Posts by aqwsed12345

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21
What does this even mean?
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
"the son is born of the father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense.

the son is derived from the father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of his essence.

so, the birth of the son is an intellectual activity of god.".
aqwsed12345
21
What does this even mean?
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
"the son is born of the father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense.

the son is derived from the father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of his essence.

so, the birth of the son is an intellectual activity of god.".
aqwsed12345
The Origin of the Persons: the Trinitarian Origins
In the introduction to the Letter to the Hebrews (1:5), when Christ's divinity is proclaimed, it refers to these words from the second psalm: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”. Concerning the Holy Spirit, Christ says He proceeds from the Father (Jn 15:26). Based on such biblical declarations, theology began to speak of Trinitarian origins or processes (processiones trinitariae) and two forms of origin. The origin of the Son is referred to by theologians as generation or birth (generatio), and that of the Holy Spirit as simple procession or origin (processio simpliciter).
The Magisterium of the Catholic Church, through the Athanasian Creed, teaches as a dogma: "The Father is from no one, neither created nor begotten. The Son is solely from the Father, not by creation but by birth. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, not created, not begotten, but proceeds" (DS 75). The Council of Florence (1439) declared as a doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from a common principle (principium) by a common spiration (spiratio) (DS 1331).
First, we must clarify the concepts expressed here, then present their biblical foundation, and finally discuss the conclusions that can be drawn from them.
The Trinitarian origins fundamentally differ from the origins, births, and processes observed in the world of creatures.
1. Since each of the Trinitarian persons is God, and God exists eternally, it's utterly impossible for any divine person to precede another in time or be a cause to the other. And since the persons possess a single nature, there can be no rank difference among them. Therefore, Trinitarian origins signify only a logical succession, meaning one person's logical rationale (ratio) and principle (principium) is different from another's. The Father is such by eternally and continuously imparting his essence to the Son, and the Son is such by eternally accepting this essence. The Holy Spirit, similarly, accepts it eternally from both the Father and the Son.
2. The earliest Church Fathers used analogies to illustrate the Son's generation. Just as rays constantly emanate from the Sun ever since the Sun existed, and as water perpetually flows from an inexhaustible source ever since the source existed; similarly, the Son is eternally begotten from the Father, since the Father exists eternally. The word “today” in Psalm 2 refers to God's "eternal present" because, in Him, there's no past or future, yesterday or tomorrow – as taught in the dogma on God's eternity. The Trinitarian origins are eternal origins. However, these analogies are only partially accurate. The Sun physically causes the rays, and the source causes the stream, but physical causality must be excluded from God: He isn't a cause of Himself (causa sui) but has a spiritual rationale (ratio sui). The given analogies also fall short because, unlike the water source that would have more water if none flowed out, the divine essence doesn't lose anything in the Trinitarian processes, neither with the birth of the Son nor with the procession of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, the Son gains nothing from being begotten, nor does the Holy Spirit from proceeding. These processes might at most bring about a different mode of existence for the same divine essence but not a change. Therefore, classic Trinitarian theology refers to these processes as substantial processes (processiones substantiales), meaning both the one proceeding and the one from whom the procession originates are God, as the processes are different modes of the same divine essence (substantia).
3. Augustine believed that since God is a spirit, we must seek a comparison not in the world of material things but in the world of spiritual processes when we want to study God's inner life. One of the most important manifestations of our spiritual life is the formation of concepts, the birth of our concepts. Just as the unspoken concept (verbum mentis) is conceived and born in our consciousness, the Son is born from the Father in the same way. The Son is actually nothing but the concept that the Father forms of himself, his self-knowledge, which on the one hand has existed eternally, and on the other hand possesses such power and intensity that it becomes a separate person. - However, since God is the infinite embodiment of all values (true, good, beautiful, holy), and values evoke spiritual love from the soul, the Father also loves himself infinitely as completeness of value, and this infinite love must be reflected in the Son. The love of the Father reflected in the Son and its reflection in the Father, its "rebound," is essentially a single and eternal love, and it is also of such intensity that it becomes a separate person, the person of the Holy Spirit.
Augustine's analogy has three advantages:
1. It makes it clear that we can rightly speak of spiritual birth and origin, such as we encounter with the persons of the Trinity.
2. What is born in the human soul as self-knowledge and arises as love can be "immanent" too: the originator does not "step out" of the generator, as the spoken word "steps out" of the speaker, or as the born child essentially separates from its mother. This immanence characterizes the Trinitarian origins: the life, indeed the very essence of the Son, is identical with that of the Father; he does not step out of him or separate from him in any reality; likewise, the life and essence of the Holy Spirit remain in the other two persons.
3. Divine and human self-knowledge also resemble each other in that the birth of both can equally be called conception and birth. For our thoughts' conception and birth coincide in time, unlike animals' and humans' birth or conception. Therefore, these two expressions are completely synonymous: "the Father eternally begets the Son," and "the Father eternally gives birth to the Son."
Naturally, there are also essential differences between divine and human self-knowledge and self-love. Augustine already noticed these. Divine and human self-knowledge and self-love primarily differ in that our conscious self-knowledge and self-love do not exist from the first moment of our existence. Another difference is that human self-knowledge unfolds gradually and never becomes quite perfect; the same goes for our self-love. Our inner image of ourselves never fully reflects what we are. The Father, however, without any residue, perfectly "speaks" his entire essence into the Son and loves him in the Holy Spirit. The third and most significant difference is this: the intensity and power of God's self-knowledge and the mutual love of the first two persons of the Trinity are such that this knowledge and love move from the existence of thought (ens rationis) into the order of reality (becomes 'ens reale'): it becomes a real existing separate divine person, although at the same time its immanent nature is retained.
Different medieval theologians tried to develop further Augustine's explanation in various ways. Among these, classical Trinitarian theology accepted the version represented by Thomas Aquinas, and its technical expressions were used in various official statements by the Magisterium.
The theology of the Trinitarian origins teaches the following dogmas in the sense above:
WE CLAIM ABOUT THE FATHER THAT HE IS ORIGINATING AND WITHOUT BIRTH
The Scriptures attribute an origin to the other two persons but never to the Father. Early patristics used such descriptors for the Father: without beginning (anarchos), uncreated (agenétos), unborn (agennétos). This statement, however, is only linguistically negative; in substance, it proclaims the positive fact that the Father possesses the common divine essence in such a way that He does not receive it from anyone else but only gives it to the Son and, with the Son, to the Holy Spirit. The Father is "principium sine principio." He is the ultimate solution to the origin of the other two persons.
Saint Paul considers God's fatherhood so important that, as we have seen, he often refers to the Father as God. He is primarily the "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 1:3), to whom Jesus turns with feelings of submission and mutual love, not only as a human but as the second divine person; as God-man, he empties himself (Phil 2:7) and comes into the world as the Father's envoy (Jn 3:17) to reconcile the world with the Father and make men the children of God. His entire human life is childlike submission before the heavenly Father, from whom he received his divine essence, and whom he can call greater than himself in this sense (Jn 14:28). His perfect self-surrender as a man is both the model and the means by which man, although not identically, but analogously, can also become a child of the heavenly Father. For God wants to be primarily a Father to us: "For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Rom 8:29; cf. Gal 3:26). The New Testament has a characteristic warmth because God spoke the final word to humanity as a Father. He sent His Son and declared through Him that He would accept humanity into His merciful love.
THE SON ORIGINATES FROM THE FATHER THROUGH GENERATION, BIRTH
This follows from the fact that the second person is not only morally but also metaphysically the son of the Father. Natural, metaphysical sonship necessarily presupposes generation or procreation. Therefore, He is the "proper" son (Rom 8:3), the "only-begotten" Son (Jn 1:14; 1Jn 4:9) of the Father. Holy Tradition, following the Letter to the Hebrews (1:5), often refers to the two expressions of the Psalms: to give birth (110:3), to give life (2:7).
The Son's generation or birth must be taken after the pattern of earthly children's procreation, but not identically, but analogously. For God is spirit, so only spiritual birth can be considered with Him. However, the analogy remains, so we must speak of a real birth. For everything is realized here that is included in the definition of earthly birth: the living comes from the living, there is a connection between the two, and the descent brings about essential identity.
When we say "verbum mentis" with Augustine, we emphasize the Son's immanence. But when we see birth in the origin of the Son, we do not emphasize immanence, but the communication, the "passing on" of identical nature.
The sonship of the second person is also very significant in the history of salvation. According to the apostle Paul, the Father created everything in Him that is in heaven and on earth, and everything stands in Him (Col 1:16-17). The Father even chose the called ones in Him before the creation of the world (Eph 1:4). For the Father constantly speaks His eternal thoughts into the Son, so the Son could be the Father's measure in the creation of the world. But for this reason, He is the founder of the Kingdom of God, He is the norm of all moral perfection, and He will also be the measure and executor of the Last Judgment. The final state will be formed in such a way that the Father will gather all created values under His dominion (Eph 1:10). The Son is also the "causa formalis" of our individual supernatural life, as the grace whose granting is the common work of the three divine persons carries over the image of sonship to the soul of the justified man. We will become children of the Father in the form in which Christ is in a filial relationship with the heavenly Father. Thus, we will share in Christ's divine sonship and become His co-heirs. And just as the Spirit connects Christ with the Father, so too the Holy Spirit will be the spirit of our filial relationship as well.
The birth of the Son is intellectual, and the origination of the Holy Spirit is a voluntary activity.
1. Not only does Augustine's analogy associate the Son's birth with the Father's intellectual activity, but Scripture also does this. The apostle Paul writes: "We preach Christ... the wisdom of God" (1 Cor 1:23-24; 2:6-9). This is further indicated by the term Word (Logos), which in the gospel of John does not mean a fleeting word or divine utterance but God Himself, who has been with the Father from eternity and became human in the fullness of time. It can also be added that according to Paul, He is "the image of the invisible God" (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3), in whom "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden" (Col 2:3). Based on such biblical statements, the patristics speak of the Son as essentially the Father's intellectual image of Himself, His self-knowledge, into whom He pours His entire essence.
2. We find fewer references in the Bible to the mode of the Holy Spirit's origination. Scripture generally calls Him the Spirit, so the Church Fathers view Him as the breathed-out love between the Father and the Son. And love is a work of the will. The constant epithet "holy" also points to the will, since holiness is essentially synonymous with the love, the willing of the good. The names "gift," "present" also refer to this, as giving a gift is usually a sign of love. A true gift is always exactly the goodwill that transfers the object. If the Father and the Son love each other, this "goodwill" is personal, not an accidental reality.
Based on these, since Augustine, it has been a generally accepted theological truth that the origination of the Holy Spirit can be associated with God's voluntary activity, the love of the Father and the Son for each other. The Father and the Son love each other in the Holy Spirit. This living love and intimacy, which binds the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father, cannot be compared to any earthly love. It is entirely spiritual in nature and is not such that the two persons expect something from each other. Both possess everything. This love, therefore, is the common joy of possessing infinite value and the happiness of perfect contentment in it. In the Holy Spirit, the Father is assured that the Son is wholly His and lives in Him with His whole love. For the Son, the Holy Spirit signifies the Father's similar love for Him. The joy and intimacy of divine life take place in the Holy Spirit as the personification of divine love and joy. The liturgy refers to this life lived in joy and intimacy when it speaks of the "blessed" Trinity. In salvation history, too, the Holy Spirit is the distributor of God's love, graces, and charisms (Rom 5:5; 1 Cor 12:4). As He connects the Son with the Father, or is the personified pledge of their connection, unity, so He connects the justified person, made God's child, to the Father through the Son: "You have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father!'" (Rom 8:15).
3. If we accept the theologians' thesis that the Son's birth is intellectual to the Father, and the origination of the Holy Spirit is the common voluntary activity of the Father and the Son, then we must distinguish two kinds of intellectual and voluntary activities in God. When discussing God's cognitive activities in theology, we think of the common intellectual activities of the three divine persons. The basis of these is the common divine essence; therefore, we call this essential activity (actus essentialis). In contrast, there is the so-called person-creating divine activity (actus notionalis), in which the Father begets the Son, which is therefore not the joint activity of three persons, but only that of the Father. Similarly, we can talk about the love-activity flowing from God's essence as an actus essentialis, identical in the three persons; and we can talk about person-creating love-activity as actus notionalis, the common activity of the first two persons.
How do these two kinds of intellectual and voluntary activities differ from each other? Fatherhood, sonship, and spiration differ from each other in reality, but our point of view only distinguishes them from the common divine essence. We must apply this principle here as well. Another question is the difference in the subject of knowledge and love. The subject of the person-producing activities is one or two persons, not three; the essential activities, on the other hand, are the common activities of the three persons. We can also think that the person-creating activity is always immanent in nature, while the essential activity can also be outwardly directed, e.g., creative activity.
4. Why the Son's origin must be considered generation, and not the Holy Spirit's as well, Augustine answered this question following the Greek Church Fathers: Generation and knowledge are related in content. The natural goal of generative activity is to create one's living image from one's essence. Our intellectual activity also creates the likeness, the image of the known object in our soul. Love, on the other hand, though directed at the likeness, presupposes it. Its deepest nature is not resemblance but union. Its goal is unity.
21
What does this even mean?
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
"the son is born of the father by generation, but generation should not be understood in the everyday sense.

the son is derived from the father through pure spiritual generation, through the unlimited sharing of his essence.

so, the birth of the son is an intellectual activity of god.".
aqwsed12345

The names "Father" and "Son" presuppose one another; neither can exist without the other.The Son's origin can be described using the concept of birth in an analogical manner, and also how this concept stemming from the material world can be applied to the inner life of the Trinity. In this entry, we will deal with another name used for the second divine person in the prologue of John's Gospel (Jn 1:1-18). John the Evangelist calls Jesus "Logos" in Greek, which could simply be translated as "Word." The persons of the Trinity do not differ from the divine nature, only contrasting with one another: the difference between them is a difference marked by opposing references, relations. The names "Father" and "Son" clearly refer to this difference. However, in the case of the name "Word" ("Speech"), the interdependence and difference are not so striking. In everyday use, a word serves to communicate some intellectual, spiritual content with others; it has a sound form or is a series of written signs. In God's case, a word tied to the material world in this way can only be used in an analogous sense. However, the word used in this sense also has an essential aspect: someone utters (writes) the word. Therefore, the concept of the word inherently contains a reference: the word is uttered by someone, the word is referred to its speaker, the origin of the word refers to the speaker's activity.
If we purify the word from its material characteristics, sound form (written signs), and consider what the word refers to, we reach the intellectual content, concept, "inner word," signaled by the external word. Regarding the Trinitarian origins, we talked about how, starting with Augustine, Western theology considers the Son's birth, the Word, to be of intellectual origin. As a result of human understanding, the concept of the object is formed in the mind from the known object. The external, spoken or written word refers to this. The concept designates two aspects: on the one hand, it refers to the object about which the concept is, and on the other hand, it refers to the knowing subject, that is, to the one whose knowledge of the object embodies in the concept. These relations clearly indicate both the interconnection and the differences. The knowing subject is not identical to the concept, as there might have been a time when he did not yet know the object and thus had no concept of it. Similarly, the concept is not identical to the object of the concept; it differs from it. Often it concerns the objects of the external world, from which the knowable, the intelligible, is transmitted to the intellect by sensory organs, and the concept is formed through the processing activity of the intellect. The relationship between the knowing subject and the concept formed by his knowledge can be described with the substance-attribute concept pair: the knowing subject is the substance that carries the result of the knowledge, the concept.
Because of God's simplicity, the knower and the known, the divine intellect, and the divine nature are identical. Therefore, the duality of the concept and the object of the concept is not found in the divine nature in the sense that we encounter it in our created world. In God, there cannot be such a duality of the concept and the object of the concept that would, in some sense, divide the utterly simple divine essence. The divine intellect, which is identical to the divine nature, does not differ from the divine persons. However, at the same time, the operation of the unified divine intellect can be referred to the individual persons according to the peculiarities of the persons: the Father as a father, the Son as a son, the Holy Spirit as a holy spirit, without this dividing the unity of operation. This is not the case because the intellectual recognition of the individual persons does not create differences in the recognition itself; the differences are only in the relationships between the persons, but these are real, person-constituting differences.
In Thomas Aquinas' conception of the Trinity, the key concept is the self-standing, carrier-less reference (relatio subsistens). Fatherhood, sonship, and spiration are the self-existing references of the persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These references are not carried by the divine essence. In our created world, the references do not stand on their own; they are always carried by some subject. The references differ from their carrier subjects, the reference is one thing, and its carrier subject is another. In the Trinity, however, the references designating the persons have no carrier subjects; they exist without a carrier subject. The divine nature cannot be considered their carrier subject, because if it were, then the persons would differ in something from the divine nature, and then it could no longer be said that every Trinitarian person is fully God. The Trinitarian persons are identical with the divine nature, and no difference can be established between the divine nature and them; the differences are only between the persons themselves: these differences signify that they are non-interchangeable persons.
Based on the above, it is clear that the word "Word" cannot signify some content of the common divine knowledge, but at the same time cannot be considered an external metaphor either. The use of the word "Word" gives insight into the mystery of the Trinity, but the ultimate incomprehensibility of the mystery does not cease even then. The Son's birth from the Father is analogous to the process in which a concept is born as a result of the intellect's cognitive activity. The word concept, by the way, is related to the word conception, as the Latin word conceptus also refers to conceptio. In human knowledge, the process of knowing can be a long process, and its result, the concept, is only an appendage to the knowing subject. The source of the eternal birth of the Word is not the operation of the divine intellect, since this is common to every person. The source of the Word's birth in the divine intellect's knowledge is the recognition of the Father as Father. According to the above, it is only in relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit, in contrast to them, that one can speak of this, the recognition as father, because this does not bring any division into the operation of the divine intellect. The "recognition as father" does not mean some specific part of divine knowledge that would be only the Father's. The recognition as father results from considering the personal characteristics of the Father, the reference of fatherhood, in connection with the divine intellect. In the recognition of the Father as father, he expresses himself by eternally, in eternal love, pronouncing the Word, who is as much God as he is, and who differs from him only in being pronounced. The pronouncement of the Word signifies the same thing as the birth of the Son from the Father; the Word and the Son are the same, the birth and the pronunciation by the Father are the same. It is therefore an approach to the father-son reference from the side of the divine intellect.
In the above sense, therefore, the Word is the fruit of the Father's self-knowledge, which is not some incidental content of the divine intellect but a divine person. Starting from this, let us deal with the further characteristics of the person of the Word, with the Trinitarian attributions related to the Word.
After examining the name "Word" given to the second divine person, this name points to the intellectual nature of the Son's origin from the Father. Starting from this, we can approach several names and attributions mentioned in the Scriptures. In the Trinitarian attributions (appropriationes), we attribute a name or property relating to the divine essence to a divine person because the name or property particularly reflects the person's distinctiveness. Thus, divine wisdom can be attributed to the Word, as the Word is the expression of the Father's knowledge and wisdom. That is why Thomas Aquinas refers to the Word as conceived or born Wisdom (sapientia concepta vel nata, Summa Contra Gentiles IV. 12).
Wisdom is a word with many meanings. Perhaps human wisdom can be described as the fullness of knowledge. However, this knowledge is not merely the sum of partial insights but a coherent knowledge illuminated by causes and relationships, where details do not obscure the whole but find their place within it. Aristotle relates wisdom to the knowledge of the "highest things." Since God is the highest, the ultimate cause and creator of everything, wisdom emanates from God and refers everything to Him. Wisdom, therefore, views the world primarily as God's creation, and interprets personal life and world events in terms of the work of redemption. From God's perspective, wisdom is the wisdom of the creating, providential, and redeeming God. The term "born Wisdom" is a good expression as it alludes both to the common, essential wisdom of the three persons (since the persons are identical with the divine essence, and this is identical with divine wisdom) and to the way in which it eternally comes into being in the Word. The Word is thus the knowledge, self-knowledge, and wisdom of God emanating from the Father, expressed by the Father. The divine self-knowledge, knowledge, and wisdom are the self-knowledge, knowledge, and wisdom of all three persons through the common divine nature, but in the Word, this is the knowledge and wisdom originating from and expressed by the Father.
The Letter to the Hebrews (1:3) refers to the Son as the brightness of the Father's glory and the image of the Father. The concept of an image or imago is taken from the created world, primarily from human creations. This concept inherently contains reference to the original. The more perfect the image, the more it resembles what it depicts. At first glance, it may seem that if the original is available, there is no need for the image. The necessity of the image arises only from the imperfection that the original is not at hand. One might similarly opine about the duality experienced in intellectual recognition, where knowledge is some kind of image of the known object. In our created world, the aspects of original and image, known object, and knowledge of it carry imperfection: the image is never entirely identical with the original, knowledge never fully knows the known object. The image and the original, knowledge, and known object essentially differ in existence. Metaphysics seeks to explain the unity and plurality, agreement, and discrepancy found in our empirical world. The explanation points to the complexity and limited existence of things. In one entry, we already mentioned that the "supernatural continuation" of metaphysics is found in the mystery of the Trinity, which illuminates that diversity is not merely due to the limitations of created existence. The difference determined by subsistent relations (relationes subsistentes) is as much a fundamental structure of complete existence as existence's unity. As complete existence coincides with complete goodness, so complete existence coincides with the three persons and their mutual relations. While natural reason can perceive the identity of complete existence with complete goodness, we cannot even approach the latter identity without God's revelation. In the fullness of intellectual life identical to complete existence, there is, in some sense, the duality of original and image, known, and knowledge, familiar from the created world. However, this duality is applied to God analogically. In God, the difference manifesting in the origins is not a difference based on varying substances. The original and the image, the known, and knowledge are essentially the same, with the only distinction arising from the eternal relationship of origin between them.
The Word's origin from the Father without origin and the created beings' origin from the uncreated God are in "structural" kinship with each other. There is a similarity between the Word and created beings because each of them is some endpoint of origin, a terminus. The endpoint of the Word's origin from the Father is the Word, consubstantial with the Father. This origin is an internal origin within God; its endpoint is also within God, and it cannot be considered a causal relationship in the strict sense. The origin of created beings is a causal relationship in the strict sense, resulting not in consubstantiality with God but in limited existence, distinct from God. However, there is a connection between created beings and the Word, resulting in the Word being considered the archetype of creation, and the origin of created beings being understood as a (limited) participation in the Word's origin as a model. Thus, the study of the Trinity seeking to approach God's inner life also illuminates the roles of the divine persons in creation and the history of salvation. For a more detailed description of this, we rely again on Gilles Emery OP's book: The Trinitarian Theology of St Thomas Aquinas, Oxford, 2010.
As we have seen, the knowledge of the Word comes from the Father, knowledge expressed by the Father. This knowledge extends to the possibilities of creating things similar to the divine nature, i.e., the possibilities of creation itself. Of these, the divine will freely chose our world, the created beings of our world. God knows the created beings not through some experience, but through His own knowledge, as the ideas of creation are in the divine nature. Therefore, divine knowledge includes the full depth of created existence, as it is the knowledge of the Creator. The Word, the knowledge expressed by the Father, thus includes the precise "blueprint" of creation, just as the plan of the house is present in the mind of the house's designer. God's word, however, is a creating word, a creating Word. In the Scriptures, we often read that God says something, and it becomes reality simply by God pronouncing it. The six-day creation narrative repeats like a refrain that God's word "let there be" is a "calling into being" word: "And God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light" (Gen 1:3). The work of creation and the preservation of the world originate from the Father, and are realized through the utterance of the Father's Word, the Word. Therefore, the Letter to the Hebrews says (1:1-3):
"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word."
Thomas Aquinas deals with why it was especially fitting (convenient) for the Word among the three persons to become incarnate (Summa Theologiae III q.3.a.8). The main point Thomas Aquinas sees is the similarity between the Word and the creatures mentioned above. The person of the Word was especially suitable to become the firstborn of all creation after the incarnation and to restore the world corrupted by sin according to the original pattern. The apostle Paul writes (Col 1:15-17):
"He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
Thomas Aquinas mentions three degrees regarding the similarity of creatures to the Word. The first degree applies to every creature: here the basis of similarity is that both the Word and the creatures originate from some source. The second degree includes rational creatures, where the similarity is greater due to their rationality. The third degree refers to the supernatural order. This similarity is related to the Son's origin from the Father and is manifested in supernatural divine sonship. The justified person, in the state of sanctifying grace and then in the beatific vision of God (visio beatifica) of salvation, partakes in the life of the Trinity based on similarity to the Son as the Son of the Father.
72
Romans 9:5
by aqwsed12345 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
na28: ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.. na28 transliterated: hō̃n hoi patéres kaì ex hō̃n ho khristòs tò katà sárka, ho ṑn epì pántōn theòs eulogētòs eis toùs aiō̃nas, amḗn.. kit: .

nwt: to them the forefathers belong, and from them the christ descended according to the flesh.

god, who is over all, be praised forever.
aqwsed12345
@EasyPrompt
Please read my LINK regarding the book of Ecclesiastes 9:5.
In the Old Testament, there wasn't much else clearly promised other than the usual: long life, offspring, wealth. This perspective ultimately suffered shipwreck in the Book of Job (Eliphaz made a lot of similar arguments) and in Ecclesiastes. You are reverting back to these Old Testament promises of limited validity in large numbers, while the apostle says that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, heart has not imagined what God has prepared for those who love him - in other words, obviously a much higher aiming promise than eternal life on a paradise earth. I guess the "heavenly class" of you may be the one that can actually partake in this promise, the others will only partake in this certain (often seen, heard, contemplated) promise.
The distinction between the New and Old Testament perspectives is valid, although not typically held by your denomination. (This is how they usually prove with Ecclesiastes that the dead know nothing, and pass by without blinking the fact that he also states: there is no better thing for a person under the sun than to enjoy God's material blessing.)
ou start from the Book of Ecclesiastes, but you are not willing to acknowledge the limited vision of this book. The pessimism of Ecclesiastes, his visible despair regarding the reward of virtues, is crying out for rewards in the afterlife or after resurrection, but the author knows nothing about all this, so the work is doctrinally crippled where there should be continuation. Where the righteous can receive the worthy reward for their righteousness.
The author does indeed write that the dead know nothing, but based on the context of the text, he does not refer to their consciousness but to their awareness of the events that happen on earth. Several biblical passages testify about the oppressive state in Sheol, yet these do not uniformly claim that existence ends with physical death. For example, in Isaiah 14:9 we read: "Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations. All of them will speak and say to you: 'You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!" Therefore, existence does not cease, even though after the departure of the life-giving spirit to God, people continue to linger in a shadow-like existence. The story of the witch of Endor also talks about Samuel himself coming forward to the call (in this case, obviously with God's permission), so he did not cease to exist or manifest. The fact that this was a forbidden practice did not make it impossible.
We do not consider the sentences quoted above from the Qohelet as the final truth, but only temporary, which were overridden by later statements. Yet you all run about these as if no one spoke later as the mouth of God about the souls of the martyrs crying out for vengeance from under God's altar, or that it is better for man to depart (ekdemeo) from the body and be with the Lord. (2 Cor 5:8). As if it wasn't clear from the later ones that the soul (psyche) is inside the body of the living person, but it is not in the dead's (Acts 20:10).
In the Bible there is also a kind of progression in the Bible's revelation, and you should not step back from the later stage to the earlier one as if the later development hadn't occurred. You might ask, but doesn't that mean the Bible contradicts itself? We don't say that, because we are used to a more differentiated interpretation. We say that there is a progression of revelation in the Bible. This doesn't call the earlier statements (or in the case of the Qohelet: conjectures, conclusions) wrong, just limited. You could reconcile with this view, since your own leadership often says such things in defense when it routinely contradicts itself after thirty years.
Based on the Qohelet’s own words, I claimed that he is pessimistic. But perhaps you didn't read where he keeps repeating: "All is vanity, chasing after wind" or in another translation "the torment of the spirit"? Or his countless examples of many people not receiving the reward of their virtues? Or those cases where evil prevails on Earth? Behold, because of the fleeting nature of life he himself despised life (2:18), turned away from hope (2:21), called the miscarried fetus happier than the living (4:3), etc. I don't need to continue: this shows that the Qohelet’s point of view rests on the vanity of earthly life, and his statements should be understood in this way (not as some eternally valid divine statements, as you propose). We now have a better hope, so we can use this book as a somber background to say: this is the level that even the wisest man can reach without Christ, without the hope of resurrection.
Moreover, the book of Ecclesiastes itself states that it contains reflections and inquiries (1:13), and that this too is an evil and vain occupation. So if your opinion were well-founded, you would also have to condemn Solomon for the same thing. But what do you do with the Book of Job, which contains contentious debates, even accusations and desperate laments? Man, as a sentient and thinking being, cannot be excluded from Scripture, and certainly not from here. In vain do you try to impose the pessimistic reflections of Ecclesiastes as an absolute divine revelation on everyone, the author himself did not intend them as such. Or do you also accept at face value that man has nothing better to do than to eat, drink, and enjoy life (8:15)?
All of this speaks about the deceased of Old Testament times, before Christianity. Before Christ's redemption, heaven was closed; then all the deceased were still together in the underworld (Sheol) (see, for example, Job 30:23) in a joyless, gloomy existence, even if they were chosen for eternal salvation. While they were separate from those condemned to hell (see Ezekiel 32:17-32), this place - the limbo - was not a place of joy, but of silent sadness, where God was not even glorified. This, therefore, is completely different from heaven, which was only opened by the death of Christ on the cross. At this point, death became joy, and from this point on, the saints who have died glorify God and can intercede for us.
The underworld (Sheol or Hades) before Christ is not the same as the triple condition (hell, purgatory, heaven) after Christ, although there are similarities. For the wicked, it was a real hell (Gehenna), but for the righteous, there was no happy state of union with God. It also follows from this that when Lazarus died, he could not yet go to heaven, at most to Abraham's bosom (Lk 16:12).
The Watchtower primarily refers to Old Testament scriptures, particularly the Psalms and the Book of Ecclesiastes, which speak of the transience of man, the broken relationship with God, and the created world found in the state of death (for example, Psalm 6:5; 49:14; 115:7; Ecclesiastes 3:18-22; 9:3-10). If we read these in isolation and do not take into account their place in salvation history, then we do indeed come to such a one-sided opinion as Rutherford and his successors. Such exegesis - which takes the texts out of their salvation-historical and entire biblical context and does not take into account progress - characterizes the Bible explanation of the Watchtower Society. What is the place of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) in the history of salvation? This is the level of knowledge of the man of the Old Testament period, before the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here - as generally in the Old Testament - there is not yet such a clear certainty about eternal life and death as in the New Testament. Even if the existence after death is repeatedly echoed in certain places of the Old Testament (for example, Psalm 88:11; 139:8; Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37; Daniel 12:1; Job 19:25ff).
Complete certainty was only given with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and by him, as the foundation of the general resurrection of the dead. In contrast, in the Old Testament, we often encounter the threatening judgment and the fear of the transience of earthly life, as also in Ecclesiastes. Qohelet is still strongly oriented in this present world and has no certainty of resurrection to life. However, he reckons that with death not everything is over (3:17; 12:7), that there is judgment. Ecclesiastes 3:18ff, for example, talks about the man without God, who is only concerned with himself, and compared to the animals, he sees and must admit that there is no difference until death. However, the line continues consistently until Jesus Christ who conquers death. The same applies to Ecclesiastes 9:3ff: "The 'placement under the sun' recognizes again that with his observations, Ecclesiastes is going beyond the sober reality of life under God's order.
When Jehovah's Witnesses rely on such places, they do not notice that these appear as questions, which find answers and fulfillment with Jesus Christ. When Ecclesiastes 3:21 asks, "Who knows if the spirit of man goes up high?", the New Testament place, 2 Corinthians 5:1 gives the answer: "For we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Why would the writers of the Greek biblical texts have used terms such as 'hades', 'psyche', 'tartaros', which clearly had spiritual-herafter meanings in the Greek language? In a cultural-religious environment that believed in an afterlife, shouldn't the apostles have clearly taught annihilationism? Why is the part of the book of Ecclesiastes much quoted by JWs never quoted in the New Testament? Why did the apostles NEVER warned those freshly converted from paganism, "Do not believe in a spiritual soul or the afterlife, because it is paganism"?
Regarding the Book of Ecclesiastes, it is worth stating that, of course, Christianity considers it an inspired book; there is no debate about that. Here we have an Adventist influence on the side of Jehovah's Witnesses. It is well known that Russell's movement sprang from early Adventism. Russell, at least in theory, adopted devotion to the Scriptures, belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible, even if arbitrary, and also the notion of equal substantive value of the Old and New Testaments.
He did not view and take seriously the biblical revelations in their salvific historical context, but as if he were mining stones, he extracts them from the textual context and combines them according to his own ideas. I have already spoken about the so-called "knight jump" "hermeneutics" method of Jehovah's Witnesses. Equating the Old Testament with the New Testament leads, among other things, to the celebration of the Sabbath in the Adventists and to a very legalistic way of thinking in Jehovah's Witnesses, which is particularly noticeable in the prohibition of blood.
They couple the entirely correct statement that all Scripture is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16) with the false conclusion that therefore all parts are equally valuable, of equal weight. This viewpoint results in neglecting the history of salvation, as well as deviating from Christ as the center of Scripture towards primarily eschatological side tracks. Just as stones are extracted from a quarry, revelations are drawn from the most diverse places in the Bible and - mostly without regard to context and the circumstances of origin - are freely combined. That's why they hardly make a distinction between the Old and New Testaments, between promise and fulfillment, in fact, they reject the terms Old and New Testament, replacing them with "Hebrew Scriptures" and "Christian Greek Scriptures".
Ecclesiastes 3:19 - The narrator here does not deny the immortality of the soul, in 3:19 he is not dealing with the soul (in Hebrew, nefesh) but with the breath of life (in Hebrew, ruach). According to him, the soul also ends up in the joyless underworld after death (9:10), so it does not perish; however, death ends organic life, and in this point, there is no difference between man and animal. The Psalm 104 (verses 29-30) partially reflects the same view, where God is presented as the one who sends out and retracts the breath of life of all living creatures. This breath of life is a comprehensive term for organic life and its operations.
Luke 16:19-31 - Regarding the Rich Man and Lazarus, please read THIS. So far, not a single JW has been able to answer the points raised in the article, they are all confused that if this and that must be symbolic, then the whole thing is symbolic, if it is symbolic, then it is not true, etc.
Psalm 146:4: The original text in the quote reads as follows: "bayyōwm hahū āḇəḏū eštōnōṯāw", which roughly means, "on that day, his (shining) plans/thoughts are perished/lost." I don't know how it can support anything. It only proves that his plans no longer exist, which is quite logical if the person is dead. The term "eshton" does not refer to a person's entire intellectual (mind) activity, but only to a very small slice of it. So, "bright, great thoughts," or something similar. Comparing it with similar verses from the scriptures, it's much more likely that these bright thoughts refer to plans related to earthly life. The scriptures speak in many places about the fragility of man's plans for earthly life, if they ignore the will of the God, and the finite nature of earthly life.
His thoughts, his plans. In the margin of the Revised Version, it says, "plans." The Greek word for thoughts is DIALOGISMOI. Greenfield interprets it as, "argument, reasoning, thought, meditation, plan." If we trust in earthly nobles, when they die, their plans fail and we are left without help. This psalm contrasts confidence in the flesh with trust in God. It does not teach that self-awareness would be extinguished, but that the person will no longer be able to carry out what he had planned. It does not prove the annihilationist position for three basic reasons:
1. Because the literary nature of the Psalms and their being from the Old Testament allow only a limited doctrinal proof.
2. Based on the context of the verse, it is not a revelation of a doctrinal truth about the state of the dead - especially not in such an explicit and definitive way that it can be played against the much more specific New Testament statements, but it calls for trust in God, as opposed to human finitude.
3. The corresponding Hebrew term 'eshton' used here does not denote a person's full self-awareness, consciousness, but his plans regarding the earthly life, which perish with the death. I even asked a native Hebrew rabbi about this, and he also professed this interpretation.
Check THIS too.
72
Romans 9:5
by aqwsed12345 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
na28: ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.. na28 transliterated: hō̃n hoi patéres kaì ex hō̃n ho khristòs tò katà sárka, ho ṑn epì pántōn theòs eulogētòs eis toùs aiō̃nas, amḗn.. kit: .

nwt: to them the forefathers belong, and from them the christ descended according to the flesh.

god, who is over all, be praised forever.
aqwsed12345
Let's see Ezekiel 18:4...
First of all, God, through the prophet, is fighting against an Israeli proverb: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," meaning the children are also punished for the fathers' sins. Ezekiel's message is clear: everyone is accountable for themselves before God. Secondly, the literal translation ("which soul...") is misleading because the expression just means "who...". It is not about a person's "part," the soul (which proponents of soul mortality do not even regard as a separate part), but about the whole person and personal responsibility.
In other texts, the literal translation of this text can be misleading. Acts 3:23 "And it shall be, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people" – meaning everyone. Joshua 11:11 "And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them..." – meaning everyone.
The Watch Tower Society cites this verse in response to the following question: Is there a part of man that lives on after the death of the body? The answer, according to them, is no. They point out that in some translations at this verse, "he who sins will die" can be read. Therefore, the word "soul" (Hebrew: nefesh) does not refer to the intangible nature of a person but to the actual living individual. So they claim that the "soul" is not something that survives the death of the body.
Biblical Teaching: The statement in Ezekiel 18:4, which says "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," does not conflict with the idea that humans have an intangible nature that remains conscious after death. It is true in this textual context that the Hebrew word for soul (nefesh) is used in the sense of "living creature" or "person." Christians do not dispute this (in a given textual context, the word 'nefesh' means "living creature"; it can have other meanings - such as a human creature's "inner self").
Christians point out that since the intangible nature of man is not discussed in Ezekiel 18:4, we cannot draw conclusions about it, either for or against, based on this verse. All Ezekiel intended to do was combat a false teaching that had arisen at that time - a teaching related to the doctrine of inherited sin. Some people began to argue about why children suffer and die for the sins of their fathers. While it is true that sin has an inherited effect (see Exodus 20:5-6), Ezekiel emphasizes in this verse that each individual person is responsible for their own sin. That's why he said that the "soul" (or person) that sins is the one who will die. Ezekiel was not attempting to teach anything about the existence or absence of the intangible nature of man.
Although the Hebrew word 'nefesh' in Ezekiel 18:4 refers to a "living creature" or "person," there are numerous verses in the Old Testament where the word is used in another sense. For example, in Genesis 35:18, the word nefesh can be interpreted as referring to the intangible nature of man: "And it came to pass, as her soul (nefesh) was departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin". This verse clearly identifies the soul as something distinct from the mortal physical body. Many New Testament passages unequivocally prove that man has an intangible nature (see, for example, Matthew 10:28, 2 Corinthians 5:8-10, and Revelation 6:9-11).
When read in its full textual context, the simple essence becomes evident: the person who commits sin will die, and the person who obeys God will live. The cited section does not address the question of whether or not there is life after death or in the afterlife.
Furthermore, they overlooked the spiritual meaning of "death" found in the Bible. For example, 1 Timothy 5:6 reads:
"But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives." (cf. Eph 2:1 and Lk 15:24)
The fact that Ezekiel 18:4, 20 refers to spiritual death (meaning: separation from God, not annihilation) is evident from its context, as 18:21 states:
"But if the wicked turns from all his sins that he has committed, keeps all my statutes, and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die."
Since every person dies physically, this clearly refers to spiritual or "second" death.
Expressions like "let my soul die the death of the righteous" are Hebrew idioms. The Hebrew word 'nefesh' can often replace the reflexive and personal pronoun in Hebrew. So, such expressions should be understood as "my soul shall die" = "I shall die". The same word in the Bible can have different meanings, and sometimes different words can express the same thing. For instance, the Hebrew 'nefesh' is often translated not as "soul," but as "living being". Therefore, when speaking of the death of the 'nefesh', it does not deny the immortality of the soul, contrary to what Jehovah's Witnesses might think.
Moreover, based on the context, it's evident that this isn't about hope after death, but about personal responsibility. The Lord says that He loves and judges everyone, both the father and the son. Why would He punish the son for the father's sins? Only the sinner is punished, whether he is a father or a son; they are not punished for their fathers’ sins but for their own.
When the Bible speaks of the 'soul' dying (for example, Numbers 23:10; 1 Kings 19:14), it always refers to the whole person (in a broader sense) and never to the soul as an element of human creation (in a narrow sense). This is especially true for passages like Ez 18:4, often cited by the Watchtower Society. When the prophet says that 'the soul that sins shall die', it obviously refers to the human as a spiritual-physical entity because an isolated soul cannot sin or die. Mortality is a characteristic used in the New Testament only in relation to the earthly body (Rom 6:12; 8:11; 1 Cor 15:53k; 2 Cor 4:11; 5:4). For the earthly body belongs to the visible and transient realm (2 Cor 4:18). However, the new body, in which the person continues to exist after the last day's resurrection, is immortal (1 Cor 15:35-54; 2 Cor 5:1-10; Phil 3:21).
The Scripture doesn't describe human origins philosophically but vividly, attributing the נָפֶשׁ (nefesh, the principle of life manifested in warm breath) to both humans and animals alike. When describing the creation of the first man, the Scripture only mentions the body formed from the earth's clay and the breath of life, nothing else. This perspective continues in later books. However, there's no doubt about the divine origin and distinct nature of the human soul: God directly breathes the breath of life into humans, whom He created in His image, distinguishing them from animals. Only humans possess נְשָׁמָה (neshama, rational soul). The soul is not subject to the fate of the body, thus having a different essence. "The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." [Eccl 12:7; Ez 37:7.10] "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." [Mt 10:28; cf. 16:26.] It's paralleled with the spirit of God: "For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." [1 Cor 2:11] The soul has the ability to recognize truth [Job 20:3 32:8; Ex 28:3, Ps 138:14]; therefore, it is different from the soul of an animal.
Many rationalist religious historians believe that the older Old Testament books do not know about the soul's afterlife (according to some newer views, they are only silent so as not to feed the widespread animism among the Semites). In this matter, we must ascertain that
1. the entire Old Testament is set directly and straightforwardly not on the afterlife, but on God. But in this, the belief in immortality is implied, as the Savior indicates: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him." [Lk 20:38]
2. It is also certain that God gradually advanced the people bearing the revelation to a higher religious standpoint in this matter as well. He did not presuppose spiritual development as a Deus ex machina, but connected his revelations regarding the afterlife and thus immortality to its phases.
3. Finally, it should not be overlooked that the Scripture does not treat immortality as an abstract philosophical proposition but presents it in its truly realized form, in connection with the resurrection of the body.
In the first phase of revelation, due to the obscurity of views and concepts regarding the afterlife, the sacred writers were also under the impression of experience: the present life speaks to man with its definite forms, joys, and colors; compared to it, the afterlife is colorless, joyless, shadow-life [Job 10:21, Ps 87:12 113:17, Isa 38:18, etc.]; although not the same for the good and the wicked [Deut 32:22]. And the passing of this earthly life, the course of all living beings seemingly leading uniformly into death, attunes the Old Testament thinker to melancholy [Job 14:7–14, Ecc 2:14–16, 3:11–22, 6:6 9:4–6, etc.].
Yet even the oldest Old Testament books know about the afterlife of the soul:
1. Jacob calls his and his fathers' earthly life a pilgrimage [Gen 47:9; cf. Heb 11:9.]
2. the descent into Sheol, the gathering to the fathers, often does not simply mean the expression of burial [Gen 15:5 25:8 35:29 37:35 49:32.]
3. evidence is also the prohibition and fact of summoning spirits [Lev 19:31 20:6.27; Deut 18:11; 1Sam 28:75]
Such expressions: "may my soul die with the death of the righteous," are Hebraisms. The word 'nefesh' often substitutes the reflexive and personal pronoun in Hebrew; such statements like "my soul will die" = "I will die" should be understood this way. Later Old Testament books and the New Testament specifically say: "God created man immortal, and made him in his own image" [Ecc 12:7; Dan 12:1–3.]; "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." [Mt 10:28; cf. Lk 20:36–38.] "He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." [Jn 12:25; cf. all those places where eternal life is mentioned in the New Testament concerning man.]
72
Romans 9:5
by aqwsed12345 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
na28: ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.. na28 transliterated: hō̃n hoi patéres kaì ex hō̃n ho khristòs tò katà sárka, ho ṑn epì pántōn theòs eulogētòs eis toùs aiō̃nas, amḗn.. kit: .

nwt: to them the forefathers belong, and from them the christ descended according to the flesh.

god, who is over all, be praised forever.
aqwsed12345

@EasyPrompt
Even if you are no longer a member of the Watchtower denomination, you still hold Watchtower doctrines. Why don't you start revising them?
You work with 'a priori' preconceptions: you logically start from the assumption that God/YHVH only denotes the person of the Father, so if the singular speaks in the first person, as a person separate from him, to Jesus, this already proves that Jesus cannot be God. However, such usage is nothing more than WTS jargon.
When the WTS thinks of God, Jehovah, of course, it automatically thinks of the Father. It is true that the name of the God of Israel is Yahweh or Jehovah. It is also true that Jesus called the Father God and God his Father. But of this, the formula Jehovah / God = the Father is only logical for the Watchtower Society. The divine name Yahweh or Jehovah does not denote only one person, but the Godhead itself (theotes, Col 2:9), in whom three persons can be identified. The name of the second person is "the Son" (ho húios), his human name is "Jesus", and his mission is "Christ." The third person does have a name, since there is only one "Holy Spirit" in the Bible, so it is often simply "the Spirit" (to pneuma). Christians worship the same God with the same name (Jehovah / Yahweh) as Jehovah's Witnesses, they only claim that Jehovah God is more than Father: Son and Holy Spirit as well.
Talking about "Jesus and Jehovah" is a Watchtowerite, JW theological jargon, and of course can only be interpreted in this context.
In order to emphasize antitrinitarian teachings, the divine name YHWH is limited to God the Father only. This is why, for example, if a Christian says "Jesus is Jehovah", then the JW brain understands that "Jesus is the Father", which is obviously ridiculous not only for JWs, but for theologically correct Christianity. With the use of words such as "Jehovah and Jesus" also force their Arian theology, so that the antitrinitarian dogma is embedded in the JW even at the linguistic level. Cf. Newspeak.
But of course, if we expand the wording, it becomes understandable. We do not say, for example, that Jesus is "equal to Jehovah", but that the divine name YHWH is not the name of just one person, namely the Father, but rather the deity itself, in which three persons can be identified.
72
Romans 9:5
by aqwsed12345 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
na28: ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.. na28 transliterated: hō̃n hoi patéres kaì ex hō̃n ho khristòs tò katà sárka, ho ṑn epì pántōn theòs eulogētòs eis toùs aiō̃nas, amḗn.. kit: .

nwt: to them the forefathers belong, and from them the christ descended according to the flesh.

god, who is over all, be praised forever.
aqwsed12345
Dear EasyPrompt,
these links are for you:
Regarding Colossians 1:15: https://justpaste.it/apztr
66
"outside of time" argument
by Blotty in
1. watchtower
2. bible
this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.
aqwsed12345

JWs argue that the Father is not called Firstborn, well that's false:
"The Greek for "firstborn" is prototokos, which means "preeminence" and "eternal preexistence," according to Greek lexicons. It does not mean "first-created." Apart from being untrue linguistically, this heretical interpretation is contradicted in the next two verses, which inform us that Christ "created all things," and that He "is before all things." The Hebrew usage of "firstborn" is also instructive, since it illustrates its meaning as "preeminent." David is called "firstborn" in Ps 89:27, not because he was the literal first child of Jesse (for he was the youngest), but in the sense of his ascendancy to the kingship of Israel. Likewise, Jeremiah 31:9 refers to Ephraim as the firstborn, whereas Manasseh was the first child born (Gen 41:50-52). The nation Israel is called "my firstborn" by God (Ex 4:22). The Jewish rabbinical writers even called God the Father Bekorah Shelolam, meaning "firstborn of all creation," that is, the Creator. This is precisely how St. Paul uses the "firstborn" phraseology in Col 1:15.
If Jesus created "all things," then He Himself cannot be a thing (i.e., a creation); ergo, He is not created, but eternal. For this very reason, Jehovah's Witnesses (with no justification in the Greek text whatever), add "other" to the passage, in order for Jesus to become a creation, as they imagine, according to their Arian heretical views. Mormons (though not the Book of Mormon) also deny that Jesus was eternal and immutable, so they set forth some of the same fallacious and unbiblical arguments towards that end. As for being "in the beginning" with the Father, this, too, is in an absolutely unique sense, not applicable at all to created human beings"

Clarke's Colossians 1:15 Bible Commentary:
"The first-born of every creature - I suppose this phrase to mean the same as that, Philippians 2:9 : God hath given him a name which is above every name; he is as man at the head of all the creation of God; nor can he with any propriety be considered as a creature, having himself created all things, and existed before any thing was made. If it be said that God created him first, and that he, by a delegated power from God, created all things, this is most flatly contradicted by the apostle's reasoning in the 16th and 17th verses. As the Jews term Jehovah בכורו של עולם becoro shel olam, the first-born of all the world, or of all the creation, to signify his having created or produced all things; (see Wolfius in loc.) so Christ is here termed, and the words which follow in the 16th and 17th verses are the proof of this. The phraseology is Jewish; and as they apply it to the supreme Being merely to denote his eternal pre-existence, and to point him out as the cause of all things; it is most evident that St. Paul uses it in the same way, and illustrates his meaning in the following words, which would be absolutely absurd if we could suppose that by the former he intended to convey any idea of the inferiority of Jesus Christ."
Let's see this in the Talmud:
"“You shall redeem every firstborn of your sons. They shall not appear before Me empty-handed.” If someone has the good fortune to be a firstborn this is a true distinction. To some degree he shares this distinction with G’d Himself Who is also “a first in the universe.”" (Shemot 34:20)
So when the apostle Paul called Jesus "the firstborn of creation", it rhymed with Jewish phraseology, in which God was called "firstborn of the world" ('bekoro shel olám' - firstborn-of-the-world; or 'qadmono shel olam'-First-Primordial-of-the-world), the general idea is clear: the Jesus is above all of creation.
"Bekoro shel olam" (בכורו של עולם) translates to "the firstborn of the world," and it's a term used to denote someone or something as the primordial or foremost of creation.
"Qadmono shel olam" (קדמונו של עולם) translates to "the Ancient One of the world" or "the Primordial One of the world." In Jewish thought, particularly in Kabbalistic literature, it is often used to refer to God as the Eternal and Primordial Being who precedes all creation.
Hence the term "בכורו של עולם" (bekoro shel olam) in Hebrew translates to "the firstborn of the world," while "πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως" (prototokos pasēs ktiseōs) in Greek translates to "the firstborn of all creation." These term essentially mean the same thing. Both refer to the concept of the "firstborn" or "preeminent" one of all creation or the world. In Christianity, the Greek phrase is used in the New Testament (Colossians 1:15) to describe Jesus Christ, emphasizing his preeminence. The concept of "firstborn" as a special status can also be found in Jewish thought, with the Hebrew phrase carrying the idea of being the first or preeminent one.
Paul makes several key statements about the Messiah: "The firstborn of the world." He continues by saying that through Him, all things were made; visible and invisible. Everything was created by Him and for Him. He is before everything, and everything subsists in Him. The overall idea is clear: the Messiah is above all creation.
When the apostle speaks of the "firstborn of the world" (v.15), he is alluding to the preexistence of the Messiah as God. In Hebrew, it is said "Bekoro shel olam" ("Firstborn of the World"), and it was used in Jewish literature to refer to God. Bahiá ben Asher (13th century), a disciple of Rashba (considered an extraordinary rabbinic authority), in his commentary on the Torah, says of God: "He is the firstborn of the world." In his commentary on Exodus 13:2, Bahiá again refers to God as "the firstborn," interpreting this text as "consecrate to me every firstborn."
Thus, Paul, fully immersed in his people's culture, when referring to the Messiah with these terms, native to Judaism, is alluding to the preexistence of the Messiah as God -- this fits perfectly with the context; everything was created by Him and for Him. He is before everything, and everything subsists in Him. There could not be a more explicit statement that the universe was created by the Messiah than this one.
These were expressions specific to the Jewish people that could be immediately recognized by the Jewish community members of the Second Temple period. What must certainly be excluded is that the Messiah, by being considered as the "firstborn of the world," should be included among creatures.
He is not the first of creation or the first creature that God made because, as v.1.16 says, everything was created by Him, so He cannot be a creature. He cannot, with any propriety, be considered as a creature, having Himself created all things and having existed before anything was made.
The phrase "firstborn of the world" also cannot be considered the "first creature" of God. To expose the error of this interpretation, we can use King David as an example; he was the firstborn of his brothers (Psalm 89:27), but not the first to be born (1 Sam. 16:1-13). However, he is called "firstborn." Ephraim, the second son of Joseph (Gen. 41:52), is also called the firstborn (Jeremiah 31:9).
The phraseology "firstborn of the world" is Jewish, and as they apply it to the Supreme Being -- the Infinite, only to denote His eternal preexistence, and to identify Him as the cause of causes. It is more than evident that Paul, as a Jew raised in Jewish and Pharisaic culture and an honored sage of the Jewish people, uses this phraseology in the same way, illustrating its meaning with the following words: everything was created by Him and for Him. He is before everything, and everything subsists in Him. Thus, the interpretation that says that "He is the first creature" or included among creatures is excluded by the statements that followed when it is said of Him that "everything was created in Him, by Him and for Him," and that He is "before everything, and everything subsists in Him" (v.16-17). All these expressions clearly demonstrate that the Son is in a unique rank, outside the series of creatures.
Another rabbinic parallel, perhaps equivalent to Bekoro shel olam (firstborn of the world), is the term "Qadmono shel olam-First or Primordial of the world," used to refer to God, as did, for example, the 2nd-century Jewish sage Eleazar ben Shimeón (Bereshit Rabá 38.7 on Gn. 11:2). And also in the Zohar, where God is referred to as "Qadmono shel olam-First or Primordial of the world" (Zohar, Lech-Lecha 1.84a). It is quite likely that the apostle Paul, as a Jew immersed in his people's culture, used one of these two Jewish phraseologies in this doctrinal exposition recorded in his letter to the Judeo-Messianic community located in Colossae vv. 1:16; "Qadmono shel Olam-First-Primordial of the world" or “Bekoro shel olam–firstborn of the world." Both are words used to refer to God.
Reading Paul's key statements about Jesus, as a Jew would have done, completely immersed in his people's culture, such as when he calls Him "firstborn of the world" (bekoro shel olam-firstborn-of-the-world; or Qadmono shel olam-First-Primordial-of-the-world"), clarifies the text's message, which perfectly aligns with Jewish phraseology and ideology and with the entire content of the praise written by the apostle; “everything was created in Him, by Him and for Him,” and He is “before everything, and everything subsists in Him.” The overall idea is clear: the Messiah is above all creation. He is God.
72
Romans 9:5
by aqwsed12345 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
na28: ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.. na28 transliterated: hō̃n hoi patéres kaì ex hō̃n ho khristòs tò katà sárka, ho ṑn epì pántōn theòs eulogētòs eis toùs aiō̃nas, amḗn.. kit: .

nwt: to them the forefathers belong, and from them the christ descended according to the flesh.

god, who is over all, be praised forever.
aqwsed12345

@Vidqun
"as you might have noticed, I interpret the Scriptures quite literally." - I don't think so, the JW biblical "hermeneutics" is not accidentally called the "Scripture sandwich", or "knight's jump" exegesis (jumping from one place to another in the Scripture like a knight moves on a chessboard), without regard to the context of salvation history. Just as stones are extracted from a quarry, revelations are drawn from the most diverse places in the Bible and - mostly without regard to context and the circumstances of origin - are freely combined.
"On the one hand, I view the soul as a living person (or animal). Adam became a living soul when he started breathing (Gen. 2:7)." - You may have heard or read about the broad nuances of the Hebrew term "nefesh", but basically your denomination wants to derive the doctrinal description of anthropology from the earliest Old Testament meaning of the word "nefesh". Any Catholic theology book will tell you that "nefesh" in Genesis 2:7 does not mean soul, which is what we specifically mean by "soul". This meaning also appears clearly in the Bible, although it is a fact that it is mainly in the later books.
The body-soul dichotomy appears quite concretely, for example, in the first half of Matthew 10:28. In Matthew 10:28, the psyche obviously does not mean either the whole person (because it is about his physical death) or his (eternal) life, since it is not denoted by the term 'psyche', but by the term 'zōē aiōnios' in the New Testament. Read THIS.
And it remains unanswered why, if Israel's original faith was annihilationism, why the translators of the LXX translated 'sheol' as 'hades' and 'nefesh' as 'psyche', when these words clearly have an after-life meaning in the Greek language. And then the writers of the New Testament adopted this terminology and then proclaimed the Gospel in the Greco-Roman world, without saying a word about these converted pagans abandoning their faith in the after-life in its entirety, since there is supposedly nothing until the resurrection.
At that time, the Greeks understood two things by the word 'hades'. Hades, the god of the underworld, one of the sons of the god Zeus, and the realm over which the god Hades ruled, i.e. the Underworld, where, according to their belief, the souls of the dead go. This was the Greek world of faith, the Greeks believed in this. My question is: why did the Jewish translators who first translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek translate the Hebrew sheol into 'hades'? Hehehe, good question, right? Perhaps the Watchtower-like answer could be that the translators were not inspired, and apostate copyists inserted the same words into the New Testament. I am already waiting for a 'Brand New World Translation' to be published, in which, in addition to the 237 mentions of Jehovah, the ten mentions of Sheol will finally regain their "rightful place"...
You should probably read a chapter from a book on biblical anthropology about the word "nefesh" to see that this word in the Old Testament signified throat, neck, desire, life, a complete person - and indeed the soul, in its usual theological sense. You all have a great battle against those scripture passages where the word cannot mean a complete person, because it is about a person's breath. Such are Exodus 23:9, Job 19:2, Isaiah 53:11, and many others that I could copy from my source, Hans Walter Wolff's book 'Anthropology of the Old Testament'. These cannot be pinned down to mean the "complete person", but rather a constituent part of the person. Obviously, in many places 'nefesh' means the whole person, but these do not absorb the ones I mentioned, nor several key places in the description of the soul, such as 1Thes 5:23, Hebrews 4,12. Therefore, neither nefesh nor psyche exclusively mean the complete person.
Ezekiel 18:4 - Here, the Hebrew term 'nephesh' obviously does not mean what Christian theology means by the soul, and thus by definition does not teach the death of IT. Such phrases in the Bible: "may my soul die with the death of the righteous", are Hebraisms. The Scriptures describe the origin of man not philosophically, but illustratively, and therefore attribute the נָפֶשׁ (nefesh, the principle of life manifested in warm breath) to both man and animal. The nefesh often replaces the reflexive and personal pronouns in Hebrew; thus such statements should be understood: "my soul shall die" = "I shall die". With regard to the terminology of the Old Testament, it is not new, it is even included in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (363):
"In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person (Cf. Mt 16:25-26; Jn 15:13; Acts 2:41) But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him (Cf. Mt 10:28; 26:38; Jn 12:27; 2 Macc 6 30.), that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.""
The term "onoma" (=name) plays a similar role in the New Testament, e.g. Acts 1:15: "the number of names" = "the number of people".
Anyway, although JWs often accuse us of taking our concept of the soul from Plato, in fact, the Platonist understanding of the soul was condemned as heresy by the Catholic Church in 1312 at the Council of Vienne, where extreme monist and extreme dualist conceptions of man were condemned.
The historical fact is that in the time of Jesus, with the exception of the Sadducees, the Jews believed in the afterlife, and Jesus did not reprimand them for this, and in an interesting way he told a parable in which the rich man suffers in a fiery place. If a JW used such illustrations in his preaching work today, I would certainly not praise him for it. Because maybe he meant it symbolically and not literally. However, it is impossible that these symbols will only be "deciphered" by JWs after 1900 years and for 1900 years everyone will be forced to explain this as if this parable has a realistic basis.
There is a good article about the many uses of the word "soul" in the Bible: https://www.oodegr.com/english/dogma/diafora/enoies2.htm

"And is that not what the memorial is all about, the sacrifice of Jesus' body and blood?" - "Memorial" is a JW jargon, in Christianity it is called the Eucharist, and it is not only an annual event, and the majority of believers are not inherently excluded from it.

"And the fact that nobody recognized the resurrected Jesus, is also an indication that he rose with a different body." - It's enough for me to quote again:
He was not recognized for several reasons, all of which are indicated by the contexts.
-John 20. It was early in the morning and still dark, (vs. 1), and Mary was not expecting to see Jesus alive. Nowhere does the text say Jesus appeared to Mary as a gardener. It was Mary's mistake, not Jesus' appearance.
-John 21:4-12. Jesus was on the seashore, while the disciples were at sea in a ship. It was early morning. The disciples were 200 cubits (approx. 100 yards) from the land. Fog would have been raising from the water at that early hour obscuring the disciple's view.
Jesus' subsequent actions were those of someone possessing a body.
-Luke 24:16. The eyes of these disciples were "holden," or "veiled."
Jesus did this so they could not recognize Him because though He was the Living Word and had taught them for over three years He now wanted to direct their attention to the written Word.
When they saw from the scriptures that Jesus must suffer and be raised again He then unveiled their eyes so they could recognize Him.
The implication is very plain if Jesus had not "veiled" their eyes they would have recognized Him. If He was in "another form" there would have been no need to veil their eyes at all.
1 Corinthians 15:38 proves that the resurrected body is the same own body, 1 Corinthians 15:50-54 speaks of the "change" of this original body.

"In my mind the word “sacrifice” means the death of the victim." - That's what I said too, that's why Jesus' sacrifice already fully "finished" on the cross when he died, not when God allegedly vaporized his body in the grave, especially since the Holy Scriptures does not say a word about this or the allegd necessity of it.
""See references to "Sons of God" .." - At most, your references prove that "sons of God" can mean angels, but they do not prove that it also actually means angels in Genesis 6:2." - It does not disprove it either." - The burden of proof is on you, since if you look at the commentaries, Christian and Jewish exegetes almost unanimously interpreted it as I wrote. By the way, logic also supports this, since angels are pure spirits who are able to appear visibly (with God's permission), but this is only apparent, they cannot concieve children.
"So where do the violent Nephilim ("giants"), "the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown" fit in then? (Gen. 6:4 ESV)" - The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the "sons of God" (men from the tribe of Seth) went in to the "daughters of men" (women from the tribe of Cain), and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, known from ancient times The Hebrew word "Nephil" does not necessarily mean a giant—though according to Numbers 13:33, the Nephilim could have been tall in stature—but rather generally refers to a violent, wild, unruly person. The Scipture here is talking about those heroes (heroi), whose deeds were later so colored and glorified by the (pagan) myth, - and precisely against their respect, it wants to emphasize that their wickedness hastened the coming of the flood.
72
Romans 9:5
by aqwsed12345 in
1. watchtower
2. bible
na28: ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀμήν.. na28 transliterated: hō̃n hoi patéres kaì ex hō̃n ho khristòs tò katà sárka, ho ṑn epì pántōn theòs eulogētòs eis toùs aiō̃nas, amḗn.. kit: .

nwt: to them the forefathers belong, and from them the christ descended according to the flesh.

god, who is over all, be praised forever.
aqwsed12345

@EasyPrompt
In fact, God Himself is a mystery, since the finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite God. The fact that the Trinity is a mystery does not mean that what is in Revelation cannot be understood by reason. The doctrine of the Trinity summarizes the biblical data: there is only one God, but at the same time there are three persons, who by nature are what only God can be, and who do things that only God can do. God is one God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is not meaningless, it is just beyond reason, unprecedented in the created world: God bless you. it does not resemble human ideas (cf. Acts 17:29). Otherwise, the term "Jehovah" or "theocratic organization" is not in the Bible either. 1 Cor 14:33 does not speak about the being of God, but about the need for church order (i.e. he is the God of peace).
Read this: https://justpaste.it/9jizw