Arianism and Jehovah's Witnesses

Ayenew said:

On my way, I have met with Jehovah's Witnesses and discussed on some faith matters. I have got their beliefs similar with what I have read about Arianism. Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

The JWs are not Arians. They believe that Jesus is in fact the Archangel Michael. No Word, no Trinity, no commonality with Christianity. Their beliefs don't even fit into any of the ancient heresies such as Arianism.

Ayenew said:

Thank you, I was reading and found that they are only similar in the sense that they do not accept the divinity of Christ.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is true. And they use some of the same verses from Scripture to support their error.

Jehovah's Witnesses are Arians. They believe that Jesus Christ was a created being and not God himself. Their New World Translation of the Bible translates John 1:1 like this, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a god. They consider Jesus to be a lesser god and not equal to the Father.

Ayenew said:

On my way, I have met with Jehovah's Witnesses and discussed on some faith matters. I have got their beliefs similar with what I have read about Arianism. Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

Not really. The two are similar in that most obvious way, but there is no actual attempt by the JWs to pick up where Arianism left off. Not that I can see, that is.

Here is a very detailed explanation, from a Jehovahs Witness, of the differences between his (JW) beliefs and Arianism.

Read the first "answer" that appears on the page.
Are Jehovah's Witnesses actual Arians?

I think there are common human tendencies, for one thing, that manifest between JWs and Arians. The most basic is that it's simply not so easy to believe that a man can be God, let alone a common carpenter from some remote area. This idea was blasphemous to the Jews, and counter-intuitive to most of the rest. The matter wasn't addressed immediately in any exhaustive or universal way by the Church, as far as defining and clarifying just who this Jesus was. Coupled with that was the fact that Scripture isn't patently clear on the matter, or else neither Arian or Russell with his followers would've ever gained much of a foothold to begin with.

This is not to disagree with your post, fhansen, but the bottom line here really concerns what, exactly, was asked for in the OP. Had it asked if there were similarities between the JWs and the Arians, we all would probably have answered in the affirmative. But the question was this:

Ayenew said:

Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

To that, we have to say "No."

Ayenew said:

On my way, I have met with Jehovah's Witnesses and discussed on some faith matters. I have got their beliefs similar with what I have read about Arianism. Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

They remind me of Arians too, although I guess they are technically different.

How familiar are you with Roman Catholicism? I assume that you are Ethiopian Orthodox. I would be a bit interested to see what similarities and differences there are between the two religions.

In the beginning, Arianism was simply the heretical theology of Arius. However, as the true Arians died out, every theology which denied the Divinity of the Son was labelled 'Arianism', so it had in some contexts effectively been reduced to any anti-trinitarian heresy (unless that heresy was Sabellianism). As such, some medieval theologians even labelled Islam as a form of Arianism, as it denies the Divinity of the Son.

The JWs are not Arian in that they do not follow the teachings or Arius or indentify themselves with him. JWs also deny the Personhood of the Holy Spirit, which Arius affirms (he thought the Holy Spirit was an angel). But in another sense, they could be regarded as Arians since they deny that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and they say that there was a time when the Son was not.

The only modern group I know of that actually called themselves Arians, is "The Arian Catholic Church and Theological Society". Their website is now defunct, so I don't know if they exist anymore. But they actually canonized Arius as a saint, and anathemized St. Nicholas! Oddly enough, they weren't even true Arians, but were more or less Psilanthropists, as they believed/believes that Christ was only human, the natural son of Mary and Joseph. Christ was the spiritual Son of God, as was also only spiritually raised from the dead. And they were/are Sabbatarians?

Ayenew said:

On my way, I have met with Jehovah's Witnesses and discussed on some faith matters. I have got their beliefs similar with what I have read about Arianism. Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

IMO, JW do not subscribe to Arianism. To do so, one would first need to beleive in the divinity of Christ.

However, there are many Christians denominations, by virtue of their posts, that do subscribe to Arian beliefs

Ayenew said:

On my way, I have met with Jehovah's Witnesses and discussed on some faith matters. I have got their beliefs similar with what I have read about Arianism. Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

They superficially appear Arian, but there are some pretty significant differences between Arianism and Watchtower theology. In some ways the Jehovah's Witnesses go further than Arius even did.

-CryptoLutheran

samwise gamgee said:

Jehovah's Witnesses are Arians. They believe that Jesus Christ was a created being and not God himself. Their New World Translation of the Bible translates John 1:1 like this, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a god. They consider Jesus to be a lesser god and not equal to the Father.

Click to expand...

The thing about Arianism is that we often get a kind of "Cliff Notes" version of it when we talk about it in more casual settings. Arianism was actually a bit more complicated/nuanced than those Cliff Notes version.

The Arians actually did believe that Jesus was God, it's just that they believed Jesus was a secondary, junior, lesser God than God the Father. For the Arians there were, in a sense, two Gods: The Uncreated God (the Father), and a created, lesser God (the Logos/Son). So the chief Arian error was that they believed that the Son was created, and that the Son was not consubstantial with the Father. The hardline Arians said "there was a time when the Son was not" and insisted that the Son was heteroousios ("of another substance") from the Father.

This is why the Council Fathers at Nicea ended up insisting on using the word homoousios ("of the same substance"), because Christ is indeed true God, even as the Father is God. And it is why they explicitly used the language that the Son was "begotten, not made"; because the Arians tried to insist that if the Son was begotten, then He was made. This also accounts for why in the original 325 form of the Nicene Creed they added anathemas concerning those who said "there was a time when the Son was not", this was a direct and explicit repudiation of Arianism.

So the Arians did believe in Jesus' divinity, they just believed it was a lesser divinity. Jesus was still "God", just another God, a second God, a lesser God than the Father.

-CryptoLutheran

HTacianas said:

The JWs are not Arians. They believe that Jesus is in fact the Archangel Michael. No Word, no Trinity, no commonality with Christianity. Their beliefs don't even fit into any of the ancient heresies such as Arianism.

Click to expand...

Arians at least believed Jesus had a divine substance.

Albion said:

Here is a very detailed explanation, from a Jehovahs Witness, of the differences between his (JW) beliefs and Arianism.

Click to expand...

JWs may not agree with Arius in everything but they do share the erroneous belief that Jesus was a created being. Anyone holding this belief is a heretic and not a true Christian.

Albion said:

This is not to disagree with your post, fhansen, but the bottom line here really concerns what, exactly, was asked for in the OP. Had it asked if there were similarities between the JWs and the Arians, we all would probably have answered in the affirmative. But the question was this:



To that, we have to say "No."

Click to expand...

Fair enough.

samwise gamgee said:

JWs may not agree with Arius in everything but they do share the erroneous belief that Jesus was a created being. Anyone holding this belief is a heretic and not a true Christian.

Click to expand...

That's one way of looking at it, but the question asked of us in the OP was more specific.

Ayenew said:

On my way, I have met with Jehovah's Witnesses and discussed on some faith matters. I have got their beliefs similar with what I have read about Arianism. Are they trying to restore that Arian thing.

Click to expand...

We could all probably have some sort of Bible study regarding differences with JWS -- but what a lot of people don't realize is that JWs have a dissadvantage that many of their own members are not happy about.

1. The watchtower says that JWs are not under the New Covenant - only the 144,000 are and most of them are already dead according to the watchtower.
2. Christ is not the mediator of JWS according to the watchtower. - only the 144,000 are .
3. You have to first "be" a JW to be able to study your bible and know if a given doctrine is even true or not.

I am trying the following statement out as part of the first meeting I have with a JW that knocks on my door.

================================

Currently I am not a JW so then I “study the scriptures to see if those things are true” Acts 17:11 when someone brings a doctrine to my attention, and I am under the New Covenant Jer 31:31-34 having the LAW of God written on the heart (including all TEN of God’s Ten Commandments) and Jesus is my Mediator 1 Tim 2:5.

The JW alternative as per the watchtower is to: invite me to join them in no longer being under the new covenant, no longer having Christ as my Mediator, and to suddenly believe that I am no longer able to study the Bible to see if a given doctrine is true.

======================

So far at least one JW has seen the first part of that statement from me... and "passed" on wanting to study the Bible further. Not because I know something about the Bible that they don't know - but rather because they themselves are conflicted about the idea that they do not have Christ as Mediator and are not under the New Covenant - but all the people they reach out to ARE -- It may be giving pause for reflection.