One of the claims against the Trinity that the WTBTS makes is that "[s]ince the Bible calls humans, angels, even Satan, "gods," or powerful ones, the superior Jesus in heaven can properly be called "a god." (Should You Believe in the Trinity? 29).
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew employs elohim to signify what the WT says above. But it is interesting to note that Psalm 82 (81 in the Septuagint, and I will be using Septuagint numbering from now on), in which the judges of Israel are called "gods," is a satire. "God hath stood in the congregation of gods; and being in the midst of them he judgeth gods. How long will you judge unjustly: and accept the persons of the wicked?" (Psalm 81: 1-2, Douay Rheims). God comes to judge the judges, who set themselves up as gods by preverting the divine mission of judgement (at least this is my interpretation).
The New Testament is different from the Old Testament in that it has separate words to differentiate a god and an angel. Angel is signified by ho aggelos; in Classical Greek this meant "messenger," but clearly in the Hellenistic Christian usage it takes on a supernatural meaning as well. This is why it says at Luke 1:26 the "angel of the Lord," rather than "a god of the Lord." Just because the Bible refers to other beings as gods or god, it does not follow that would necessarily mean that the God of John 1:1 is simply "a god." However, I will not debate the grammar of John 1:1 because I do not know anything about Hellenistic grammar and I highly doubt that the writers of the Watchtower publications knew much either.
The next text that the Watchtower tries to disprove as proving the divinity of Christ is John 20:28. "Some scholars have suggested that Thomas may simply have made an emotional exclamation of astonishment, spoken to Jesus but directed to God." (Should You Believe in the Trinity? 29). This is what the text is transliterated into English: "... kai (conj.) eipen (3rd person aorist) auto (masc. sing. dat.) ho kurios (nom. masc. sing.) mou (unemphatic pronoun; sing., gen.) kai (conj.) ho theos (nom., masc., sing.) mou (unemphatic pronoun; sing., gen.). Which translates to (The Classicist's translation): "... and he said to him (indirect object; referring to Jesus, if he was referring to God it would be "to theo") the Lord of me and the God of me." Clearly from the Greek, the grammar makes clear that Thomas is calling Jesus his Lord and his God. The Watchtower claims that it was "spoken to Jesus but directed to God," but there is NO reason in the text to believe to this. The interpretation that the WT makes has no support from the majority of scholars, modern or ancient; it would appear that the Watchtower does as the Pharisees did: "And he said to them: Well do you make void the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition." (Mark 7: 9).
Interesting is what the WT says a little down p. 29, "Even through Jesus was already resurrected as a mighty spirit, Jehovah was still his God." Although this has nothing to do with the Trinity, let's examine what the Bible says (I feel like I'm writing the Watchtower ). See 1 Corinthians 15:12-17. Also see John 2:18-22, especially John 2:21, "But he was talking about the temple of his body" (NWT).
The next topic I will consider is the divinity of the Holy Spirit. There are various "proof texts," as the WT may call it, that show that the Holy Spirit is God and a person, not an "active force": Acts 5:3-4, Acts 28:25-26, 1 Cor. 2:10-11. See also Matt. 12:31-32. And there are more... There are numerous logic errors that the WT makes on their section on the Holy Spirit that would take up pages to answer.
On p.7, the WT "quotest" ante-Nicene Church Fathers to show that they did not believe in God or the Trinity. Let's see what these people really believed:
Justin Martyr: "[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is" (Letter to the Romans 1 [A.D. 110]).
Clement of Alexandria: "The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning?for he was in God?and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things" (Exhortation to the Greeks 1:7:1 [A.D. 190]).
"Despised as to appearance but in reality adored, [Jesus is] the expiator, the Savior, the soother, the divine Word, he that is quite evidently true God, he that is put on a level with the Lord of the universe because he was his Son" (ibid., 10:110:1).
Tertullian: "The Father makes him equal to himself, and the Son, by proceeding from him, was made the first-begotten, since he was begotten before all things, and the only-begotten, because he alone was begotten of God, in a manner peculiar to himself, from the womb of his own heart, to which even the Father himself gives witness: ?My heart has poured forth my finest Word? [Ps. 45:1?2]" (Against Praxeas 7:1 [A.D. 216]).
"That there are two gods and two Lords, however, is a statement which we will never allow to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit God, and each of them God; but formerly two were spoken of as gods and two as Lords, so that when Christ would come, he might both be acknowledged as God and be called Lord, because he is the Son of him who is both God and Lord" (Against Praxeas 13:6 [A.D. 216]).
Hippolytus: "Only [God?s] Word is from himself and is therefore also God, becoming the substance of God" (Refutation of All Heresies 10:33 [A.D. 228]).
"The Word alone of this God is from God himself, wherefore also the Word is God, being the being of God. Now the world was made from nothing, wherefore it is not God" (Refutation of All Heresies 10:29 [A.D. 228]).
Origen: "For we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that some part of the being of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a being outside himself, so that there was a time when he [the Son] did not exist" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:4:1 [A.D. 225]).
"No, rejecting every suggestion of corporeality, we hold that the Word and the Wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal God, without anything corporal being acted upon . . . the expression which we employ, however that there was never a time when he did not exist is to be taken with a certain allowance. For these very words ?when? and ?never? are terms of temporal significance, while whatever is said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is to be understood as transcending all time, all ages" (ibid.).
"For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages" (ibid.).
"Although he was God, he took flesh; and having been made man, he remained what he was: God" (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:0:4 [A.D. 225]).
So what do you think? Please feel free to correct any logic errors.
The Classicist