For the record, I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I appreciate your replies thus far and look forward to your upcoming submissions to this blog.

Thanks,

Edgar

I’m familiar with the Witnesses and their NWT, as well as the spat over the “was a god” translation. I think that spat over Greek grammar is overblown. All serious interpreters seem to agree that John 1:1c is predicating divinity of the Logos. Hence, some mainstream Christian translations say “was divine” or “was what God was”, and when they stick with the traditional “is God” the expound it not as identifying the Logos as God, but rather, as attributing the status of divinity to the Logos. Mainstream theologians, I think, dislike the NWT translation not because it is strictly incorrect, but rather, because it seems to suggest polytheism – even though it merely says the logos was “a god” which is wholly consistent with their being one god. Of course, as subordinationists, JWs think there is more than one god, in one sense of the word “god”, and many understand “monotheism” to rule out more than one god in any sense of the term. Stay tuned on this.

Thanks for helping me to understand what the proposition “Jesus is a god” means in this context of utterance. My question stemmed from the fact that the New World Translation (a Bible translation used by Jehovah’s Witnesses) renders John 1:1c: “and the Word was a God.” Non-Witness readers of this verse in the NWT have often seized upon this text as some type of proof that Witnesses are polytheists. But all the passage seems to be saying to me is that the Word (Jesus or the Son) is divine in the secondary sense that you have alluded to elsewhere. That is, the Son has the property of divinity attributed to him in the sense that he is a mighty, powerful or supernatural being (i.e. “godlike”). However, some Trinitarians like Daniel B. Wallace have understood the proposition “The Word was God” to signify “The Word was divine” (in the primary sense of the term).

Best wishes,

Edgar Foster

To say “Jesus is a god” means the same thing as saying “Jesus is divine” – it attributes a certain status to him. If you believe in properties, it is attributing this property to him: divinity, or godhood. Does that help?

Dale

I’m curious about both versions of premise 1 using the wording “a god” rather than T.V. Morris’ (The Logic of God Incarnate) wording of the proposition, namely, “Jesus is God.” Of course, Morris discusses the how this proposition might be construed in the light of absolute or relative identity theory. But my primary question is whether there is any significance to calling Jesus “a god.”