I suspect that it is not widely noted in anti-Witness apologetic literature that the Jehovah’s Witness doctrine of God holds that he is corporeal (i.e., bodily, albeit not material) and temporal. After documenting statements in Witness literature that affirm these positions, I will note the possible apologetic significance of these aspects of their theology.
In Witness Theology God is Corporeal
Many Witness publications teach that God has a body and/or is located in a specific location to the exclusion of all others. Here are quotations from Witness / Bible Student publications.
1. “We could not imagine either our divine Father or our Lord Jesus as merely great minds without bodies. Theirs are glorious spiritual bodies, though it doth not yet appear how great is the glory, and it shall not, until we also shall share the divine nature.” - Millennial Dawn (Vol. I, p. 200)
2. “Whoever thinks of God as omnipresent necessarily thinks of Him as impersonal; and the more he thinks the more vague his God becomes, until finally he has no God, but merely (as some Christian Scientists, including Mrs. Eddy, express it) believes in a principle of good and calls that principle God. Such wish to believe in a supreme Creator, but by this erroneous reasoning they mislead their own intelligence, into the denial of a personal God. An omnipresent God is not a person. The Bible recognizes a personal God—a great Spirit Being—and gives Him a home, or locality.” - The Bible Students Monthly (1915, Vol. VII, No. 5, p. 2)
3. “God is a spirit being, having a divine organism, immeasurably higher, greater, grander, and more sublime than man can conceive; but a person just the same.” - April 23, 1924 Golden Age, p. 452
4. “It is not Scriptural to speak of Jehovah as being omnipresent in the sense that the heathen do, as if he were an all-pervading spirit. He has a throne in heaven on the right hand of which Jesus sat after his ascension, but he can reach any part of his universe and extend his power there and his eyes run to and fro through the whole earth to show his strength in behalf of the perfect-hearted ones. (2 Chron. 16:9) If he were omnipresent the Scriptures would not speak of his coming and visiting the earth; he would be already here.” - October 1, 1951 Watchtower, p. 607
5. “Before God began creating he was all alone in space, from time without beginning.” (“Your Will Be Done on Earth”, p. 14)
6. “Jehovah further merits being termed incomparable (4) because of his personal glory or excellence of body or organism. Some would have God omnipresent or as a Principle without a body or an organism. But not so. Jehovah God as a person has a body and a location.” - March 8, 1963 Awake!, pp. 27 -28
7. “Being a person, Jehovah God has a location, and to this the Scriptures repeatedly allude.” - August 8, 1963 Awake!, p. 28
8. “While there are physical bodies visible and palpable, there are also spiritual bodies, invisible to human eyes and entirely beyond human senses. (1 Cor. 15:44) The bodies of spiritual persons (God, Christ, the angels) are glorious.” - Aid to Bible Understanding, p. 247
9. "Thank you, Paul, for we are glad to learn that the holy place into which the resurrected Jesus Christ entered with the value of his own sacrificial blood was not a holy place on earth where his few disciples then were, but was “heaven itself,” where the “person of God” is, where God himself dwells personally rather than dwelling there by spirit." - December 1, 1972, Watchtower p. 713
10. "He does not need such a man-made temple at that onetime holy place, for he has plainly told us that he does not dwell in temples made with human hands. He has his true, spiritual temple in which he personally dwells. It is the temple into the Most Holy compartment of which his High Priest Jesus Christ entered in the spring of 33 C.E., with the precious merit of his perfect human sacrifice in behalf of all sinful, dying mankind." - December 15, 1972 Watchtower, p. 751
11. "High Priest Jesus Christ entered “into heaven itself” where the “person of God” is. This heavenly residence of the very person of God is the true Most Holy, the Holy of Holies, the Holiest of all." - God’s Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached, p. 100
12. “Actually, by teaching that God is omnipresent Christendom has confused matters and made it more difficult for God to be real to his worshipers. How could God be present everywhere at the same time? God is a spirit Person, which means that he does not have a material body, but a spiritual one. A spirit has a body? Yes, for we read, “If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual one.” (1 Cor. 15:44; John 4:24) God being an individual, a Person with a spirit body, has a place where he resides, and so he could not be at any other place at the same time. Thus we read at 1 Kings 8:43 that the heavens are God’s “established place of dwelling.” Also, we are told at Hebrews 9:24 that “Christ entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us.”
“Moreover, the disciple Stephen and the apostle John had visions of heaven in which they saw both God and Jesus Christ. So Jehovah God must be just as much a person, an individual, as Jesus Christ is. (Acts 7:56; Rev. 5:1, 9) Those Christians who have a hope of eventually living in heaven are assured that they will see God and also be like him, showing that Jehovah God truly is a person and has a body as well as a certain location.—1 John 3:2.” - February 15, 1981 Watchtower, p. 6
13. “While there are physical bodies, visible and palpable, there are also spiritual bodies, invisible to human eyes and entirely beyond human senses. (1Co 15:44) The bodies of spirit persons (God, Christ, the angels) are glorious.” - Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. I, p. 348)
14. “The true God is not omnipresent, for he is spoken of as having a location.” - Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. I, p. 969)
15. “Solomon’s statement does not mean that God has no specific place of residence. Nor does it mean that he is omnipresent in the sense of being literally everywhere and in everything. This can be seen from the fact that Solomon also spoke of Jehovah as hearing “from the heavens, your established place of dwelling,” that is, the heavens of the spirit realm.” - Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. I, p. 1060)
16. “All things having life [including God], either spiritual or fleshly, have an organism, or body.” - Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. II, p. 246)
17. “There are two vital points this text helps us appreciate: that God is a spirit person and that he has an established place of dwelling, heaven. (1 Kings 8:49; John 4:24) So he could not be at any other place at the same time.” - May 8, 1990 Awake!, p. 19
18. “Therefore, he resides in a spiritual realm independent of the physical universe. When the Bible refers to “the heavens” as God’s dwelling place, it is referring to the loftiness of the place where he resides in contrast with the material environment in which we reside. In any event, the Bible teaches that God’s abode is, indeed, clearly distinguished from the physical universe but is at the same time a very specific location.” - March 8, 2005 Awake!, p. 20
19. “The fact that Jehovah has a place of dwelling indicates that he is not in all places at all times.” - April 2011, Awake!, p. 28
20. “Actually, the Bible speaks of God as having a specific place of dwelling—the heavens. . . . Jehovah God dwells, not everywhere, but only in heaven. . . . He resides in the spiritual heavens, a realm independent of the physical universe.” - August 1, 2011 Watchtower, p. 27
21. “What kind of body does God have? . . . The Bible describes God as a spirit being. . . . Our Creator is so superior to us that we cannot even begin to imagine what he looks like. . . . There are, however, intelligent creatures who can see God and even speak with him face-to-face. How so? Because they too are spirits, and they live in heaven.” - Awake! (May 2013, pp. 14-15)
22. “God resides in the spirit realm, which is distinct from physical creation. Within that realm, God has a “dwelling place in the heavens.” (1 Kings 8:30) The Bible mentions an occasion when spirit creatures “entered to take their station before Jehovah,” showing that in a sense, God resides at a specific location.” - Bible Questions Answered, No. 123
23. “God is a Spirit.” (John 4:24) Jehovah does not have a physical body. He is a Spirit who lives in heaven, a place that we cannot see.” - Enjoy Life Forever!, Lesson 7, p. 29
In Witness Theology God is Temporal
Many Witness publications teach that there is an infinite past during which God has existed. According to these publications, God is temporal, that is, he lives moment from moment. Besides being implicit in their claims that God does not know the future, could choose to know it, and can be surprised, this claim is also explicitly taught in Witness literature. Below are some quotations.
1. “There must have been a time when the great God was alone. There must have been a time before his creation.” (Creation, p. 10)
2. “Before God began creating he was all alone in space, from time without beginning.” (“Your Will Be Done on Earth”, p. 14)
3. “THE Creator, Jehovah God, needs no one. He is wholly self-contained. He existed alone throughout a past eternity without ever feeling lonely, without feeling the need of anyone.” - December 1, 1963 Watchtower, p. 734
4. “HAVE we ever thought about what is implied by the expressions “the Creator of the heavens,” also, “God, who created all things”? Those expressions imply that there was a time when God was all alone. (Isaiah 42:5; Ephesians 3:9) No creation existed. So for an eternal past this God was all by himself and he had not yet become a Creator. That is why the prophet Moses said in prayer to God: “Before mountains were born or earth and universe came to the pangs of birth, and from eternity to eternity, you are Deity.” (Psalm 90:2, Byington’s translation) During all that eternal past before creation God was able to enjoy Himself.” - God’s “Eternal Purpose” Now Triumphing For Man’s Good, p. 26
5. “Jehovah, who has existed for all time, was alone before creation had a beginning.” - Insight on the Bible, Vol. I, p. 526
6. “Did God have a beginning?
“Ps. 90:2: “Before the mountains themselves were born, or you proceeded to bring forth as with labor pains the earth and the productive land, even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God.”
“Is that reasonable? Our minds cannot fully comprehend it. But that is not a sound reason for rejecting it. Consider examples: (1) Time. No one can point to a certain moment as the beginning of time. And it is a fact that, even though our lives end, time does not. We do not reject the idea of time because there are aspects of it that we do not fully comprehend. Rather, we regulate our lives by it. (2) Space. Astronomers find no beginning or end to space. The farther they probe into the universe, the more there is. They do not reject what the evidence shows; many refer to space as being infinite. The same principle applies to the existence of God.” - Reasoning From the Scriptures, p. 148
7. “Moses said in prayer to Jehovah: “You have always been, and you will always be.” (Psalm 90:2, The Holy Bible, New Century Version) Here Moses describes God’s existence as stretching in two directions. One is toward the future. Jehovah is “the One that lives forever and ever.” (Revelation 4:10) Thus, God’s existence stretches forward into the eternal future. The other is toward the past. In other words, God was neither created nor did he come into existence. Rather, God’s existence stretches back into the infinite past.” - July 1, 2010 Watchtower, p. 28
8. “Before creation, Jehovah was alone. But at one point, he welcomed his firstborn Son into his figurative tent. Jehovah took great pleasure in his new role as Host. The Bible reveals that Jehovah was “especially fond of” his Son. His first guest, in turn, “rejoiced before [Jehovah] all the time.”—Prov. 8:30.” (June, 2024 Watchtower: Study Edition, p. 2)
Apologetic Uses of These Facts
Sometimes Witnesses will argue against the eternal generation of the Son on the grounds that any kind of causation entails that that which is caused did not exist prior to being caused. In other words, they say that if the Son is generated by the Father, there was a time when he was not.
However, Witness theology teaches that there is something co-eternal with God and apparently caused by him: space. This is both implicit in their conception of a body – they make no room for the idea that a body need not take up any space – and explicit in their description of heaven as God’s eternal dwelling place. For them, some space has always existed. And this space is both not God and not nothing. Presumably they would say that it depends on God for its existence; but this would seem to involve a kind of causation – a kind of causation in which there was never a time when that which is caused was not.
While the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son involves a different conception of eternity – namely, a timeless eternity – this may still be of some apologetic use as a kind of reasonable ad hominem argument (i.e., an argument that proceeds from premises that they accept).
However, the greatest apologetic use of these arguments arises from the inferior conception of God that they involve. If one can persuade a Witness that God is either incorporeal and/or timeless, then the following question is worth asking. Why has God’s sole visible channel for communication and the dispensation of spiritual food at the proper time so consistently erred in its doctrine of God? To persuade a Witness of the incorporeality or timelessness of God tends to undermine the perceived authority of the organization and its governing body.
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