When Jesus went to heaven, he became invisible for people.

  So my husband said: no, you're wrong, God lives in one place, that's what the Bible says.(well that's what he read on jw.org, he doesn't really know what the Bible says.)

  But if God does live in a specific location, that must be a place. A place you can point at. A place you can find somewhere. A place you can travel to. Otherwise it's not a place, right?

  If 'heaven' means a place you can point at, would that be that something like the sky? (yes, he said) But the sky, where? The sky above Europe? The sky above Australia?

  No, my husband said. God is in the universe.

  So the 'one place' is now 'the universe'. (And like you wrote; if God is IN the universe he created, that would be weird. Where did he live before?)

  But If god is all around the earth (and not just in one place in the heaven/sky), and in the universe, that would mean he is everywhere, aka omnipresent. Something JW deny.

  So I think they painted themselves in a corner.
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  Rather Be the Hammer

  Also, If God is (around the earth) in the universe, what with all the satellites and space debris?
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  David_Jay

  Mephis,

  It seems you got your ideas from the Watchtower. Coming from a Jewish family and background, I might want to let you know that what you have written isn't anything at all like the theology any of the branches of Judaism teaches.

  First of all, there is no Satan the Devil in Judaism (in Job, God is arguing with an angel assigned to give counter arguments according to Judaism and Catholicism). Second, the focus of Judaism is "tikkun olam" which is not "God doing things on earth" but the Jews learning to cooperate in God's redemption of the human race. And third, God was not "invisible" to the ancient Jews. Repeatedly in Scripture God appears in various forms and the Jews, holding on to human superstition, keep covering their faces due to a pagan belief that "seeing a deity brings death." God continually tries to shake his people from this foolish idea.

  These are very basic and important concepts that anyone can learn about Judaism. None of these Jewish concepts were adopted by Jehovah's Witnesses.

  Rather Be the Hammer,

  As to Scriptures which seem to suggest that "heaven" is a place, remember this is not how Jews interpreted what "heaven" was before they wrote those passages, while they wrote those passages, and afterward. To say God "lives in heaven" or "sits on throne" are figures of speech in Hebrew. Stop a Jew on a street and ask them. Read "Judaism for Dummies" if you have to. One of the biggest problem the Watcthower Org has is reading the Bible as "Gentiles," without regard for the Jewish culture that wrote it.

  The Hebrew Scriptures were NOT designed to be read independently of knowledge of Jeiwsh religion, culture, language, ritual, and most importantly tradition (ever see "Fiddler on the Roof"). Heaven is not a place because that isn't the Hebrew concept of "where" God exists. To Jews "where" God is not very relevant.

  One has to let go of the Watchtower concepts because for Jews the Bible is not the basis of their religious beliefs nor are they defined by these texts alone. Instead the Bible is but part of their deposit of faith which includes liturgy, ritual, and tradition. For them God's greatest truth is not the Scripture, the greatest truth is God. These are people who claim they have seen God on a national basis in their history. Their history is not just the Bible. It is that event, the Great Theophany, that to the Jews is the greatest revelation from God they possess. By using the Bible, Witnesses only have a fraction of this experience. To Jews, they themselves, as descendants of those who experienced the Great Theophany, are that witness.

  God never appeared to any of the Jehovah's Witnesses, not even to any member of the Governing Body. But all JWs believe the claim of the Jews that God appeared to them at Sinai. If you are a Witness you must believe that God did not appear to you but to a different people of a different nation, a different religion. Witnesses are so far removed from this revelation that they only have the book. Jews on the other hand have the experience. If that is true, then who really is of God, those who get visited by God or those who merely read of it in a book?
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  Mephis

  David,

  thank you for explaining how you believe modern Judaism interprets their ancient texts. It's a curious tension between the interpretation built up and the origins in Caananite religion, isn't it?

  I of course was not talking of modern Judaism when setting out texts with their origins 2600 years ago. The two things are very different. One really shouldn't think disagreement with one's own beliefs means something comes from the WT. There is an extensive corpus of literature investigating the origins of YHWH (and indeed Satan) which isn't by either Jews or JWs. If you want to play along - what is the difference between Ba'al and YHWH in the Old Testament as the text is written?
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  Anders Andersen

  Many interesting points here, thanks for all your detailed responses.

  Each day I learn more and more that I really don't know anything about religion :-p

  The more I think about it, the God as a spiritual person living in a spiritual place really doesn't make sense (even less than gods in general ;-) )

  And every day I am still surprised that I thought JW religion were TRUTH and infinitely better than other religions. JW beliefs were deep and detailed as opposed to childish superstitions of others.

  Boy was I wrong.... :-D
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  Rather Be the Hammer

  The more I think about it, the God as a spiritual person living in a spiritual place really doesn't make sense (even less than gods in general )

  Just to be clear: thats not what JW believe. They believe in a spiritual god living in a specific real place. (see article I quoted)

  But maybe that's new light from after you left. 😜