Jehovah's Witness and Christology

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What is to be made of passages like this from a catholic perspective
1 Peter 1:3 “3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”
The God and Father of Jesus Christ. The best I can come up with on my own is that in Jesus’ humanity the Father is God, and in his deity the Father is his Father. But if Jesus is one person would not both of these terms “God” and “Father” apply to the very person of Jesus. After all Peter doesn’t say “The God of Jesus’ human nature, and the Father of his Deity”.

John 20:17 “…I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”
This correlates to Peter in the sense that Jesus is saying My God.

Matt 20:23 “And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.”
He sent me this question saying The Father can grant something the son can’t. I don’t think this is a problem. But how do we make sense of the Fathers primacy and his giving of things to Jesus if they are supposedly equal.

I’m gonna read Augustine’s work on the trinity. Any other recommendations?
 
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Hi there, I am an ex-Jehovah’s Witness and I understand the supposed confusing nature of these terms. In reality, calling the Father the God of Jesus Christ isn’t all that confusing. Jesus was a human and still is! As a good Jew, Jesus would refer to God the Father as his God. That just makes sense. We have to remember how everything changed after the Incarnation. When God the Son assumed flesh, He took on human nature and a human soul. In that event, the Son in His human nature became subject to God the Father. Later in Scripture, typically whenever the Apostles are referring to Jesus in His relationship with His Father, they are referring to his humanity.
Another things to look at as well is the fact that within the Trinity itself, would it be wrong of God the Son or even God the Spirit to call God the Father my God? The two Persons proceed from the Father, one via generation, the other via spiration from the Father and the Son. So I don’t see anything wrong here in the eternal relationship within the Trinity.
MyApologies said:
But if Jesus is one person would not both of these terms “God” and “Father” apply to the very person of Jesus. After all Peter doesn’t say “The God of Jesus’ human nature, and the Father of his Deity”.
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This to me seems easier to understand than what your allowing for. God the Father begot God the Son in the eternal past, therefore being His Father eternally. God the Father also is the father of the man Jesus in the fact that he conceived Jesus in our Lady’s womb via the Holy Spirit. In doing this, God the Father was the only father that Jesus had in His humanity as well. So in both cases, God the Father is the unique father to Jesus divine nature and human nature.
MyApologies said:
He sent me this question saying The Father can grant something the son can’t. I don’t think this is a problem. But how do we make sense of the Fathers primacy and his giving of things to Jesus if they are supposedly equal.
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JW’s are good at questions but make sure you ask questions of your own about Jesus divine nature that is absolutely in Scripture. Definitely research that Jesus is God in Sacred Scripture. Once done with that, these question that the JW don’t really matter because you know that Jesus is absolutely God. But to answer this, the Father is only consider in primacy after the Incarnation. No where in Scripture can we see the Son submitting to the Father before the Incarnation. The Father is greater than the Son in referring to the Father’s divine nature compared to the Son’s human nature, and in the role that They assumed at the Incarnation.
I would recommend reading The Forgotten Trinity by James White. He is anti-Catholic but this book is wonderful on its discourse of the Trinity. Augustine’s work are wonderful. And definitely read St. Thomas Aquinas Summa on The Blessed Trinity. Brilliant work there.
Let me know any other questions

God Bless!
 
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Thank you! I’m very familiar with James White from debates and if he has good things to say in agreement with us I’m all for it. Thanks for the recommendation. And besides that thanks so much for clearing these questions up. It seems to me that once we have a proper understanding of Christology and the Trinity, the whole of the Bible stays consistent with itself. I can’t say the same for the JWs perspective. I’m glad those doctrines have been settled by the church fathers.
 
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SeekerOfTruth7 said:
We have to remember how everything changed after the Incarnation. When God the Son assumed flesh, He took on human nature and a human soul.
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The problem here is that God does not change. He is the same now as He was in the Past and as He will be in the future. Nothing changes with God and yet "everything changed after the Incarnation. " Before the incarnation God was in heaven. Yet He came down from heaven and became man about 2020 years ago. Is that not a change as you say - everything did change.
 
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MyApologies said:
But how do we make sense of the Fathers primacy and his giving of things to Jesus if they are supposedly equal.
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St. Thomas Aquinas phrased it this way in the Summa Theologiae 1, Q45:
Reply to Objection 2. As the divine nature, although common to the three Persons, still belongs to them in a kind of order, inasmuch as the Son receives the divine nature from the Father, and the Holy Ghost from both: so also likewise the power of creation, whilst common to the three Persons, belongs to them in a kind of order. For the Son receives it from the Father, and the Holy Ghost from both. Hence to be the Creator is attributed to the Father as to Him Who does not receive the power of creation from another. And of the Son it is said (John 1:3), “Through Him all things were made,” inasmuch as He has the same power, but from another; for this preposition “through” usually denotes a mediate cause, or “a principle from a principle.” But to the Holy Ghost, Who has the same power from both, is attributed that by His sway He governs, and quickens what is created by the Father through the Son. Again, the reason for this particular appropriation may be taken from the common notion of the appropriation of the essential attributes. For, as above stated (I:39:8 ad 3), to the Father is appropriated power which is chiefly shown in creation, and therefore it is attributed to Him to be the Creator. To the Son is appropriated wisdom, through which the intellectual agent acts; and therefore it is said: “Through Whom all things were made.” And to the Holy Ghost is appropriated goodness, to which belong both government, which brings things to their proper end, and the giving of life—for life consists in a certain interior movement; and the first mover is the end, and goodness.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1045.htm#article6
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From St. Thomas Aquinas:
“The mystery of Incarnation was not completed through God being changed in any way from the state in which He had been from eternity, but through His having united Himself to the creature in a new way, or rather through having united it to Himself. But it is fitting that a creature which by nature is mutable, should not always be in one way. And therefore, as the creature began to be, although it had not been before, so likewise, not having been previously united to God in Person, it was afterwards united to Him.”
 
SeekerOfTruth7 said:
From St. Thomas Aquinas:
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Sorry, but I cannot make sense of this. If God did not have a human nature 3000 years ago, but 1000 years later God came down from heaven and assumed a human nature by becoming man, that would seem to me to qualify as a change, by the very definition of the word change as given in the dictionary.
 
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SeekerOfTruth7 said:
through having united it to Himself
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God united human nature to Himself, not changing Himself in any way from the state in which He had been from eternity. This united is called the Hypostatic Union. The two nature are joined in the hypostatic union, a created union within the one divine hypostasis(person) of Christ. The two natures are not one new nature, or one mixed nature, but two distinct natures, though not divided.
As St. Thomas said : " Since the Divine Person is infinite, no addition can be made to it: Hence Cyril says [Council of Ephesus, Part I, ch. 26]: “We do not conceive the mode of conjunction to be according to addition”; just as in the union of man with God, nothing is added to God by the grace of adoption, but what is Divine is united to man; hence, not God but man is perfected."
So my answer is the hypostatic union.
God Bless
 
The Divine Nature of the Son did not change. Re-read what i posted above
 
Change: becoming something different. The Divine nature of Christ did not change.
SeekerOfTruth7 said:
“The mystery of Incarnation was not completed through God being changed in any way from the state in which He had been from eternity, but through His having united Himself to the creature in a new way, or rather through having united it to Himself.
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The two natures of Christ are two distinct natures, one human and one divine. A change to the divine nature would be if it became something new, like a mixture of human and divine. But that is not what happened at the Incarnation. The Person of Christ took on a human nature, not mixing or changing the divine nature, so that the Son has two natures, divine and human. One Person, two natures.
 
SeekerOfTruth7 said:
The Divine nature of Christ did not change.
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But, supposing that His Divine Nature did not change, was there a change in God of another kind? 3000 years ago, God did not have a human nature.1000 years later, God came down from heaven and became man. Was that a change of some sort?
 
No, God did not change. You’re not understanding that God is the Divine nature. The Divine nature did not change in the incarnation. The Person of the Son assumed a human nature. The Divine nature did not assumed a human nature, therefore the divine nature, God, did not change.
AlNg said:
But, supposing that His Divine Nature did not change, was there a change in God of another kind?
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If we assume His Divine nature did not change, then there is no change in God. Your question then becomes fallacious, not according to logic.
 
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Another way of thinking is: When God indwells us, does God change? Obviously not. We, the creature, change by being indwelled and united to God through adoption. But that adoption does not change God. In the same thought, God does not change in the Incarnation, for God cannot change. But the human nature that was assumed changed in being that it was the Person of the Son that assumed said human nature.
Another way: God the Son in His divine nature did not assume a human nature, therefore there is no change in God, for God is the divine nature. But the Person of the Son, person and nature being two distinct things, assumed a human nature. For if the Son in His divine nature assumed a human nature, we have two problems, one being that the Divine nature changed, which it can’t, and two being that the Father and the Holy Spirit would be assumed into a human nature with the Son, but we know that did not happen and wouldn’t. Therefore, the Incarnation took place in Person, not Nature.
 
I love this conversation. I am currently in discussions with a JW about this very thing. I can’t seem to get her to understand the human and divine nature of Jesus Christ. She keeps asking me if God was a ventriloquist talking through Jesus?
 
Yeah its a typical argument given by Witnesses. They don’t understand that when we say God, we aren’t meaning only the Father but the whole Trinity. The context of our sentence is what determines if we mean Father, Son, or Spirit. They don’t know how to separate the terms Being and Person, which is a good place to start
For example, a human is a one being, that is human, and one person. But a rock has being, if you got hit by a rock you would know it has being, but it is not a person. So we can see a person is a being, but a being isn’t necessarily a person or just one person. Once they can understand those differences then explaining the Trinity becomes easier. It’s not three beings, its three Persons. And then asking if they can prove that Being is limited only to one person? if they can’t prove logically why not, then it opens up how the Trinity is logically coherent. Work your from there.

God Bless
 
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