Wisdom's Children

In Defense of the Trinity: A Response to Jehovah's Witnesses

by Bill Ramey

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Contents

  • Introduction
  • Is the Trinity Pagan?
  • Is the Trinity Mysterious and Confusing?
  • Is the Trinity Biblical?
  • The Biblical Case for the Trinity
  • There is Only One God
  • The Father is God
  • The Son is God
  • The Holy Spirit is God
  • Conclusion
Introduction

In the fourth century, the Christian world became so mired in the debate between Arians (followers of Arius who denied the deity of Christ) and Trinitarians that Gregory of Nyssa remarked:

If you ask any one in Constantinople for change, he will start discussing with you whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten. If you ask about the quality of bread, you will get the answer: "The Father is greater, the Son is less." If you suggest taking a bath you will be told: "There was nothing before the Son was created." (qtd. in Dowley 176)
Although such widespread interest in theological controversy is unusual today, the debate between Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians is no less significant. The doctrine of the Trinity is the major issue of dispute between orthodox Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses, and belief in the deity of Christ sets off orthodox Christianity from all other world religions, both mainstream and cultic. Hence the debate over the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit continues to this day, and each new generation of believers must re-present anew the case for Trinitarianism.

The aim of this article is to present and defend the doctrine of the Trinity through biblical argumentation rather than proof-texting. What this means will become clear especially in the discussion of John 1:1, but in general, biblical argumentation is reasoning from the scriptures (Acts 17:2)--drawing conclusions carefully from biblical passages. Too often, dialogues between Christians and JWs on the Trinity tend to hinge upon proof-texting and quibbling over the translation of certain verses (especially John 1:1). Meanwhile, the average JW has no understanding of why Trinitarian doctrine is the defining characteristic of orthodox Christianity and tends to accept without question the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society's claim that Trinitarianism is the result of pagan influence and religious apostasy. Moreover, many Christians do not know how to present the doctrine of the Trinity as anything but a collection of verses and do not have a systematic understanding of the Trinity. This article hopes to fill in that gap.

Another aim of this article is to address two common extrabiblical arguments against Trinitarianism made by JWs and others: (1) that the doctrine of the Trinity has a pagan origin and was introduced into Christianity in the second century by apostate Christians and (2) that it is a mysterious, confusing, and unreasonable doctrine. The article will address those criticisms first and then present the biblical case for Trinitarianism.

Is the Trinity Pagan?

Critics of orthodox Christianity and liberal Bible scholars have alleged that many elements of Christianity are of pagan origin, including the doctrine of the Trinity. It is ironic that the JWs, who claim to be the only true heirs of biblical Christianity, would use these allegations about the Trinity, because the same allegations are made about the Noahic flood, the creation story of Genesis, and the Gospels. It is well known, for example, that flood stories similar to the one in Genesis can be found in the literature and legends of many peoples all over the world, e.g., in the The Epic of Gilgamesh. Many scholars have thus argued that the Noahic flood account finds it origins in pagan mythology. JWs will no doubt reject this conclusion, but they unwittingly use the same kind of reasoning against Trinitarianism. For example, Mankind's Search for God states:

[A]postate Christians of the second century took on the trappings of the pagan Roman religion. They moved away from their pure biblical origins and instead clothed themselves with pagan Roman garb and titles and became imbued with Greek philosophy....

Such an attitude left the way open for Greek philosophy and terminology to infiltrate Christendom's teachings, especially in the fields of Trinitarian doctrine and the belief in an immortal soul. (264)

The pamphlet Should You Believe in the Trinity? goes even further by contending that not only did Greek thought influence Trinitarianism, but that other cultures, such as Babylon and Egypt, did so as well:
Throughout the ancient world, as far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common. That influence was also prevalent in Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the centuries before, during, and after Christ. And after the death of the apostles, such pagan beliefs began to invade Christianity. (11)
These remarks in SYBT are accompanied with pictures of artifacts depicting various triads of gods from pagan religions along with artifacts depicting the Christian Trinity. Despite the ostensible scholarship of these claims, they are false and fallacious for several reasons.

First, as mentioned, it is simply inconsistent for the Watch Tower to use the opinions of liberal scholars against the Trinity. For example, SYBT cites the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library:

The fact has to be faced that New Testament research over, say, the last thirty or forty years has been leading an increasing number of reputable New Testament scholars to the conclusion that Jesus ... certainly never believed himself to be God. (20, ellipses SYBT's)
What SYBT does not say is that this same research also concludes that Christ never even claimed to be the Son of God, that the Gospels are largely mythical, and that we can never be sure about the true identity of Christ. Another example of this inconsistency is SYBT's citation of the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon:
If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians ... was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief. (11, ellipses SYBT's)
This claim is not only out-of-date and biased (no scholar today would call early Christians deists), but Gibbon portrayed first century Christians as superstitious, credulous fanatics ready to believe in any supernatural notion. Such "scholarship" no more supports JW belief than it does orthodox Christian belief.

Second, the use of Greek terminology in Christian thought is hardly an indication of pagan influence. For example, when Paul preached to the philosophers of Athens, he quoted two Greek poets, Epimenides and Aratus, to make his point (all scriptures are from the Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted):

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.' (Acts 17:24-28)
Likewise, John 1:1 uses the Greek word logos to describe Christ, a word first used by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus to describe the underlying order behind the flux of everyday sense experience. Yet in an odd twist, SYBT favorably cites The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge as suggesting that the doctrine of the logos is an "error" and a "corruption" derived from Greek thought:
The doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers, who ... were much influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Platonic philosophy ... That errors and corruptions crept into the Church from this source can not be denied. (11, ellipses SYBT's)
SYBT's use of this quote raises some interesting questions. Do the JWs believe that John was corrupted by Heraclitus and other Greek thinkers, and if not, how can they claim that Trinitarianism is corrupt simply because it has alleged antecedents in Greek thought? Moreover, given that the doctrine of the logos is in the Bible, is it not at least possible that the doctrine of the Trinity is as well? This inconsistency devastates the Watch Tower's claims about the pagan origins of Trinitarianism. At any rate, Christianity arose in a Greek milieu, so it is not surprising that early Christians used Greek terminology in the same way that contemporary American Christians use idioms native to English. The use of such terminology does not mean that pagan thought infiltrated the Christian Church.

Third, Trinitarianism became the official position of the Christian Church in spite of Greek philosophy, not because of it. In Greek thought, perfection is found in absolute unity; that which admits of distinction is less perfect. Christian philosopher Terry Miethe writes:

It is clear that the nature of God that originated in Greek philosophical thought is not sufficient. Certainly the Christian concept of God is much richer than the Greek view. If one views God as utter and simple unity, that which does not admit to degrees, this makes the problem of how the many physical things can participate in that which is without parts. The identification of God with the One of Plato, as interpreted by Plotinus, gives birth to negative theology in the history of Western Christian thought. [Negative theology defines God by stating what He is not, rather than what He is.] The traditional theory of the nature of God has always strongly emphasized the utter simplicity and the utter transcendence of God. Thus God is indivisible and transcendent of everything beneath him. Yet, it is clear this is not the God of the Christian revelation. (117)
Christian theology, particularly its concepts of divine triunity and divine incarnation, far surpasses Greek theology. Aristotle, for example, taught that all objects seek to actualize their potential, i.e., they seek to fulfill the potential of their nature. Seeds seek to become plants, acorns seek to become trees, and so forth. Since God's nature is complete, He has no potential to actualize; He is pure actuality. As such, God is at complete rest; He does not move, and He does not act or interact with creation. Hence Aristotle called God the "Unmoved Mover." The Christian doctrine of the incarnate logos sharply contrasts with Aristotle's concept of a God who does not move or act. Aristotle's theology could never incorporate the concept of God becoming a man, because he conceived of God as being utterly beyond the material universe.

The same is true of Plato, who in the famous "Allegory of the Cave" (see book IX of the Republic) taught that the material universe is only a shadow of the true reality. Plato likened our sense perceptions to shadows thrown on to the wall of a cave by puppets, pale reflections of what Plato called the forms, i.e., the ideal objects that cast their reflections on the wall. In contrast, Christianity teaches that the material universe, though fallen, is real and that God, though He is omniscient and transcendent, can become flesh. Greek theology simply cannot incorporate these Christian concepts of God. Hence the claim that Greek thought "infiltrated" Christianity, particularly regarding Trinitarianism is patently false. As Miethe notes, Christian theology is far richer than Greek theology. Christians agree with Greek thinkers that God is the One in whom "we live and move and have our being," but we do not agree that He is an Unmoved Mover, a being who cannot act, a being so beyond the universe that He cannot interact with it. As Paul told the Greek philosophers of Athens: "what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you" (Acts 17:23 New International Version)

Ironically, the teachings of Arius show more of a Greek influence than the doctrine of the Trinity. Arius was the leading opponent of Trinitarianism in the fourth century, and his views on Christ and the Holy Spirit were very similar to those of the JWs. The underlying principle of Arian thought is that God must be a perfect unity:

[T]he Arians used as their prime principle the absolute unity of the monad [an indivisible substance or entity]. They denied the possibility of any multiplicity in unity, a principle which destroyed the Christian answer to the philosophical problem of the one and the many. Orthodox Christianity believes that both unity and plurality characterize ultimate reality. Arianism sees only unity as ultimate. (Beisner 113)
In the tradition of Greek thought, the Arians believed that the unity of God cannot admit of distinction.

Fourth, the Watch Tower's claim that the doctrine of Trinity was influenced by the tritheism and divine triads found in other cultures--Babylon, Egypt, India--reduces to an absurdity. How did these disparate cultures actually influence the supposed apostate Christians of the second century? What is the causal mechanism at work in this influence? How did the Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu of Hinduism become the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of Christianity? The reader of SYBT is never told but is instead expected to see causal connections between pagan "trinities" and Trinitarianism, based merely on facile resemblances. Even worse for the Watch Tower's case, we know that similar concepts in science, philosophy, and religion can develop independently in disparate cultures, including logocentric and quasi Trinitarian doctrines. For example, in the fifteenth century, the Inca king Pachacuti attempted to replace sun worship with the worship of a being called Viracocha, who used a logos to create and who manifested himself as a trinity (Richardson 38). Yet there was no interplay between Old World Christianity and New World Incan logocentrism. Likewise, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz discovered calculus independently; and Charles Darwin and Lord Alfred Wallace formulated the theory of natural selection independently. It should be noted that the views of Arius and the Watch Tower are very similar, and yet JWs reject the connection. But if they are not bothered by the close parallels between their views and those of Arius, then on what grounds should anyone be bothered by the weak parallels between Trinitarianism and pagan tritheism?

Moreover, the comparison between tritheism and Trinitarianism is faulty. Pagan tritheism is not the worship of three persons in one Godhead or even the worship of three gods; rather, the divine triads served as an oligarchy reigning over a pantheon. This henotheistic view, in which there are many gods but only a few supreme gods, has more in common with Arianism and Gnosticism than it does with Trinitarianism. Arius believed that God created Christ as a subsidiary god who participated in the creation of everything else. The Gnostics taught that matter is inherently evil and hence that God had to allow a lesser god to create the universe. Trinitarians reject this as biblically unsound: [A]ll things were made through him [Christ], and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). Christ is not a god or a lesser deity assigned to aid creation; He is the Creator. More will be said about Christ as the Creator in section IV.

Fifth, apart from the dubious comparison between the Trinity and various pagan triads, the Watch Tower's arguments about the alleged historical and philosophical roots of Trinitarianism commit two logical fallacies. The first is known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, which means "after this, therefore because of this." One commits this fallacy by positing a causal connection between events or ideas solely based upon the temporal sequence of those events or ideas, i.e., that because X preceded Y, X must be the cause of Y. A non-fallacious analysis of how ideas influence one another hinges on legitimate cause-and-effect relationships among them, whereas post hoc analysis looks merely for parallels among them. The second fallacy is known as the genetic error fallacy. This occurs when one traces an idea back to its supposed historical or psychological source and then argues that the idea is therefore invalid. For example, many skeptics argue that religious belief is based solely upon the psychology of believers--that people believe in God because to do so makes them feel better. Thus skeptics conclude that belief in God is intellectually invalid, although it may have a psychological value for believers. This is not an argument at all, but an attempt to predicate the basis of a belief to non-rational causes. It is fallacious, because it begs the question of the truth-value of a belief, i.e., the evidential and logical grounds for holding a belief. Likewise, those who attempt to trace the history of the Trinity back to pagan religions beg the question of its biblical soundness.

Another problem with post hoc and genetic reasoning in regard to the Trinity is that such reasoning can be turned against itself. For example, one can find non-Trinitarian monotheism in early pagan religions. In 1375 B.C., an Egyptian Pharaoh named Amenhotep overthrew the polytheistic religious order of his time and instituted a religion based upon exclusive worship of Aton, said to be creator of the universe. Does this parallelism between pagan monotheism and Old Testament monotheism mean that the latter was infiltrated by the former? JWs will quickly answer in the negative. But if these parallels do not establish a cause-and-effect relationship between pagan and biblical monotheism, then neither do the dubious parallels between tritheism and Trinitarianism.

Finally, the claim that Trinitarian thought was a late development unknown to early Christians is false. One of the earliest indications of Trinitarian thought is found in Matthew 28:19: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." JWs will no doubt say that this does not "prove" the Trinity, but the point is that the link between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has its roots firmly in the Bible and first century Christianity and not in the divine triads of Babylon, Egypt, and India. It was Christ Himself who linked them together, not "apostate" Christians of later centuries. This is corroborated by the early Christian document known as the Didache (literally "teaching of the twelve") and the First Epistle of Clement, both of which contain Trinitarian references (see Louth 21, 194; for a good account of the history of Trinitarian thought, see Beisner.)

Is the Trinity Mysterious and Confusing?

The Watch Tower consistently portrays the doctrine of the Trinity as a confusing, unreasonable doctrine that even orthodox Christians cannot understand fully, if at all:

Many sincere believers have found it to be confusing, contrary to normal reason, unlike anything in their experience. How, they ask, could the Father be God, Jesus be God, and the holy spirit be God, yet there be not three Gods but only one God? (4)
In short, JWs make three criticisms: (1) that even Trinitarians characterize the Trinity as a "mystery," (2) that the doctrine is confusing and unreasonable, and (3) that it entails tritheism, i.e., belief in three gods.

JWs make much of the tendency among some Trinitarians to characterize the Trinity as a mystery beyond human understanding: "Yet, they had to admit that 'the conception of a triune God is a mystery which cannot be solved by human reason'" (Mankind 264). But there is little force in this criticism when the word "mystery" is used several times in the Bible to describe biblical teachings, the will and works of God, and faith (Rom. 11:25, 16:25; 1 Cor. 15:51; Eph. 1:9, 3:3ff., 5:32, 6:19; Col. 1:26, 2:2, 4:3; 1 Tim. 3:9). A good example is this Pauline passage:

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Tim. 3:16)
The problem is that the Watch Tower equivocates on the word "mystery," giving it a pejorative slant, treating it as synonymous with "confusing" and "obscure," and thereby implying that to characterize the Trinity as a mystery is to make a self-indicting admission. But the word "mystery" is not a pejorative term. If the JWs want to claim that the Trinity is confusing and unreasonable, then they need to demonstrate this directly; the fact that some Trinitarians characterize the Trinity as a mystery does not make their case for them.

JWs often cite 1 Cor. 14:33 against Trinitarianism: "God is not a God of confusion" (5). Aside from begging the question of whether the Trinity is confusing or not, this verse is taken out of context and used to make a point it does not support. The passage in context reads:

If a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged; and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (vv. 30 33)
Paul's point is about the order and decorum of prophesying during church service. It does not mean that everything revealed by God can be understood quickly and easily. For example, Peter writes:
And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. (1 Peter 3:15-16)
Hence even if one wants to characterize the Trinity as hard to understand, this does not mean that it is unbiblical and confusing. Moreover, the fact that God is not a God of confusion does not mean that God's nature and works can be grasped fully by human understanding:
"Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?" (Job 11:7) He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Eccles. 3:11) ... then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out; even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out. (Eccles. 8:17)
Human experience and "normal reason" are not reliable guides for judging any belief, theory, or doctrine. A good deal of modern physics goes beyond human experience and "normal reason," a fact noted by The Encyclopedia Americana, one of the sources elliptically quoted in SYBT:
It is held that although the doctrine is beyond the grasp of human reason, it is, like many of the formulations of physical science, not contrary to reason, and may be apprehended (though it may not comprehended) by the human mind. (qtd. in Bowman, Why You Should, 17)
Unfortunately, SYBT neither quotes this passage in full nor documents it, instead only giving the title of the source and implying that it agrees with the Watch Tower's position:
This confusion [over the Trinity] is widespread. The Encyclopedia Americana notes that the doctrine of the Trinity is considered to be "beyond the grasp of human reason." (4)
As one can see by looking at the full context of the EA's remark, the EA does not assert that the doctrine of the Trinity is confusing. One can only wonder why the Watch Tower does not include the EA's crucial qualification.

It is not enough to characterize the Trinity as a mystery beyond the grasp of human reason or to label it as confusing in order to demonstrate that it is not a biblical doctrine. But what about the allegation that Trinitarianism is a form of tritheism? How can the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be God and yet there be only one God and not three? Two answers will be offered here.

First, compare these two statements:

  • The Son is God.
  • The Son is a god.
These two statements do not assert the same thing. For example, suppose someone asks "Who is president of the United States?" and someone else responds "Bill Clinton is a president." This odd-sounding answer is not quite what one would expect. The reason is that it implies the existence of more than one president, whereas the expected response, "Bill Clinton is President," does not. Likewise, "the Son is a god" would suggest the existence of other gods and hence would open Trinitarians to charges of polytheism. Ironically, it is the JWs who assert that Jesus is a god, not Trinitarians. So they can hardly charge Trinitarians with polytheism without bringing such a charge back on themselves.

Some JWs offer another way of making the allegation of tritheism. They look at the following:

  • The Father is God
  • The Son is God
  • The Holy Spirit is God
and conclude that one can count three Gods here. But it does not follow that because one can count the word "God" three times that there are three Gods here. Again, "X is Y" is not the same as "X is a Y."

Second, the underlying logic of the Trinity is that there are three persons who share the same nature or being. Is it possible for two or more things to share the nature of something and yet be distinct? Consider the following:

  • Ice is H20
  • Water is H20
  • Steam is H20
There are three distinct elements here but not three "H20s". Each element shares the same nature, but not identity, with the others. Hence there is nothing in the logic of Trinitarian thought that leads to tritheism.

Is the Trinity Biblical?

Despite all of the extrabiblical arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity, there is only one issue that matters: can one derive the Trinity from the Bible? As SYBT states, "If the Trinity were true, it should be clearly and consistently presented in the Bible" (5). The doctrine is in fact supported by scores of related passages:

The doctrine of the Trinity is arrived at in much the same way as a scientific theory. A scientific theory, for the most part, is a reasoned explanation of observed (or unobserved, in some cases) phenomena in the natural world. Analogously, the doctrine of the Trinity is a reasoned explanation of what we observe to be the phenomena of God in the Bible. Church fathers, councils, denominations, etc. have been so overwhelmed with the evidence for the trinity in the scripture that there has been a universal creedal acknowledgement in church history. (Beckwith)
The rest of this article will argue that the doctrine of the Trinity is presented both clearly and consistently in the Bible. After some preliminary remarks, the Trinity will be defined biblically and then several biblical arguments for the deity of each Person will follow.

Earlier I defined biblical argumentation as "reasoning from the scriptures" and "drawing conclusions from the Bible as a whole." This is important, because JWs often object that there is no single verse that supports Trinitarianism:

[N]ot even so much as one "proof text" says that God, Jesus, and the holy spirit are one in some mysterious Godhead. Not one scripture anywhere in the Bible says that all three are the same in substance, power, and eternity. (29)
The problem with this argument is twofold. First, no doctrine should be based on a single proof-text. A doctrine is not false simply because there is no one single verse that sums it up. In fact, most of what we know about the nature of God comes from looking at several passages, not one single verse. When reading any text, we draw conclusions about its characters from several statements, not just one. Hence if the Bible teaches in some passages that the Father is eternal and in others that the Son and Holy Spirit are eternal, then we can conclude that all three are eternal, whether or not there is one single verse that states the eternity of all three. Second, the argument can be turned back on the JWs. Where is the one single verse showing that Christ is Michael the Archangel? That He was raised a spirit creature? That birthdays are pagan and should not be celebrated? And so on. The JWs hold several beliefs not supported by any single proof-text.

Francis Beckwith states the case for the Trinity as follows:

  1. The Bible teaches that there is only one God.
  2. The Bible teaches that there are three distinct persons called God, known as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  3. So, the three persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--are the one God.
Hence a biblical definition of the Trinity will adduce verses showing (1) that there is one God and (2) that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are identified as God. Note that the intention here is not to "prove" the Trinity but to define it biblically and to show that there is a prima facie case for Trinitarianism; the soundness of that case will be defended afterwards.

(1) There is Only One God. "To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him" (Deut. 4:35).

(2a) The Father is God. "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:3).

(2b) The Son is God. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).

(2c) The Holy Spirit is God. "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts 13:2).

It is important for anti-Trinitarians to realize that the doctrine of the Trinity starts from such passages and others like it. It is simply false that the Trinity is a doctrine foreign to Christianity and introduced by apostate Christians under the influence of pagan thought. JWs can take issue with Trinitarian interpretations of the Bible, but Trinitarian thought has always relied on the Bible.

The Biblical Case for the Trinity

Although a prima facie case can be made for the Trinity, is it clearly and consistently taught in the Bible? Taking each of the above premises one by one, this section will offer several arguments to support the conclusion that it is.

There is Only One God

JWs, of course, do not object to this premise. In fact, they often cite the Shema (literally "listen") against Trinitarianism: "Hear O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah" (Deut. 6:4 American Standard Version). Jewish and Islamic critics of Trinitarianism likewise cite this verse. Unfortunately, this is a poor proof-text. The Shema does not assert anything about God's nature, e.g., that He has a unitarian nature, but asserts that there is only one God (cf. Deut. 4:35; Jer. 10:10). To see it as an anti-Trinitarian proof-text is to read too much into it.

Critics of Trinitarianism tend to underappreciate its monotheistic basis. Trinitarianism depends upon the premise that there is only one God, because if this premise is false, then so is the doctrine of the Trinity. Moreover, the inherent monotheism of Trinitarianism has an important theological implication: if the Father is God, Christ is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, then God alone is involved in creation, salvation, and sanctification. This accords well with the biblical view that God is the only Savior. On the other hand, if Christ is a subsidiary god, but not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force, then biblical theology is henotheistic, i.e., there is an Almighty God and a subordinate mighty god who together create and save. Trinitarians reject this henotheistic view of the Bible, because God repeatedly denies the existence of other gods:

Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.

For thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else.

Declare ye, and bring it forth; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath showed this from ancient time? who hath declared it of old? have not I, Jehovah? and there is no God else besides me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none besides me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me ...

(Isa. 44:6; 45:18, 21 22; 46:9 ASV)

Ironically, the JWs try to evade the force of these passages by appealing to a few biblical texts that refer to other beings as gods, implying that the Bible teaches henotheism. More will be said about this below, but it suffices to say that God declares in no uncertain terms that He is the only God who exists; other texts must be interpreted with this fact in mind.

The Father is God

As with the first premise, JWs will not object but will try to turn it against Trinitarianism by citing verses such as:

And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)

[Y]et for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:6)

This allegedly shows that the Father is the only true God, hence precluding the possibility of Christ being the one true God. Again, however, this is based on the assumption that Trinitarians believe in the existence of more than one true God. The Father is the one true God, i.e., the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Trinitarians do not believe that Christ is another true God, but that He likewise is the God of the Old Testament. In fact, the Nicene Creed begins: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

The Son is God

JWs believe that Christ is a created being, the first of all creation. He is a mighty god (cf. Isa. 9:6), but not the Almighty God. By contrast, orthodox Christians believe that Christ is Jehovah God. Obviously, these are contradictory beliefs, so the identity of Christ is a crucial issue in the debate between orthodox Christians and JWs.

Can the Son be identified as Jehovah? Rather than list the many passages usually adduced in favor of this identification, three sustained biblical arguments for the deity of Christ will be discussed. The aim here is not to proof-text but to make a reasoned judgment from the text. Many of the other passages relevant to the deity of Christ will come into play and corroborate the arguments.

Argument One: The Word was God

The first argument is based on the well-known verse of John 1:1. The KJV, ASV, RSV, JB, NKJV, NIV, NASB, and other versions translate the verse as:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The New World Translation renders it:
In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.
Much has been written about the Greek grammar behind this verse (see Bowman, Gospel of John, for an in-depth analysis). However, what follows will deal with the often neglected matter of interpreting what this verse means given its context both in John 1 and the Bible. Above all, JWs dispute the meaning that orthodox Christians assign to the last clause of John 1:1 (John 1:1c), not simply the grammar (in fact, the Watch Tower printed the ASV before it produced the NWT). Thus the argument for the deity of Christ from John 1:1c will not hinge upon grammatical concerns. It suffices to note that everyone agrees that the word theos is used to describe the Word and that John predicates the state of being "theos" to the Word, however one interprets this.

It might seem surprising that there are only three possible interpretations of "the Word was God" and that only one of them can be true:

  1. The Word is fully God. He is co-equal with the other person mentioned as God in John 1:1, i.e., the Father.
  2. The Word is a god. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines a god as "one of several immortal powers, esp. one with male attributes, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs." In this sense, then, Christ is a subordinate deity, one who has much glory, power, and might, but not the glory, power, and might of the God of Israel.
  3. The Word is neither God nor a god in a literal sense. He is described as theos in a figurative way, just as Satan is in 2 Cor. 4:4. Hence theos is a way to describe and exalt the nature of the Word in the strongest way possible without predicating full deity to the Word.
Orthodox Christians accept (1) for three main reasons. First, it is exegetically sound. JWs attempt to back up their claims about John 1:1 with scholarly support, but many eminent Greek scholars, including some cited by the Watch Tower, believe that John 1:1 clearly indicates that there are two persons here who share the same divine substance:
The absence of the article indicates that the Word is God, but is not the only being of whom this is true; if ho theos had been written it would have implied that no divine being existed outside the second person of the Trinity. (Barret 76)

Perhaps the clause could be translated, 'the Word had the same nature as God.' This would be one way of representing John's thought, which is, as I understand it, that ho logos, no less than ho theos, had the nature of theos. (Harner 87)

Second, John 1:1-3 alludes to Genesis 1:1. Because God is solely responsible for creation (Isa. 45:12) and was alone at creation (Isa. 44:24), the Word must be God. Third, John 1:3 asserts that "all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." This verse logically excludes Christ from belonging to the class of made things, because it asserts that no made thing was created without Him; if Christ is a made thing, then the verse is contradictory. Therefore, Christ is not a created being, but is eternal--a clear indication of His deity.

JWs reject (1), but do they accept (2) or accept (3)? There is an ambiguity here over what it means to say that other gods exist. The second option entails polytheism, or more specifically, henotheism. This is obviously a problem, given Deut. 6:4 and other passages. Moreover, JWs take their very name from Isa 43:10:

"You are my witnesses," says the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
This very clearly precludes the existence of other gods. Hence (2) is untenable. So JWs fall back to (3) and argue that Christ is "godlike":
So John 1:1 highlights the quality of the Word, that he was "divine," "godlike," "a god," but not Almighty God. This harmonizes with the rest of the Bible, which shows that Jesus, here called "the Word" in his role as God's Spokesman, was an obedient subordinate sent to earth by his Superior, Almighty God. (27)
Although this interpretation supposedly "harmonizes with the rest of the Bible," nowhere is it corroborated in the Bible. Christ is never called "divine," "godlike," or "a god" in the Bible. On the contrary, Christ is:
  • The Creator of all things (cp. Isa. 44:24, John 1:3, 1 Cor. 8:6, Eph. 3:9, Col. 1:16)
  • The exact image of God (cp. Heb. 1:3, Isa. 40:18, 2 Sam. 7:22, Ps. 89:6)
  • The fullness of deity in bodily form (Col. 2:9)
  • Mighty God, Great God (Isa. 9:6, Titus 2:13)
  • Alpha and Omega (Rev. 22:13)
  • "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28)
  • To be honored as the Father (John 5:23)
Not only do these passages (and others) not characterize Christ as God in a figurative sense, they do not make sense in reference to a created being. Too much glossing is required to interpret these passages as showing that Christ is "godlike." John 20:28, in which Thomas refers to Christ as "my Lord and my God," is an outstanding example. If Christ were a created being, concerned solely for the honor of the Father as JWs contend, he should have rebuked Thomas for calling Him "my Lord and my God" as an angel rebuked John:
Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." (Rev. 19:10)
But SYBT glosses John 20:28 as follows:
But what about the apostle Thomas' saying, "My Lord and my God!" to Jesus at John 20:28? To Thomas, Jesus was like "a god," especially in the miraculous circumstances that prompted his exclamation. Some scholars suggest that Thomas may simply have made an emotional exclamation of astonishment, spoken to Jesus but directed to God. (29)
The writer hedges here by suggesting that Thomas may or may not have directed his remark to Christ, but either way this gloss does not mesh with the passage in question:
Then saith he to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing." Thomas answered and said unto him, "My Lord and my God." Jesus saith unto him, "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (vv. 27-29, ASV, quotation marks added for clarity)
The assertion that Thomas spoke to Jesus but directed his remark to God is cumbersome and strained. The text says that Thomas answered and said unto Christ and did so directly after examining Him. Moreover, JWs certainly have no problem referring to Christ as Lord; hence it is unlikely that they would argue that Thomas aimed his remark at God had he exclaimed "My Lord" and not "My Lord and My God."

The only option left for JWs is to say that Christ was like "a god" to Thomas, an interpretation not supported by the text. Again, Christ is never said to be "a god" or "godlike," except in the NWT. Nonetheless, SYBT tries to support its view of Christ as "a god" by pointing to other passages that speak of "gods":

Does saying that Jesus Christ is "a god" conflict with the Bible's teaching that there is only one God? No, for at times the Bible employs that term to refer to mighty creatures. Since the Bible calls humans, angels, even Satan, "gods," or powerful ones, the superior Jesus in heaven can properly be called "a god." (28-29)
Examples of such passages include 2 Cor. 4:4 and Ps. 8:5, 82:6. The problem with this argument is twofold. First, the word theos is used in the New Testament to refer to either God or false gods, but not "mighty creatures" or "powerful ones":
Thus there is no "third use" of the singular noun theos in the New Testament--either it is used of the true God or it is used of a false god in the context of idolatry of some sort. (Bowman, Gospel of John, 59)
Second, the analogy between Christ and "mighty creatures" referred to as gods is faulty. For example, Satan is called the "god of this world," but Christ is called God, Mighty God, Great God, Alpha and Omega, and so forth. So the analogy breaks down. It should be noted that even the NWT's rendering of Ps. 8:5 does not mention "gods" but "godlike ones," hence breaking the analogy down further.

In summary, of the three interpretations of John 1:1, only (1) is tenable; (2) leads to henotheism, and (3) has no exegetical support. Except in the NWT, Christ is not called "a god," and even in the NWT, He is never called "godlike" or "like a god."

Argument Two: Christ the Creator

One of the strongest indications of Christ's deity is His role as creator of all things. In Watch Tower Christology, however, God the Father created Christ and then created everything else through Him. So JWs view creation as a three-step process: 

     God ----> Christ ----> heavens and earth
They attempt to support this view by appealing to Col. 1:15, Rev. 3:14, and Prov. 8:22. However, by their own standard, these passages do not clearly and consistently present Christ as a created being. None of them explicitly states that God created Christ, and Prov. 8:22 does not even refer to Christ, but to the personification of wisdom (cf. 8:12). Even more to the point, the JW view of creation is bluntly contradicted by the Bible.

In Hebrews 1:8-10, God the Father says the following to the Son:

[O]f the Son he says, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades." And, "Thou, Lord, didst found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of thy hands."
The last statement alludes to Ps. 102:25, which is about Jehovah's creation of the heavens and earth. Both JWs and orthodox Christians agree that God the Father created through Christ the Word (logos), but only one side can make sense out of the many Old Testament passages in which God exclusively takes credit for creation:
I made the earth, and created man upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.

My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.

Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house which you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine, says the LORD. (Isa. 45:12; 48:13; 66:1-2)

SYBT argues that there is no clear teaching of the Trinity in the Old Testament (6). But if a doctrine is untrue on the grounds that it is not clearly taught in the OT, then JWs have no grounds for believing that Christ is a "junior partner" (14) in creation, because nowhere in the OT does Jehovah God mention that He used a junior partner to create the heavens and the earth. Even more damaging to the JW view of creation is Isa. 44:24:
This is what Jehovah has said, your Repurchaser and the Former of you from the belly: "I, Jehovah, am doing everything, stretching out the heavens by myself, laying out the earth. Who was with me?" (NWT)
The answer to the rhetorical question "Who was with me?" is "no one." Yet Christ was with God at creation. In other words, there were at least two distinct persons at creation, and yet God was alone. The unmistakable conclusion is that Christ is God. John 1:1 corroborates this beautifully by stating that in the beginning (a clear allusion to Gen. 1:1) there were two distinct persons, both of whom were theos.

Argument Three: The Alpha and Omega

JWs and Trinitarians agree that Jehovah God is the Alpha and Omega: "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8). But Jesus identifies Himself as the Alpha and Omega in Revelation 22:13: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." If there is any doubt that Jesus is the one speaking here, v. 16 confirms it: "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the Churches." Moreover, in 1:17-18 Christ identifies Himself as the First and the Last: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!" Because Christ identifies Himself as the First and the Last in 1:17, He is unmistakably the speaker of 22:13.

In the October 1, 1978 issue of the Watch Tower, Christ is identified as the speaker in vv. 7, 12, and 20:

Jesus again stresses the suddenness with which he comes:
"I am coming quickly ... I am coming quickly. Keep holding on fast to what you have."--Rev. 2:16; 3:11. "Look! I am coming quickly.... Look! I am coming quickly, and the reward I give is with me.... Yes; I am coming quickly." (Rev. 22:7, 12, 20).
In response to these last expressions of our Master, surely each one of us joins with the apostle John in saying: "Amen! Come, Lord Jesus." (15, ellipses Watch Tower's)
Notice that the use of ellipses leaves out v. 22:13, in which the speaker of v. 12 identifies Himself as the Alpha and the Omega. There are no grounds for suggesting, as some JWs do, that 22:12 is spoken by Jesus and that 22:13 is spoken by God the Father.

Many JWs respond that the Watch Tower's identification of Jesus as the speaker of 22:13 is a mistake. But aside from the fact that the context shows that Christ is the speaker, there is still a dilemma here:

  1. Jehovah is the Alpha and the Omega (1:8).
  2. Jesus is the First and the Last (1:17).
  3. Some Being identifies Himself as the Alpha and Omega and the First and the Last (22:13).
If Christ is the speaker in 22:13, then there are two Alpha and Omegas, which is logically absurd. But if God the Father is the speaker in 22:13, then there are two First and Lasts, which is likewise logically absurd. Either way we are led to a logical absurdity. Because there can only be one Alpha and Omega and one First and Last, the same being must be speaking in all of these passages. As JWs and Trinitarians agree, it must be Jehovah God. But Christ is undeniably the speaker of at least one of these passages (1:17). The conclusion is obvious: Jesus Christ is Jehovah God.

To make this clear, consider an argument that takes the same form as the one above:

  1. The President of the U.S. is the Commander-in-Chief
  2. Bill Clinton is the Chief Executive
  3. Some one identifies himself as the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief executive.
If the speaker in (3) is the U.S. President but not Bill Clinton, then there are two Chief Executives, which is logically absurd. If the speaker in (3) is Bill Clinton but not the President, then there are two Commanders in-Chief, which is likewise logically absurd. Therefore, Bill Clinton is the President of the United States, i.e., there is only one being in all three premises.

Argument Four: The Argument from Parallelism

One of the most controversial passages in the debate over the deity of Christ is Philip. 2:5-7:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. (KJV)
The chief controversy is how to translate and interpret the clause "thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Seen one way, the verse suggests that Christ, though equal to God, willingly became a servant. Seen another way, it suggests that Christ, though "godlike," did not see Himself as equal to God. Not surprisingly, the JWs endorse the latter interpretation, and SYBT cites alternate translations that ostensibly support their view.

However, regardless of this controversy, there lurks an interesting argument for the deity of Christ. Consider the NIV's translation of Philip. 2:5-8:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!
This translation is provocative because of the phrase "being in very nature God." Most translations read "being in the form of God." To the JWs, this latter reading supposedly supports their view of Christ as "godlike." Their reasoning is that describing Christ as being in the form of God is not the same as saying that He is God. But there is a problem here; Paul uses the word morphe ("form") twice in the passage: once in the phrase "form of God" and once in the phrase "form of a servant." The NIV renders morphe both times as "very nature." Now although JWs deny that Christ is God, they do not deny that He was a servant; indeed, their emphasis on His servitude is one of their main arguments against the deity of Christ. But by what reasoning can "form of God" mean only "godlike" while "form of a servant" mean "servant"? In other words, how can morphe have a weakened sense in the one phrase and not in the other? To bring this out even more, notice the parallelism in Paul's argument:
  1. Christ existed in the form of God
  2. He took on the form of a servant
  3. He was found in human form
JWs do not deny on the basis of (2) and (3) that Christ was fully human and that He was a servant, so how does (1) support their view of Christ as "godlike"? The inconsistency is glaring, and only the Trinitarian reading makes sense of this parallelism.

The Holy Spirit is God

The JWs teach that the Holy Spirit is not a person, but an "active force":

The Bible's use of "holy spirit" indicates that it is a controlled force that Jehovah God uses to accomplish a variety of his purposes. To a certain extent, it can be likened to electricity, a force that can be adapted to perform a great variety of operations. (20)
The overall claim for this view is that the Bible either speaks of the Holy Spirit in impersonal terms or personifies the Spirit, but never speaks of the Spirit as a true person. Those passages that speak of the Spirit in personal terms are personifications similar to other personifications in the Bible:
In the Scriptures it is not unusual for something to be personified. Wisdom is said to have children. (Luke 7:35) Sin and death are called kings. (Romans 5:14, 21) At Genesis 4:7 The New English Bible (NE) says: "Sin is a demon crouching at the door," personifying sin as a wicked spirit crouching at Cain's door. But, of course, sin is not a spirit person; nor does personifying the holy spirit make it a spirit person. (21)
Ironically, although there are examples of personification in the Bible, the ones offered here highlight a weakness in SYBT's argument. Wisdom is personified in Proverbs 8:1, but JWs believe that this personified Wisdom represents the pre-incarnate Christ. Hence personification is not necessarily an argument against the personality of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, Rom. 5:14,21 and Gen. 4:7 are weak examples of personification and are better described as metaphors. Sin and death are not called kings, but are said to have "reigned" over humanity. In Gen. 4:7, sin is neither called a demon nor personified as a "wicked spirit" (or a spirit of any kind). The NEB rendering is a paraphrase of "sin couching at the door" and introduces an idea not found in the text. The point here is not to quibble over these texts, but to illustrate that the analogy between these passages and the alleged personification of the Spirit is weak. Those passages that describe the Spirit in personal terms do not do so in figurative terms.

It is interesting to compare the claim that the Holy Spirit is a personification of God's active force to the claim that Satan is a personification of evil. For example, the December 8, 1973 issue of Awake! magazine ran an article entitled "Satan the Devil--Personification or Person." The article first cites a Catholic scholar who denies that Satan is a person and then goes on to rebut the notion that Satan is not. The way it does so is interesting. It points to the encounters between Satan and God in Job 1-2 and Satan and Christ in Matt. 4:1ff. and then observes:

You will note ... that these encounters relate conversations between the Devil and God, and between the Devil and Jesus Christ. Both Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are persons. Can an unintelligent 'force' carry on a conversation with a person? Also, the Bible calls Satan a manslayer, a liar, a father ... and a ruler.... Only an intelligent person could fit all those descriptions. (27)
Indeed, only an intelligent person could fit all the descriptions of the Holy Spirit:
  1. The Holy Spirit can be lied to (Acts 5:3)
  2. Can have an opinion or feeling (Acts 15:28)
  3. Can be grieved (Eph. 4:30)
  4. Can make a personal command (Acts 13:2)
  5. Is called parakletos ("helper" or "counselor"), a term used of Christ (cp. 1 John 2.1; John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7)
  6. Is a teacher (Luke 12:12, 1Co 2:13, 1 John 2:27)
  7. Is an intercessor (Rom. 8:26)
Finally, the Holy Spirit is named along with the Father and Son: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). SYBT tries to play down the significance of this:
But the word "name" does not always mean a personal name, either in Greek or in English. When we say "in the name of the law," we are not referring to a person. We mean that which the law stands for, its authority. (22)
It is true that "in the name of" can be used as an idiomatic expression referring to non-persons, but it is not used as such in reference to the Father and the Son, so there is little exegetical ground for saying that it does of the Spirit (one also wonders if the idiomatic use of "in the name of" is native to English). Moreover, onoma ("name") recurrently refers to persons and proper names in the New Testament.

Given that the Holy Spirit is a Person, can He be identified as God? A passage not mentioned in SYBT is Acts 5:1-4:

But a man named Anani'as with his wife Sapphi'ra sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, "Anani'as, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God."
Not only is the Spirit lied to, indicating personhood, but Peter equates the Holy Spirit with God. The strongest indication of the Holy Spirit's deity are His attributes. The only eternal Being is God, but the Spirit is eternal (Heb. 9:14). Only God was at creation (Isa. 44:24), but so was the Spirit (Gen. 1:2). Moreover, the Spirit knows the "thoughts of God" (Cp. 1 Cor. 2:11, Isa. 55:9-10), indicating personal, omnipotent knowledge.

V. Conclusion

Much more could be said in response to Should You Believe in the Trinity? and other Watch Tower publications. Not discussed here are the writings of the Church Fathers, which the Watch Tower contends do not support Trinitarian thought. Bowman, Finnerty, and others have responded to such charges, and readers are advised to see the epistles of Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius in the inexpensive Penguin paperback edition of Early Christian Writings. Also not discussed is SYBT's consistent confusion of Trinitarianism with modalism (the belief that the Father, Son, and Spirit are the same person in different "modes" or offices) and tritheism.

However, the point of this article has been to offer a short, but rigorous defense of Trinitarian doctrine. Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses alike are often not acquainted with the basic rudiments of Trinitarian theology, and this article tries to fill that gap. Above all, it should be clear now that the prejudicial dismissal of the Trinity as a confusing, apostate doctrine is an insufficient way to critique Trinitarianism.

Works Cited Barret, C. K. The Gospel According to St. John. S.P.C.K. (1955)

Beckwith, Francis. "The Trinity Series." 12-17-94. . [7-22-97].

Beisner, E. Calvin. God in Three Persons. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1984.

Bowman, Robert M. Jr. Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989.

Bowman, Robert M. Jr. The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity. San Juan Capistrano, CA: Christian Research Institute, 1990.

Bowman, Robert M. Jr. Why You Should Believe in the Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989.

Dowley, Tim, ed. The History of Christianity. Rev. ed. A Lion Handbook. Batavia, IL: Lion, 1990.

Finnerty, Robert U. "Faith of Our Fathers (Part One): Were the Early Christians Jehovah's Witnesses." Christian Research Journal. 18.3 (Winter 1996): 29-35.

Harner, Phillip B. "Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1." Journal of Biblical Literature 92.1 (March 1973): 75-87.

Louth, Andrew, ed. Early Christian Writings. Trans. Maxwell Staniforth. London: Penguin, 1987.

Mankind's Search for God. New York: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1990.

Miethe, Terry and Antony Flew. Does God Exist? San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991.

Richardson, Don. Eternity in Their Hearts. Rev. ed. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1984.

"Satan the Devil--Personification or a Person?" Awake! Dec. 8, 1973: 27+. Should You Believe in the Trinity? Brooklyn, NY: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 1989.

(Page last updated on 3-30-98)