CaliberCadillac
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« on: May 28, 2009, 07:49:32 PM » |
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I posted this on B-net, but I thought I would throw it out here as well:
It has often been discussed on this forum the problems occurring with such verses like Colossians 1:16 where Jesus is defined as Creator yet because of WT doctrine the NWT interpolates the word “other†into the text so that it conforms to their henotheistic theological perspective of a created Jesus.
Instead of approaching this issue from a perspective of Greek grammar and so forth, and whether or not the word should be included in a proper English translation, (as has been done many times on this forum before), I would like to examine the subject of Christ as Creator from a logical perspective.
I don’t know how the average Jehovah’s Witness deals with the issue of atheism when confronted with it on a doorstep, but historically the Christian church addresses this argument from what we call Logical First Principles in Classical Apologetics. There are 12 of them that we use to reason for the logical necessity of the existence of God and to explain the origin and being of an observably contingent universe whereby every effect requires an antecedent cause. We call this the law of causality.
According to the law of causality (which is an off-shoot of Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction), a contingent being can only exist by way of dependency upon that which must by definition be self existent. We as beings are not self existent, (we all had an observable beginning), nor are we self-caused (impossible by way contradiction because a potential cannot actualize itself), therefore we are dependent upon something outside of ourselves to explain our being. As that is the case, we realize that a self-existent being is necessary for all that is contingent. In Logical First Principles we call this a ‘Necessary Being.’ That Necessary Being then is what we refer to as ‘God.’ That is, that the existence of God is logically necessary to explain the existence of our observably contingent universe and everything in it, and to deny it is to move from logic to illogic or absurdity. This is because it is a violation of the law of non-contradiction to say something both contingent and non-contingent at the same time. And if it is contingent, it must require a cause for its existence. I would hope most JW’s would agree with me so far.
So going back to Col 1:16, if Jesus was necessary for our existence as the text says He was, Jesus is of course our necessary being in that according to this passage we (and the universe), could not have existed without him. So how does this solve the problem of whether or not Jesus was created? Stay with me:
The 8th of the 12 Logical First Principles we use to prove the logical necessity for the existence of God is called The Negative Principle of Modality. This principle states that, “A Necessary Being cannot cause a Necessary Being.†A Necessary Being is by definition a mode (kind) of being that cannot not be. That is, by definition or mode (modality), it must be. It cannot come to be or cease to be. Because to be caused--is to come to be! Hence, a Necessary Being cannot be caused. For what comes to be is not by definition…necessary.
Therefore, for the WT to say that Jesus is a caused Necessary Being (per WT theology), is to violate the law of non-contradiction because if Jesus were caused, he was not necessary, yet the Scripture says clearly Jesus was necessary: “For by him all things were created.†(Col 1:16).
To contend that God the Father created Jesus in order to create all that is, is also to say that God the Father required something else necessary for Himself in order to create. Yet if that is the case, then God cannot create Jesus without Jesus already there to help Him create Himself. Again…logical contradiction.
The Early Church of course recognized this problem; the only way to solve the dilemma and not find oneself in hopeless contradiction is to acknowledge Jesus as an uncaused Necessary person of the One Godhead.
Cal
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