Thread by @Yung_Logo_

Amidst our Beloved: Jehovah’s Witnesses Sacramentology of Communion - A Thread

https://twitter.com/yung_logo_/status/1743839260724146185

Disclaimer* I don’t intend this thread to be insanely long so I may not delve into the entire consequences of what the implications of this argument are for the entirety of JW Theology.

I will also be referencing “denominations” as “movements” in Christendom. 0/?

I want to start off by giving a brief or general definition of what a “Sacrament” is.

Typically, a sacrament is a Christian religious ceremony such as communion, baptism, or marriage.

Now this differs from movement to movement but they tend to coalesce around these. 1/?

Now, the one we will be focusing on on is the sacrament of communion, or the Lords supper, or « The Memorial »

Now, the earliest written account of a Christian eucharistia (εὐχαριστία) is found in the First Epistle to the Corinthians which is dated around AD 55. 2/?

In it, the Apostle Paul gives the account "eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord" in the celebration of a "Supper of the Lord" relating it to The Last Supper of Jesus approximately 25 years earlier.

There is no official decree as to the frequency of the ritual. 3/?

That being said, different movements vary in both the date of the of commemoration and frequency.

I would love to go into detail regarding both the development of the Eucharist and the distinct ways it can be practiced but perhaps that is for another time. 4/?

You can find more information on this topic here:

“Professor Robert J. Daly, S.J., argues that Jesus did indeed institute the Eucharist, though it took generations and centuries of guidance from the Holy Spirit for the Eucharist to reach its current form.” 5/?

“Bruce Chilton suggests that six different ways of celebrating what Christians came to call the Eucharist can be found in the New Testament, and can locate each of these in its own specific socio-religio-political setting.” 6/?

Now, as to the JW, they celebrate the memorial once each year, allegedly on the date of the Jewish Passover. 7/?

Whether or not this is sufficient to establish a consistent understanding of the Eucharist is problematic based on the understanding of tradition and scripture. Why is this?

Jehovah’s Witnesses are part of the restorationist tradition within Protestantism. 8/?

The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation, was a theological shift in Western Christianity in 16th-century. Its main tenets being religious and political challenges to the papacy and the authority of the Catholic Church. 9/?

As the Reformation grew with the help of the printing press, differing theologies and interpretations arose which ultimately led to the Restorationist Movement in the early 19th century. 10/?

The central idea or hope was the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament.

Now a bit of context regarding Protestantism*** 11/?

The five solae

The five solas are often seen as the Protestant Reformations foundational set of Christian theological principles held by both theologians and clergy.

Those principles being central to the doctrines of justification and salvation. 12/?

Again, I would love to spend time here to flush this out in detail but for now I will focus on the one most relevant to JW theology.

-Sola Scriptura- 13/?

The doctrine of Sola Scriptura, affirms that Scripture is the only source of normative, apostolic, infallible revelation and that all things necessary for salvation and about faith and life are in the Bible with sufficient clarity so that the ordinary man can attain it. 14/?

Those of you who are familiar with JW history can see why then the movement places such an importance on “Bible Principles”.

This is important to keep in mind as we keep in mind both the retention of tradition and the function of the Governing Body. 15/?

- The problem of circularity -

The most common problem found with the tenet of Sola Scriptura is that unless it is modified it is self refuting. Why?

Sola Scriptura is self refuting because it presupposes that which it uses as its meter stick or “standard” for Truth. 16/?

For example if you ask a JW, “How do you know the function and structural organization of the first century church?”

Most of them will not attribute the knowledge to external historical sources outside of scripture, their answer:

“The Bible.” 17/?

If it’s not evident yet, we will see why that’s a problem.

The problem arises with the historicity of the completion of the canonization of the Bible.

The dates here differ from movement to movement but broadly speaking there are conflicting dates as to when the canon… 18/?

Was settled but it is generally* accepted that during the third Council of Carthage met in North Africa about A.D. 397. This council, attended by Augustine, provided a full list of the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. 19/?

*again this is contentious

Now you may ask, why is this important?

It’s important to understand both the need and the context in which the Bible arose. If there was no official canon for nearly 400 years, how were matters settled between congregations? 20/?

[Please be mindful X only allows me to post 20 threaded posts at a time so this thread is still in progress] 21/?

Most theological matters were settled by direct Apostolic succession. As the apostles traveled from congregation to congregation to settle disputes.

Now JWs will argue that this was done in conjunction to attention to scripture, and to some degree this is true…22/?

But we already showed that there was no established biblical canon until 400 years after the death of Christ. So could it really be said that the disputes were settled by Scripture Alone?

The short answer is No, or at the very least not likely. 23/?

The Bible is a liturgical document meaning that it was assembled based on customs and traditions of the early Christian movement. This can be seen in the most frequently cited example regarding the problem of gentile circumcision. 24/?

The texts weren’t seen in isolation as the only infallible source because the function of apostolic succession is the establishment of a line of succession or tradition to teach.

Meaning that scripture alone is not the only infallible source that determines doctrine. 25/?

Apostolic succession is established by “the laying of hands” in which Paul grants Timothy the authority and function of a teacher. By this authority which originates when Jesus established Peter as the rock, is circumscribing tradition via the body of the church. 26/?

This is important to understand because “traditions of men” is often thrown around with a derogatory connotation as that which undermines the legitimacy of Christendom in the eyes of JWs.

We can see the movements official view of this here:

27/? wol.jw.org/en/wol/library…

Its important to highlight this because it will be important in showing a central contradiction in JW dogma, not just in publication material but in its internal theology. How?

We return to the principle of Sola Scriptura, how is it that the canon of scripture formed? 28/?

Through the necessity of a uniform liturgical practice which was both in line with the retention of the Torah and with the New covenant established by Jesus. Meaning that the development of a formalized Divine Liturgy integrating the rituals of Roman Worship… 29/?

Was integral of the development of early Christianity. Scripture then was assembled and canonized and ultimately passed down through the ages. Its maintenance being reliant on traditions of men and interpretation guided by the body of the church through “Holy Spirit” 30/?

Again why is this crucial?

This is the same argument levied against Protestantism which is that their principle of Sola scrip is incompatible with tradition: for the sole infallible source for the development of doctrine could have been fallibly assembled through tradition 31/?

This begs the question “How do Protestant movements know they have the correct collection of books?”

And of course this question cannot be answered with the very source that is in question, this is an epistemic problem of circularity. 32/?

What this means is that either they have a fallibly assembled canon of of infallible books (contradiction) or they must appeal to an outside authority (the body of the church [tradition]) to obtain another source of infallibility.

-one might see where this is going- 33/?

External Infallibility

Some movements modify Sola Scriptura into Prima Scriptura in which there may be some external source of infallibility to account for this problem.

Most patristics Christian movements don’t run into this issue because the church itself… 34?

Is the external source of validation guided via “Holy Spirit” through apostolic succession.

Now the question stands, “how do JWs stand in lieu of this?”

They have a couple of options, either show that they have an infallible organ 35/?

For the interpretation of scripture that has a direct historical connection to the early church via apostolic succession.

Or, they have said organ but it is reformed or established through some other form of special revelation. 36/?

The first option is unlikely and does not line up with the current beliefs of the organization

We can see that here:

37/? jw.org/en/library/mag…

The second option of attaining an infallible organ can also be thrown out as by their own admission:



38/? jw.org/en/library/mag…

So what does this leave us with?

Well this tackles a central node of JW dogma, and that is that it is In line with the First Century Church, how can we be certain?

Because it has been shown that Sola Scriptura is insufficient to demonstrate the nature of said church…. 39/?

And by cutting themselves from tradition via an external source for infallibility through tradition and apostolic succession their only choice would have been to establish an infallible source through revelation but this option has also been foreclosed. 40/?

With that preliminary chunk set aside what are we truly left with and how does this tie us back to the JW Eucharist?

What we are left with is a group of men who have inherited a collection of books (Bible) which were assembled by church groups they condemn as heretical… 41/?

With no means to even be able to truly connect to the early church historically and thus are left to interpret the Bible using the Bible, to develop doctrine. They can essentially interpret scripture in isolation.

42/?

-The Memorial-

The JW Eucharist along with many other doctrinal and liturgical practices are simulacrum (imitations, recreations) of an attempt to reconstruct the first century Church, (on its own this is fascinatingly interesting and warrants another deep dive), but 43/?

Let us continue -

With our understanding that JW theology is isolated to biblical self reference we can start to see why it is inconsistent as has been shown by multiple and competent content creators. 44/?

What I would like to show is an example of this via a publication analysis. We often see an emphasis on “Bible principles” which dictate JW practices such as the Shunning policy, the rejection of blood transfusions, amongst others. 45/?

We can see this explicitly argued for here:



46/? wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp…

Now we see that during the memorial only those who are “Annointed” are to partake of the “emblems”. JWs take to a Zwiglian Memoralist view of communion.

Zwingli argued that the Eucharist is more about the presence of Christ in the minds… 47/?

of people instead of his presence in the elements. This indicated that, although the liturgies remain an important aspect of being a Christian, there are no potential metaphysical effects related to the bread and wine used in the ritual. 48/?

This is interesting given the importance of Bible principles and how they are interpreted and extrapolated. JWs follow the memorial because it is what Jesus had asked of his apostles.



49/? jw.org/en/library/mag…

We can see in this instance that JWs take a literalist approach to this text as they hold the memorial on Passover each year to commemorate the death of Christ.

-Now this literalism will be crucial in the upcoming posts-

50/?

~ Yung Logos Fork ~ Symbolic Literalism ~

JWs amongst other fundamentalist movements do not have a “strict” standard by which they are able to establish which passages are purely symbolic and which passages are to be interpreted literally. 51/?

What this does is it opens up the theology to vulnerabilities in ambiguity, inconsistency and self referential contradiction.

We see this with the example of the JW emblems which typically follow a literalist approach except to when it comes to, who gets to partake of them 52/?

Typically in most Christian movements so long as the person is in good standing they partake of the emblems or the Eucharist. Now for JWs only those who are part of the “New Covenant” the 144,000, get to partake of the lords supper. 53/?

Now I’ll bracket the book of revelation here as I will not attempt to go into a full deconstruction of JW theology in this thread given that we are coming up on 60 posts. 54/?

But this shows an awkward precedent set by the religion. For if we compare this to let’s say their stance on blood transfusions which takes both a literalist and symbolic heuristic for its establishment. 55/?

JWs abstain from blood because:



56/? jw.org/en/bible-teach…

Now this is taking a “literalist” heuristic when interpreting the scriptures for their position against blood transfusions but let’s revisit that same Watchtower regarding David and how he observed “Bible Principles”. 57/?

This shows us that David was a “proto” -JW, an archetypical Christian who abstained from drinking water because of its symbolic transubstantiation into blood.

58/? wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp…

Instead of establishing a concrete heuristic for what a “Bible principle” is, all this does is “muddy the waters”, as it appears that a Bible principle can be both obtained through symbolic interpretation and literalist interpretation of biblical passages. 59/?

Given that water in this case was to be poured out like blood because of its connotation, does this mean that JWs don’t partake of the emblems because they are not to partake of blood unless they are part of the new covenant? (I’m being cheeky here :p) but it isn’t clear…60/?

Since we are left with a lack of clarity on when to apply the heuristic it could lead one to think, “well only the anointed are to partake of the emblems as blood is sacred to Jehovah and those he has granted authority”, and thus a studious JW might (secretly) develop… 61/?

That position to self justify why they don’t partake even though Jesus explicitly states to “eat and drink”, Paul also states to do this to the congregations without casting distinction, 62/?

Now of course the reasoning is established between the other flock (little flock) described in Luke 12:32 which “allegedly” alludes to the vision in Revelation 14: 3, 4 which describes a crowd of 144,000. 63/?

But this only widens the fork as we introduce more and more scripture we are left to discern whether or not we are to interpret it literally or symbolically.

You may say, “but won’t the JW just say that’s why we have the Governing body, to clarify issues of ambiguity?” 64/?

Well yes! But we already established that using scripture to justify them and “demonstrate” that they are biblical is incoherent through scripture alone, and the governing body self admittedly has proclaimed to be neither inspired nor infallible, meaning they can be wrong. 65/?

Given this faulty foundation in sand, what is the believer left with?

Sola Fide, or strong Fideism: Radical Faith that their religion is correct. For they are truly following men. For their scripture is not infallible, nor do they trust tradition. 66/?

Yet ironically enough, the entire movement is predicated on traditions that date back only a couple hundred years given that they are “epistemically isolated” from any form of external infallible sources.

-so do JWs hold the Eucharist?-

That’s for you to decided 67/67

Unroll @threadreaderapp