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Protestant Apologetics

You're Not God — Why Your Model Isn't the Standard

An incomprehensible Creator and the limits of created reason
Deity of Christ Strong Tone-safe
Doorstep Question
"When the Watchtower says the Trinity is illogical, what's really being said is that human reason can comprehend God exhaustively. May I ask — who told us we could? Because Isaiah 55 and Romans 11 say something very different. "
JW Claim

The Trinity is illogical and incomprehensible. If you can't explain it,
you don't really believe it — you've just inherited a Catholic confusion.
The Watchtower can explain Jehovah simply: one person, one being, one
God. That's logical. That's what a true religion should look like.

Strategy

Most JW objections to the Trinity are philosophical, not scriptural — "it doesn't make sense", "it's a contradiction", "I can't picture it". Each of these assumes that human comprehension is the test of divine truth. Surface that assumption gently. You are not the standard of truth. The JW is not the standard of truth. The Watchtower is not the standard of truth. God is. And in and God himself says his thoughts and ways are higher than ours — that there are depths in his being we will not exhaustively reach. The point isn't to dodge the question; it's to redirect from "does this make sense to me?" to "what has God revealed?" Once the JW concedes the principle — and most will, because it is Watchtower-friendly to say God is unsearch- able — the philosophical objection loses its grip and you can pivot to the biblical case for the Trinity.

Key Insight

Just because you can't fit God into a model doesn't mean the model is wrong. It may just mean you are a creature trying to measure the Creator. The question is not whether the Trinity fits your reason — it's whether God revealed it.

Likely JW Response 1

But if it's incomprehensible, you're asking me to believe blindly.

Your Counter

Not blindly — biblically. "Blind" would be believing without evidence; "incomprehensible" means the evidence reveals more than we can fully reconcile in our finitude. Big difference. We don't accept the Trinity because someone shouted "mystery" — we accept it because John 1, Acts 5, Hebrews 1, and the baptismal formula in Matthew 28 each affirm pieces of the same picture. We can't draw the whole picture. We can see that all the pieces are scriptural.

Likely JW Response 2

Then we should just stop trying to understand God. That doesn't seem right either.

Your Counter

You're right — and I'm not saying don't try. puts it well: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us." We pursue what God revealed. We hold lightly what he didn't. The Trinity is revealed, not deduced — so we receive it, even where we cannot model it. Like the JW already receives that Jehovah is eternal without beginning, or that he hears every prayer simultaneously. Those are not modellable either.

Likely JW Response 3

You're just using mystery as a cover for a doctrine that doesn't work.

Your Counter

Test that charge with two questions. First, did God himself say his ways are unsearchable? Yes — , . Second, is each part of the Trinity actually in Scripture? Father called God — . Son called God — , . Spirit called God — . Three distinct — . One God — . Once each part is biblical and the whole is God's stated unsearchability, "mystery" isn't a cover — it's honest reverence before revelation.

Likely JW Response 4

Even the Watchtower says we can know God. The Bible isn't supposed to be a riddle.

Your Counter

Knowing God and comprehending him exhaustively aren't the same. The Watchtower agrees Jehovah's wisdom is beyond recounting (NWT ). The Trinity is not a riddle in the Bible — it is a summary of what the Bible plainly says about Father, Son, and Spirit. What is mysterious is the mode of God's being — the same kind of mystery as his eternity, his omnipresence, his aseity. We can know truly without knowing exhaustively.

What to Avoid

Don't use "incomprehensibility" as a fallback when an exegetical answer is needed. If the JW asks "what does John 1:1 mean?", answer the verse. Reserve the epistemic-humility move for the philosophical objection ("it's illogical / it doesn't make sense"). Conflating the two makes Christians look like they retreat to mystery whenever pressed.

Homework to Assign

Read alongside . Then ask: if these passages teach that God's being is beyond our finite reason, what standard should we use to decide what God is like — our logic, or his revelation?

Source: Sam Shamoun — Towards Jesus channel