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In their Encyclopedia, Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, p969, on the subject of "God," the JWs teach this:
His attributes. The true God is not omnipresent, for he is spoken of as having a location. (1Ki 8:49; Joh 16:28; Heb 9:24) His throne is in heaven. (Isa 66:1) He is all-powerful, being the Almighty God. (Ge 17:1; Re 16:14) “All things are naked and openly exposed to the eyes of him,” and he is “the One telling from the beginning the finale.” (Heb 4:13; Isa 46:10, 11; 1Sa 2:3) His power and knowledge extend everywhere, reaching every part of the universe.—2Ch 16:9; Ps 139:7-12; Am 9:2-4.And on the topic of "Heaven," Insight, Volume 1, p1060, says:
Solomon, the constructor of the temple at Jerusalem, stated that the “heavens, yes, the heaven of the heavens” cannot contain God. (1Ki 8:27) As the Creator of the heavens, Jehovah’s position is far above them all, and “his name alone is unreachably high. His dignity is above earth and heaven.” (Ps 148:13) Jehovah measures the physical heavens as easily as a man would measure an object by spreading his fingers so that the object lies between the tips of the thumb and the little finger. (Isa 40:12) Solomon’s statement does not mean that God has no specific place of residence. Nor does it mean that he is omnipresent in the sense of being literally everywhere and in everything. This can be seen from the fact that Solomon also spoke of Jehovah as hearing “from the heavens, your established place of dwelling,” that is, the heavens of the spirit realm.—1Ki 8:30, 39.Clearly, the JWs have conflated the ways in which God can be present somewhere, and thus concluded God is literally 'confined' to "a specific place of residence". In their mind, even though the location is spiritual, it is none the less a confined area, and God must operate 'from' this place. The tough part about discussing this subject is that the JW argument is based on half-truths, so that while a lot of what they say is true, even backed up with Scripture, the final conclusions are wrong.
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In the Watchtower, April 15, 1998 issue, here is what it says on page 6:
Does God Foreknow Everything?
All the arguments in support of predestination are based on the supposition that since God undeniably has the power to foreknow and determine future events, he must foreknow everything, including the future actions of every individual. Is this supposition sound, however? What God reveals in his Holy Scriptures indicates otherwise.
For example, the Scriptures say that “God put Abraham to the test” by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, God stopped him and said: “Now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” (Genesis 22:1-12) Would God have made that statement if he knew in advance that Abraham would obey this command? Would it have been an honest test?
Furthermore, the ancient prophets report that God repeatedly spoke of himself as ‘feeling regret’ over something he had done or was thinking of doing. For example, God said that he “regretted [from the Hebrew na‧cham′] that he had made Saul king over Israel.” (1 Samuel 15:11, 35; compare Jeremiah 18:7-10; Jonah 3:10.) Because God is perfect, these verses cannot mean that God made a mistake in selecting Saul to be Israel’s first king. Rather, they must indicate that God felt sorry that Saul turned out to be faithless and disobedient. God’s using such an expression in referring to himself would be nonsensical if he had foreknown Saul’s actions.The account of Genesis 22:12 is good to keep in mind when talking to JWs, for you can hopefully convince them that it is wrong to say God doesn't know the future and thus the Watchtower has botched the truth. The Church Fathers have long taught and explained that the Bible uses phenomenological language - i.e. terms that apply to creation - in reference to God in order to help man better understand God. Ironically, the JWs give a perfect example of how to properly understand this: when the Bible says God "regretted" making Saul king, this cannot mean God made a mistake, but rather God was 'sad' that Saul turned out disobedient. This is a perfect example of how the lack of theological precision can lead to serious error, and 'anti-intellectual' groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and even many Protestants have often succumb to.
In Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, p853f, on the subject of "Foreknowledge," here is what the JWs teach:
Infinite exercise of foreknowledge? The argument that God’s not foreknowing all future events and circumstances in full detail would evidence imperfection on his part is, in reality, an arbitrary view of perfection. Perfection, correctly defined, does not demand such an absolute, all-embracing extension, inasmuch as the perfection of anything actually depends upon its measuring up completely to the standards of excellence set by one qualified to judge its merits. (See PERFECTION.) Ultimately, God’s own will and good pleasure, not human opinions or concepts, are the deciding factors as to whether anything is perfect.—De 32:4; 2Sa 22:31; Isa 46:10.
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Selective exercise of foreknowledge. The alternative to predestinarianism, the selective or discretionary exercise of God’s powers of foreknowledge, would have to harmonize with God’s own righteous standards and be consistent with what he reveals of himself in his Word. In contrast with the theory of predestinarianism, a number of texts point to an examination by God of a situation then current and a decision made on the basis of such examination.
Thus, at Genesis 11:5-8 God is described as directing his attention earthward, surveying the situation at Babel, and, at that time, determining the action to be taken to break up the unrighteous project there. After wickedness developed at Sodom and Gomorrah, Jehovah advised Abraham of his decision to investigate (by means of his angels) to “see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it.” (Ge 18:20-22; 19:1) God spoke of ‘becoming acquainted with Abraham,’ and after Abraham went to the point of attempting to sacrifice Isaac, Jehovah said, “For now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.”—Ge 18:19; 22:11, 12; compare Ne 9:7, 8; Ga 4:9.
Selective foreknowledge means that God could choose not to foreknow indiscriminately all the future acts of his creatures. This would mean that, rather than all history from creation onward being a mere rerun of what had already been foreseen and foreordained, God could with all sincerity set before the first human pair the prospect of everlasting life in an earth free from wickedness.The first paragraph is obviously problematic, and a clear set up for an erroneous conclusion. It turns perfection from something objective (i.e. clear and definite) into something subjective (i.e. based upon changing feelings). By the JW logic, God could - if He really wanted to - say sin or Satan or error is compatible with being "perfect". And of course, the JWs falsely conflate foreknowledge with fore-ordination (i.e. God causes to happen everything in the future), and thus conclude God cannot know everything. But is it not totally absurd to say God can have "selective foreknowledge," as if He could differentiate what He wants to know with what He chooses not to know (or even forget)? Such a claim is proof in itself that the JW claim is false.
8 comments:
That's ridiculous, as a I'm a Jehovah's Witness...we believe that the Almighty God Jehovah/Yaweh, is in the heavenly realm, but his holy spirit is everywhere...Here's the big problem with holidays...most, if not all are PAGAN IN TRADITION..slowly moved into the Catholic church, to keep money coming in...Christmas is a sham and a greedy racket, that has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, since he wasn't born in December! Read your encyclopedia and the other sources in your Reasoning on the Scriptures book! If you did the research, you'd find the truth...and it will set you free from Catholic Church destruction! Babylon the Great...false empire of religion...bigtime BLOODGUILT...WW 2 was financed by the Catholic Church in The Vatican...False prophets misleading billions...shameful!
Yahweh***. Type-o correction...
Hello Anon,
I documented the sources of where I found that information. If a JW thinks I am misrepresenting the JWs, then I will gladly correct my comments.
Also, I'm not sure why you're using the term Yahweh. Sure Yahweh is most likely the truer form of the Tetragrammaton, which is what almost all scholars will agree upon, but to say that would mean using the name "Jehovah" has been a terrible mistake this whole time.
Yes, whatever you do anon, don't get a real account and don't actually address the article.
Nick: I've been talking to JW's and one told me God is not omnipresent! I had no clue, then saw this article, I felt bad since I could have known this ahead of time! The irony about JW's is they use Mark 13:32 to argue Jesus is not God since He does not know the future, they argue only the Fathers knows it. Yet, here they are saying Jehovah Himself does not know some thing! So ignorance does not seem to be a valid argument for JWs to use against Jesus being God.
I find it interesting that the Witness view of divine knowledge, a kind of open-theism and rejection of predestination, gets the worst of each view. They (wrongly) believe that if God knows something he determines that it happens. Since God is the cause of free acts, in that he is the First Cause of all things, and this doesn't impugn their freedom, their claim is wrong. But, this isn't even the motivation behind open theism in general. Open theists are generally concerned that their is here and now truths about the future, that God would know these is second to this. But Witnesses do believe that God could, if he want to, know all things about the future; hence, they do believe that there are truths about the future here and now. They don't even avoid the (false) problem that open theism was supposed to solve, yet end up saying that God doesn't know everything.
It gets worse for them. They think that if God knows X, X necessarily happens, it is determined; hence, they think that if God knew everything you would do, he would rob you of freedom. Again, that is not true, but they think it is. How do they reconcile this principle with their belief that God knows the future? It seems there are two ways: (1) they think that God is so skillful, like a master chess player, that he is confident that anything that he wants to happen will, or (2) they think that God more or less just peers into some archive of facts about the future, selecting the ones he wants to know.
If they think (1) is a valid way of knowledge, then one wonders what their objection to God knowing every future event is. If God can arrange the world in such a way to secure outcomes he wants without impugning the freedom of free acts, why can't he know the future?
Now, (2) doesn't help either. For one thing, it assumes God is in time and that propositions about the future just exist out there apart from any mind, which is problematic. But it is also problematic given their own conception of how foreknowledge: what God foreknows he also determines, or at least becomes fatalistically necessary.
They seem to think that as long as God doesn't know most things about the future, then most actions can be free, so we're good on that account. But that doesn't follow. If you determine some event - say, that Donald Trump will fire missiles at China in 2021, you presuppose that China will still exist, that there is some prior provocation, etc. you have to presuppose all manner of events. Thus, you cannot determine just his firing the missiles, but also these other events as well. So, if they are right that God's foreknowing X means he determines X, it leads that he determines all the preconditions and prior actions that set the stage for X, hence by their own lights they have to think that any divine knowledge of the future abolishes free will.
The Witness view gets the worst of the Open Theist view - God doesn't know anything, but doesn't solve the only halfway plausible motivation for open theism: that facts about the future isn't consistent with the existence of free will. The problem they see in complete foreknowledge isn't solve either, in fact their own account fails by that account too, as I just showed.
Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) claim that God exercises "selective" foreknowledge, meaning that He can choose to know or not to know future events. They argue that God did not know with certainty that Adam and Eve would sin, but rather knew all possibilities and allowed free will to play out. This claim contradicts Scripture, sound philosophical reasoning, and the traditional Christian understanding of divine omniscience.
Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that God can “choose” not to foreknow something. However, this is logically incoherent because:
A) Knowing All Possibilities Still Implies Foreknowledge
a. If God knows all possible choices, and also knows which choice will actually be made, then He has complete foreknowledge.
b. If He does not know the actual outcome, then He is ignorant of reality, which contradicts omniscience.
B) Omniscience is Not a "Selective" Attribute
Omniscience means knowing all things that can be known. To claim that God can choose not to know something is to claim that He can make Himself ignorant. But ignorance is an imperfection, and God is perfect (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).
C) Foreknowledge Does Not Mean Predetermination
Knowing what will happen does not mean causing it to happen. God’s knowledge of free choices does not interfere with human freedom. This distinction is misunderstood by JWs, who conflate foreknowledge with predestination.
The JW claim that God did not know Adam and Eve would sin contradicts Scripture. Several passages show that God foreknew the Fall:
A) Revelation 13:8 – The Lamb Slain From the Foundation of the World
a. Christ’s sacrificial role was foreordained before creation, implying that God already knew mankind would fall.
b. The JW interpretation would mean God planned salvation as an afterthought, which contradicts divine wisdom (Isaiah 46:10).
B) 1 Peter 1:20 – Christ Was Foreknown Before the Foundation of the World
Peter explicitly states that Christ was foreknown (proginōskō), meaning God anticipated the Fall and planned redemption in advance.
C) Isaiah 46:10 – God Declares the End from the Beginning
God’s foreknowledge extends to all of history, including human choices.
D) Acts 2:23 – Jesus Was Delivered Up According to God’s Definite Plan and Foreknowledge
This affirms that even human sin (such as the crucifixion) was known to God beforehand.
Conclusion: If God knew Christ would be sacrificed, He necessarily knew sin would enter the world.
The phrase felix culpa ("happy fault") comes from the Exsultet hymn in the Easter Vigil: “O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” This expresses the idea that, although the Fall was an evil act, God permitted it because it led to a greater good—the Incarnation and Redemption through Christ.
A) God Permits Evil for a Greater Good
a. God’s plan is not thwarted by sin but incorporates human freedom into His providence.
b. The JW view suggests that God was caught off guard by the Fall, making Him reactionary rather than sovereign.
B) St. Augustine’s Explanation
a. "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to allow no evil to exist." (Enchiridion, 11.4)
b. This affirms that God permits evil but never wills it directly.
C) Romans 8:28 – "God Works All Things for Good"
The Fall did not “change” God's plan; rather, it was foreseen and allowed to bring about a greater good—human redemption through Christ.
@Anonymous
The claim that the Catholic Church adopted pagan holidays for financial gain, along with the assertion that it is responsible for historical atrocities, is a mixture of historical inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and anti-Catholic rhetoric. Addressing these objections requires a careful examination of historical evidence, theological reasoning, and scriptural principles.
The accusation that Christmas is a pagan holiday stems from a common but flawed argument that the celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25 was borrowed from Roman pagan festivals such as Saturnalia or Sol Invictus. However, historical research suggests otherwise. The earliest Christian sources indicate that the date was selected based on theological reasoning rather than an attempt to syncretize with paganism. The "Calculation Theory" proposes that early Christians determined the date of Christ’s birth based on the belief that Jesus was conceived on the same date as His crucifixion (March 25). Adding nine months results in December 25. This idea is documented as early as the fourth century and reflects a concern with theological symbolism rather than pagan influence.
The claim that Christmas is a "sham and a greedy racket" ignores the fact that Christian celebrations of Christ’s birth predate the commercialization of Christmas. While modern consumerism may have distorted the holiday’s spiritual significance, this does not invalidate its original purpose. The celebration of Christ’s birth has always been focused on the mystery of the Incarnation—the Word becoming flesh for our salvation (John 1:14). The presence of secular or cultural elements in modern celebrations does not negate the underlying religious significance of the holiday for Christians.
The assertion that the Catholic Church financially benefits from Christmas is unfounded. While Christmas is a major holiday, its observance in Catholic tradition is primarily centered on worship, prayer, and charitable acts. The Catholic Church has been one of the most significant charitable organizations in history, providing aid to the poor, the sick, and the needy. Any suggestion that the Church observes Christmas primarily for financial gain disregards its broader mission of evangelization and service.
The claim that "holidays are pagan in tradition" reflects a misunderstanding of how Christian feasts developed. Many Christian observances have roots in Jewish traditions rather than paganism. For example, Easter is the fulfillment of Passover, and Pentecost is rooted in the Jewish feast of Shavuot. Even if some cultural elements were adopted and reinterpreted, this does not mean the essence of these celebrations is pagan. The transformation of cultural customs for Christian purposes is not equivalent to idolatry but rather an example of how Christianity has historically engaged with and sanctified various traditions.
The suggestion that the Catholic Church is "Babylon the Great" and a "false empire of religion" is a common Jehovah’s Witness claim, yet it lacks biblical and historical support. The identity of Babylon the Great in the Book of Revelation is widely debated among scholars, but the Catholic Church does not fit the characteristics of this figure. Babylon represents a system of opposition to God, characterized by idolatry, persecution of the faithful, and rebellion against divine authority. The Catholic Church, by contrast, has been the steward of Christian doctrine for two millennia, preserving the teachings of Christ and the apostles. The claim that the Church is "Babylon" relies on selective interpretation and ignores the Church’s essential role in the development and transmission of Christian theology.
@Anonymous
The accusation that the Catholic Church financed World War II is a baseless conspiracy theory that ignores the historical reality of the Church’s actions during the war. Pope Pius XII and the Vatican played a significant role in providing refuge for Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis. Many Catholic clergy and laypeople risked their lives to protect those targeted by Hitler’s regime. The notion that the Church was complicit in war financing is contradicted by historical records showing its opposition to Nazi ideology and its humanitarian efforts.
The charge of "big-time bloodguilt" assumes that the Catholic Church is directly responsible for all conflicts or wrongdoings committed by individuals who identified as Catholic. This ignores the fact that Christianity condemns violence and that individual actions do not necessarily reflect Church teaching. While there have been historical failures by some church leaders, the Church itself cannot be equated with political or military actions taken by various governments throughout history.
The accusation of "false prophets misleading billions" misunderstands the role of Church teaching authority. The Catholic Church has consistently upheld the core tenets of Christianity, including the divinity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the authority of Sacred Scripture. Unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have a history of failed prophetic predictions regarding the end of the world (e.g., 1914, 1925, 1975), the Catholic Church does not make speculative predictions about future events but instead relies on the guidance of Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.
The assertion that studying history will lead people to reject the Catholic Church and recognize it as false is ironic, considering that history overwhelmingly supports the Catholic Church’s role in preserving the Bible, defining Christian doctrine, and shaping Western civilization. Without the Catholic Church, there would be no defined New Testament canon, no early councils clarifying Christological doctrines, and no continuous apostolic teaching. The Catholic Church’s historical continuity and doctrinal consistency stand in stark contrast to modern groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose theological claims originated in the late 19th century and have undergone significant doctrinal changes over time.
The call to "come out of her" (Revelation 18:4) is a misapplication of Scripture, as it presumes that the Catholic Church is Babylon. However, the Catholic Church, founded by Christ (Matthew 16:18), is the very institution that has preserved and taught Christian doctrine for centuries. Rejecting the Church based on misinformation and conspiracy theories leads to theological error rather than truth.
The argument against the Catholic Church relies on historical revisionism, misinterpretation of Scripture, and a misunderstanding of Christian tradition. The Catholic Church’s role in shaping Christian doctrine, preserving Sacred Scripture, and serving humanity cannot be dismissed by anti-Catholic rhetoric. Truth is not determined by emotionally charged accusations but by careful examination of historical facts, biblical teaching, and reasoned analysis. Those who sincerely seek the truth will find that the Catholic Church has been, and remains, the Church founded by Jesus Christ.
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