Isaiah 44:8
Isaiah 44:88Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”
Jehovah's Witnesses cite — "Is there any God but me? There is no other Rock; I do not know of one" (NWT) — as a proof text for strict monotheism and against the Trinity. The Watchtower argues that since Jehovah declares there is no God besides him, Jesus cannot be God in the same sense. Jesus may be honoured as God's Son and chief agent, but he cannot share deity with Jehovah without contradicting Isaiah's monotheistic declarations. Combined with ("before me no God was formed, and after me there has been none"), this passage forms one of the Watchtower's strongest Old Testament anchors for denying Christ's deity.
is indeed a powerful monotheistic declaration — and it creates an inescapable problem for the NWT's rendering of c as "the Word was a god." If Jehovah declares there is no God besides him and "no other Rock," then Jesus cannot be "a god" in any positive sense. The trilemma is unavoidable: if Jesus is "a god," he is either (1) a true god — violating the first commandment and ; (2) a false god — which means Christians should reject him entirely; or (3) the one true God — which is the Trinitarian position. The passage also works in concert with , where Jehovah says he created all things "alone" and "by myself," yet and attribute creation to Jesus. If Jehovah was truly alone at creation and there is no God besides him, the only way Jesus can also be the creator without introducing polytheism is if Jesus is Jehovah. does not exclude the Son from deity — it excludes all gods who are not Jehovah, which is precisely what Trinitarians affirm.