Witness Are Adoptionists: Or, Why the Witness Definition of Personal Identity Fails.

Witness Are Adoptionists: Or, Why the Witness Definition of Personal Identity Fails.

April 2, 2024

What is the basis of one’s numerical identity in this current life and in the resurrection? On what basis can we say that it is the very same person who dies that will be raised to life again? Witnesses provide the following answer: psychological qualities. In particular, they say that God perfectly recalls one’s “life record” and is able to recreate a living body with exactly your life record. Sometimes they refer to it as a person’s “personality pattern”, which, for humans, they have claimed is stored in the brain and, to an extent, in the blood.[1] (Watchtower April 15, 1963 pp. 241-243 pars. 34-39 “Identifying the Resurrected”)

In the article just cited, they describe this “life record” or “personality pattern” as “the exact impressions and memories of all things that happened during the person’s previous consciousness, his power of recognizing people and scenes and locations, and all his personality traits, and everything that displays his mental growth or retardation.” Since the pattern possessed by the newly created body at the resurrection will match exactly that which a person had at the moment he died, the newly created living body will simply be them.

Witnesses also teach that persons who are resurrected as humans (that is, everyone who is not of the 144,000 or the irredeemably wicked) will also resemble their former appearance. This will be an aid to recognizing others, but they cannot (and do not appear to) claim that physical resemblance is part of what grounds a person's numerical identity over time. This is due in part to their teaching that the 144,000 will be raised up as angel-like spirit beings whose bodies greatly differ from those of human beings.

Concerning the 144,000 one Watchtower article says, “In spite of this transformation, the resurrected ones are still the same individuals they were before they died. They will be raised with the same memories and the same sterling Christian qualities.” (Watchtower July 1, 1998 pp. 20-21 par. 8 “Death is to Be Brought to Nothing”) So we see that it is personality or psychological traits that ground their numerical identity over time and change in their kind of being. God knows their personality, their memories, their intellectual abilities and the like. He is able to encode, as it were, these qualities in a new human body (or, with respect to the 144,000, a new angel-like body).

This account of personal identity is open to several criticisms. One is the duplication problem. There is nothing inherent in one’s psychological traits that prevents another being from having qualitatively identical ones. For instance, God could create two living persons at the same time that both have the same exact memories, personality, and intellectual abilities that you will have at the moment you die. Obviously, despite all their similarities to each other, they will be two distinct persons. Not because they begin to accrue new memories and may develop different personalities. Rather, they were distinct from the moment they were created, even when they possessed indistinguishable psychological traits. Moreover, they must be distinct from you. So their existence – and the power God has to create a person with psychological traits indistinguishable from those you will have at your death – cannot guarantee your resurrection. Consequently, something further is required to account for numerical identity overtime between a person now and the same person in the resurrection.

Another issue is the fact that “our personalities can change” (Watchtower April 15, 1963 pp. 241-243 pars. 34-39 “Identifying the Resurrected”). Memories can come and go, intellectual ability can develop or fade. The set of psychological traits that a person has now may differ greatly from those he has when he dies. If these are the basis of personal identity, then the Witnesses must say that with respect to these two times we are literally talking about two different persons. Don’t worry about a resurrection, you may not even survive until old age!

A further problem appears when it comes to the case of the unborn or infants, whose mental lives are radically different from those of an adult human. (Indeed, what memories of personality does an embryo have?) Is your unborn self even the very same person that you are? Maybe you were not even born in the first place! Likewise, if you should fall into a coma, or suffer serious brain damage and, as a result, lose many memories, lose or gain mental abilities, and experience a significant personality change are you the same person you once were? Or has another person taken your place? I think a Witness will be unable to explain how a coma-ridden you remains you, or a TBI-altered you remains you, at least if he remains an “orthodox” Witness.

The psychological traits theory of personal identity espoused by Witnesses ruins into an insurmountable problem with respect to Jesus. Recall, they teach that Jesus only ever has had one nature (at a time). First he was an angel-like spirit being. Then he became a human being in the womb of Mary. He died as a man. Then, he was raised up as a more exalted angel-like spirit being.

It is impossible to maintain numerical identity through these transformations. When a thing of a certain kind is changed into a thing of a different kind, it does not remain what it was, even if some underlying material persists through the transformation. A cat that is turned into a tree does not remain in existence. In undergoing what an Aristotelean would call substantial change it ceases to exist and something else takes its place. This seems to me to be obviously correct. At the very least, Witnesses ought to provide some explanation as to how it is possible for Jesus to persist through these essential changes: going from being one kind of thing to being an entirely different sort of thing. However, that is not the problem I referred to above.

Rather, I want to note a problem that arises when we apply their definition of personal identity to Jesus.[2] They teach that Jesus existed as Michael the Archangel for billions of years, during which time he accumulated memories and experience. God, they say, transferred his lifeforce to the womb of Mary. But does this make sense on their account of what makes a person the very person they are? If possession of certain psychological traits is necessary for personal identity between the resurrected person and their pre-death self, would this not be the case with respect to Christ? Even if we grant that a human being is capable, in principle, of having the same memories and personality and intellectual abilities as an angel – a hard ask, if in my opinion – it is obvious that the man Jesus did not have these qualities, at least on the Witness view, when he was conceived. 

Citing Luke 2:52, their book Insight on the Scriptures (vol. 2, p. 1194 “Wisdom”) says, “Experience contributes measurably to wisdom. Even Jesus grew in wisdom as he passed through childhood.” So, at least throughout his childhood, on the Witness view he did not possess his pre-human memories, experience, and wisdom. They suggest – sometimes as a fact, other times more tentatively – that these memories and experiences were restored to Jesus at his baptism. One such definitive statement is found in the article “Restrictions of Christian Freedom” in the July 1, 1952 Watchtower (p. 413 par. 28):

At the commencement of his ministry, when he was baptized in the Jordan A.D. 29, the “heavens were opened up” and God’s spirit came upon him. (Matt. 3:16, NW) From that time forward he recalled all his prehuman experiences and spirit life. This meant that the brain of that perfect man was sufficient in size for the mind of Jesus to retain all the mental attainments and memories of his prehuman career as a mighty spirit creature in heaven gathered over a period of untold billions of years. This accounts for Jesus’ allusions to many of his personal conversations with Jehovah God in heaven which he remembered accurately.

Likewise there is this statement from the 2015 book Jesus—The Way, the Truth, the Life:

Right after Jesus is baptized by John, God’s spirit leads Jesus into the Judean wilderness. He has a lot to think about. At Jesus’ baptism, “the heavens were opened up.” (Matthew 3:16) He thus can recall things he learned and did in heaven. Indeed, there is much for him to meditate on! (p. 36)

More tentative statements are found in the New World Translation Study Bible comments on Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:21. Also, consider this quotation:

“In what way were ‘the heavens opened up’ at the time of Jesus’ baptism? This seems to indicate that Jesus’ memory of his prehuman existence in heaven returned to him.” (January 15, 2008 Watchtower p. 29 “Highlight From the Book of Matthew”)

So, Witnesses teach that the man Jesus did not always have his pre-human memories, experiences, and wisdom. These were likely or at least possibly restored to him, at the time of his baptism. They also say that psychological qualities, like memory, constitute personal identity. But they also say that Jesus was made a man in the womb of Mary. They cannot, consistently, affirm all of these claims.

If they wish to retain their account of personal identity, they end up being Adoptionists. The man Jesus Christ became the Son of God when all of Michael’s memories were restored to him. While Witnesses are Arians, even that is a bridge too far for them. So they ought to abandon their account of personal identity.

I knew at least one Witnesses who was a body-soul dualist. I cannot say for sure, but perhaps these sort of considerations played a role in his coming to that conclusion – besides other exegetical and philosophical considerations, that is.

[1] 6.21.2024 I do not believe that Witnesses currently claim that one's "personality pattern" is stored in one's blood.

[2] 6.15.2024 I want to more thoroughly look at how they apparently ground the numerical identity of Christ at the time he became a human. It should be noted that Witnesses seem to provide two explanations of the personal identity of the Son in heaven (as Michael) and as a newly conceived human child on earth (as Jesus). First, "they" have the same life-force, since God transfers it from heaven to the embryo conceived in Mary. Second, God also transfers the personality pattern of Michael to this newly conceived embryo. In their own words, "Instead, by performing a miracle that only God, the Creator, could have devised, he transferred the life-force and personality pattern of a heavenly son to the womb of a woman, Mary the daughter of Heli, of the tribe of Judah." (February 1, 1997 Watchtower, p. 11) But this is not enough to acquit the Witnesses of my accusation of Adoptionism.

First, the life-force that they mention is, according to them, merely an impersonal principle of life that is present in all living things, including angels and humans. Since it is impersonal it is hard to see how it can ground the numerical identity of a person over time. (Insight on the Scriptures Vol II, p. 246) Particularly, since they compare this life-force to electricity and state that the life-force is incapable of bearing any imprint of the person who previously had it. (August 8, 1972 Awake!, p. 27)

Moreover, as described by Witnesses, it appears that a particular instances of it (i.e., each person's own breath of life) is not literally transferable. That it does not subsist after death is affirmed in this statement from one of their publications. "When a person dies, his impersonal spirit does not go on existing in another realm as a spirit creatures." (July 15, 2002 Watchtower, p. 5) On the Witness view, therefore, the life-force that a person has seems to be tied to their body (either human or angelic). So if that body ceases to exist, then the life-force previously animating it is no more. So, when Michael's angelic body ceased to exist -- which seems to be necessarily part of what the Witnesses say happened when Jesus became a human being -- the life-force animating it did not go anywhere; in fact, it no longer existed. So any "transfer" of it must not be a literal transfer of one and the same thing. And without that, what function could appealing to the life-force play in grounding the numerical identity of Jesus during this transfer?

That Witnesses would accept this claim -- that God did not actually transfer one and the same instance of life-force from a then annihilated angelic body to a then newly created human body -- is indicated not only by the quotation from the previously paragraph, but also from their comments on passages such as Ecclesiastes 12:7 and Luke 23:46. One says, "That there be an actual and literal transmission of some force from this planet to the heavenly presence of God is not necessarily required" by expressions such as "the spirit itself returns to the true God" and "into your hand I entrust my spirit". (Insight on the Scriptures Vol. II, p. 1025) Another publication of theirs commenting on Ecclesiastes 12:7 explicitly rules out any transfer of the life-force (formerly) present in those who die. It states, "Similarly, in the case of the spirit or life-force, no actual movement from the earth to the heavenly realm takes place. But the grant of existence as an intelligent creature as enjoyed once by the dead person now reverts back to God." (August 8, 1972 Awake!, p. 28) That the life-force present in the person ceased to be is of no matter. God has an unlimited supply of life-force and so simply breath it back to the person in question at the resurrection.

Second, while Witnesses claim that God transferred the personality pattern of Michael to the human embryo when Jesus was conceived, this is untenable given what else they say. There are two reasons for that. One, what in the embryonic human could store the personality of Michael? While I noted that Witnesses used to claim that the personality pattern could be imprinted into one's blood, I doubt that they would continue to affirm this claim. But, even if they did, the embryo did not yet have blood, nor a brain! Without something to store this personality pattern, the embryo could not receive it; so Witnesses simply cannot now assert that it was, in fact, transferred. Two, Witnesses also state that Jesus gained all of his pre-earthly memories and experiences sometime after birth, probably at the time he was baptized. So it evidently was not given at his conception.