#29 - The Fallacy of the Impersonal Active Force

The Watchtower’s belief--that the Holy Spirit is not God but God's impersonal active force, which He uses to accomplish His will--is a fallacy.

Let’s begin with the premise that what is eternal has no beginning and no end. As would be viewed on a coordinate graph, infinity spans the entire x-coordinate, from negative infinity through the zero point and into positive infinity. The term used to describe this span of infinity is Eternity. Eternity spans across time and encompasses the entire past, the present and the entire future.

Let’s add the premise that time began at the moment of creation, because time is merely the measurement of the rate of change of created matter and energy. Before the creation of matter, there was no time.

Let’s add the premise that only God is eternal, for He existed before creation, when nothing else existed but God. God will continue to exist after creation is gone. He existed before the beginning of time, and He will continue to exist past the end of time, when time and creation no longer exist. God is timeless and therefore eternal. The Bible confirms that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

If only God existed before time and before creation, then nothing else existed with Him. No creation existed before God began creating all things. All things that are not God did not exist before God created them. All things that are not a part of God did not exist until God created them.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Watchtower’s doctrine is true. Let's assume that the Holy Spirit is indeed merely God's impersonal active force. It is not God, but the energy God uses to accomplish His will. Since the Holy Spirit is not God, and since only God has no beginning, then there was a time when this impersonal active force did not exist. This impersonal active force did not always exist, but came into existence through God. If God did not possess this impersonal active force, He would not be able to accomplish His will. And if God could not accomplish His will, He would not be God.

If this impersonal active force was not created, but always existed in God's possession, then the Holy Spirit must be God, for only God has no beginning. If ever there was a time when the Holy Spirit did not exist, then God would not have had an impersonal active force in His possession in order to create this impersonal active force and bring it into existence. How would God be able to create the universe without first creating His impersonal active force, and how would He create this impersonal active force if He did not have the impersonal active force to create it? This is illogical.

A Jehovah’s Witness has two choices. Either he admits that this impersonal active force always existed, and is therefore uncreated and is truly God, or he admits that it is not God, and therefore did not always exist, which would mean that at some moment, God had no power, and had no power to create anything. To avoid the fallacy, the Jehovah’s Witness is forced to admit that the Holy Spirit is uncreated, has always existed, and is therefore God.