This is Part 7 of a 7-part series: The Holy Trinity — Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Introduction

In 1989, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society published a small booklet titled Should You Believe in the Trinity? It was distributed globally to millions of people and has been used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in door-to-door ministry ever since. The booklet claims to demonstrate — through careful historical and scholarly research — that the Trinity was a pagan invention, that early Christians did not believe in it, and that it was only imposed on the church by Constantine at Nicaea in AD 325.

The problem is that a substantial portion of the booklet’s historical and scholarly claims are either demonstrably false, deliberately misquoted, or taken so badly out of context as to mean the opposite of what the original authors actually said.

This is not a minor footnote. The Watchtower’s anti-Trinity argument depends heavily on this booklet and the authority of the scholars it cites. When those citations are checked against the original sources, the foundation of the argument collapses.

In this final post of our series, we will document specific examples — cases where the Watchtower quotes a scholar in a way that misrepresents what that scholar actually believed and wrote.

The Watchtower’s Method

Before examining specific cases, it is helpful to understand the method the booklet uses. The Watchtower:

1. Locates a sentence or phrase from a scholar’s work that, when extracted, sounds like support for an anti-Trinitarian position
2. Quotes only that sentence or phrase, without context
3. Creates the impression that the scholar agrees with JW theology
4. Does not inform readers that the same scholar, in the same work, may explicitly affirm the Trinity elsewhere

Scholars who discovered their work was being used this way — without permission, without context, and to support conclusions they did not hold — responded with outrage. Their letters of protest are part of the public record.

Case 1: Professor Edmund Fortman

The Watchtower booklet cites Professor Edmund Fortman’s The Triune God (1972) to suggest that the early church did not teach the Trinity. It quotes a small portion of Fortman’s historical survey of Old Testament material.

What the Watchtower does not tell its readers is that Edmund Fortman was a Roman Catholic theologian who explicitly and emphatically affirmed the Trinity throughout his entire book. In the same work, Fortman writes that the New Testament “does not explicitly present us with an elaborated doctrine of the Trinity, yet it contains so much Trinitarian material that it has been called a Trinitarian document.”

Fortman was describing the progressive revelation of the Trinity — noting that the Old Testament does not spell it out as explicitly as the New Testament. He was not arguing against the Trinity. He was explaining how the doctrine developed across the canon of Scripture. The Watchtower cited part of his historical description to make it sound like he doubted the doctrine he was actually defending.

Case 2: Professor Walter Martin (Misattributed Quote)

The booklet attributes a quote about the pagan origins of the Trinity to various scholars and church historians. In several cases, researchers who checked the original sources discovered that the quotations could not be located in the cited works — or were attributed to the wrong source entirely.

When scholars including David Reed (a former JW elder) systematically checked the booklet’s footnotes and citations, a troubling pattern emerged: many of the quotations could not be verified. Some appeared in no known publication by the cited author. Others were traced to secondary sources — meaning the Watchtower was quoting a quote, without checking the original, sometimes copying from other anti-Trinitarian materials without verification.

Case 3: The Misrepresentation of Harnack and Historians

The booklet cites historians like Adolf von Harnack to suggest that the Trinity was a product of Greek philosophical influence rather than biblical revelation. Harnack was indeed a liberal theologian who questioned certain doctrinal developments — but even he did not make the simplistic argument the Watchtower attributes to him.

More importantly, this argument proves too much. By the same logic, every doctrine that was articulated in precise language during the patristic period could be dismissed as “Greek philosophy.” The early church fathers used Greek philosophical vocabulary to express biblical truths — just as we use English vocabulary to express them today. The use of Greek vocabulary for theological precision is not the same as importing Greek mythology into Christian doctrine.

Furthermore, the argument self-defeats when applied to Arianism — the very alternative the Watchtower proposes. Arius himself was deeply influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy, and his framework of a supreme, unknowable, ineffable God who creates through a subordinate intermediary Logos is far more Platonic in origin than orthodox Trinitarianism. If Greek philosophy is the problem, Arianism is more guilty of it than the Trinity.

Case 4: The “Pagan Trinity” Claim

One of the most dramatic claims in the Watchtower booklet is that the Trinity was borrowed from pagan religions — specifically from Hindu triads, Egyptian triads, and Babylonian religion. This is presented as if scholars widely agree.

In reality, the supposed parallels do not hold up to examination. Egyptian religion had groups of gods (such as Osiris, Isis, and Horus) but these were three separate deities, not one God in three Persons. The Hindu Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) is similarly a grouping of three distinct divine beings — the exact opposite of the Christian teaching of one God in three Persons. Babylonian religion had groups of gods as well, but no teaching remotely comparable to Christian Trinitarianism.

The scholarly consensus among historians of religion is that Christian Trinitarianism has no meaningful precedent in pagan religious triads. The Watchtower’s claimed parallels require ignoring what the pagan religions actually taught and focusing only on the number three.

As scholar Robert Bowman noted in his detailed response to the booklet: “The Trinity is unique in the history of religions… The closest parallels are in Judaism — the Old Testament background that we examined in Part 2 of this series — not in paganism.”

Case 5: Church Fathers Quoted Out of Context

The booklet selectively quotes church fathers in ways that strip away the Trinitarian context of their statements. A few examples:

Justin Martyr is cited in the booklet in ways that suggest he did not believe in the Trinity. Yet in the same works the Watchtower cites, Justin explicitly calls Christ “God” and describes the Trinitarian baptismal formula. The Watchtower selects his statements about the Father’s transcendence and ignores his equally explicit statements about Christ’s divinity.

Tertullian — who invented the word “Trinity” — is actually cited in the booklet in a way that obscures this fact. Any fair representation of Tertullian must acknowledge that he is the father of Trinitarian theological vocabulary. The booklet mentions him in passing while suppressing his central role in developing precisely the doctrine they are arguing against.

Origen is cited for certain subordinationist language — but Origen also explicitly affirmed the co-divinity of Father, Son, and Spirit and used the language of worship and prayer directed to the Son as fully God. Origen was a complex theologian whose writings contain elements that were later questioned, but he cannot honestly be pressed into service as a proto-Jehovah’s Witness.

Scholar Protests: The Record of Objections

When the Watchtower booklet was published and began circulating, several scholars whose work was cited contacted the Watchtower directly to protest the misuse of their writings. Their letters and public statements are part of the documented record:

• Scholars noted that the Watchtower had quoted them selectively, without context, to support conclusions they did not hold and explicitly rejected
• Some requested that the Watchtower stop using their names and works in connection with anti-Trinitarian arguments
• The Watchtower did not update or retract the booklet

This pattern of misrepresentation is not accidental. It is the predictable result of beginning with a conclusion — “the Trinity is false” — and then mining scholarly literature for sentences that, when stripped of context, appear to support that conclusion. This is not scholarship. It is propaganda.

What to Do When a JW Shows You This Booklet

If a Jehovah’s Witness presents you with Should You Believe in the Trinity?, here is a practical approach:

1. Ask to see the original source. For any quotation from a scholar, ask to see the full context in the original work. The Watchtower’s entire argument depends on you not checking.
2. Point to the pre-Nicene fathers. Ask them to explain why Ignatius (disciple of John) called Jesus “our God” in AD 107 — 218 years before Nicaea. Ask them to explain Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the apostolic chain.
3. Turn the pagan origins argument around. Point out that Arianism — the very alternative the Watchtower proposes — has far deeper roots in Platonic philosophy than orthodox Trinitarianism does.
4. Ask about Acts 5:3–4. If the Holy Spirit is just an active force, how do you “lie to” a force? And if lying to the Holy Spirit is the same as lying to God (as verse 4 says), what does that make the Holy Spirit?
5. Be patient and prayerful. Jehovah’s Witnesses who present this booklet are not being deliberately deceptive — they have been taught to trust the Watchtower as God’s organization. They genuinely believe they are sharing truth. Respond with grace, precision, and prayer.

Series Conclusion: The Triune God of Scripture

Over the course of this seven-part series, we have established:

1. The Trinity — one God in three Persons — is a doctrine defined by Scripture, not by the absence of a technical term
2. The Old Testament already reveals the plurality within God’s nature, through plural language, the Angel of the LORD, the Trisagion, and Psalm 110
3. The New Testament presents the Father, Son, and Spirit simultaneously, co-equally, and explicitly as the one God of Israel
4. The full deity of Christ is affirmed by John, Paul, the author of Hebrews, and — most remarkably — by the Father Himself in Hebrews 1:8
5. The Holy Spirit is a Person — with intellect, will, and emotion — who is explicitly identified as God in Acts 5:3–4
6. The pre-Nicene church witnesses, in an unbroken chain from the Apostle John, consistently affirmed Trinitarian theology long before Constantine
7. The Watchtower’s historical case against the Trinity rests on misquotation, selective citation, and claims that collapse when checked against primary sources

The God of the Bible is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — one God, three Persons, holy and eternal. This is not a fourth-century invention. It is the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3), received from the Apostles, and preserved by every faithful witness of the church across two thousand years.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” — Matthew 28:19

Further Reading and Resources:

• Robert Bowman Jr., Why You Should Believe in the Trinity (Baker Books)
• James White, The Forgotten Trinity (Bethany House)
• Sam Shamoun, answeringislam.blog/tag/trinity — extensive Trinitarian apologetics and church father documentation
• David Reed, Jehovah’s Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse (Baker Books)
• jwfacts.com — documentation of Watchtower misquotes and historical inaccuracies
• Athanasius, On the Incarnation — freely available online; written before Nicaea and a masterclass in Trinitarian Christology

Key Sources Referenced: Watchtower, Should You Believe in the Trinity? (1989) | Edmund Fortman, The Triune God (1972) | Robert Bowman Jr., Why You Should Believe in the Trinity | Athanasius, various works | Tertullian, Against Praxeas | Ignatius, Letters | Jude 3 | Matthew 28:19 | Acts 5:3–4