"There's no article before the last 'God' in the Greek, so it should read 'the Word was a god.'" Jehovah's Witnesses often make this point.
Short answer: No. John 1:1 says "the Word was God." The missing Greek article tells us what the Word is, not that He is a second, lesser god. St. John calls the Word the maker of all things and records St. Thomas calling Jesus "my God," and Scripture allows only one true God.
Key verses on John 1:1
- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
- "All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be." (John 1:3)
- "The only Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him." (John 1:18)
- "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)
- "Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none." (Isaiah 43:10)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
The other side first. The New World Translation (NWT), published by Jehovah's Witnesses, reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god" (NWT, John 1:1). Witnesses believe the Word is God's firstborn Son, a spirit being created by Jehovah. Their official explanation says the phrase describes "the divine or godlike nature that Jesus possessed before he came to earth," and notes that the second "God" lacks the article (jw.org, "John 1:1").
The Catholic Church teaches that "the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'" (CCC 241). At Nicaea in 325, the Church confessed "that the Son is 'consubstantial' with the Father, that is, one only God with him" (CCC 242).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That the Word is the Father. "With God" shows a real distinction of persons.
- That there are several gods. "We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons" (CCC 253).
- That one Greek article proves the Trinity.
The Biblical Case
1. What the missing article does
The verse ends, in Greek, kai theos ēn ho logos, literally "and God was the Word." The article ho ("the") marks logos as the subject. Theos has no article and comes before the verb. Greek has no word for "a," so context decides.
The NABRE's note puts it in one line: "lack of a definite article with 'God' in Greek signifies predication rather than identification." St. John is saying what the Word is, without making Him the same person as the One He was "with."
What about Colwell's rule? In 1933, E. C. Colwell observed that a definite predicate noun placed before the verb usually lacks the article. Stated modestly: the missing article does not by itself make theos indefinite, though it does not prove theos means "the God" either.
2. The NWT doesn't apply its own rule in John 1
Theos also appears without the article in John 1:6, 12, 13, and 18, and the NWT renders each "God": "a representative of God" (1:6), "God's children" (1:12), "from God" (1:13), "No man has seen God at any time" (1:18). Witnesses note that Greek often drops the article after a preposition, as in 1:6 and 1:13. But 1:18 has no preposition, and it still reads "God." Lowercase "god" appears only for the Son (1:1, and "the only-begotten god" in 1:18). The deciding factor is theology, not grammar.
3. The Word made all things
"All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be" (John 1:3). The Word was in the beginning (1:1–2); everything else came to be. If the Word were created, He would be one of the "all things."
God says in Isaiah: "I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, I spread out the earth by myself" (Isaiah 44:24). God made the world alone, yet all things came to be through the Word. So the Word is not outside the one Creator. Hebrews says to the Son: "At the beginning, O Lord, you established the earth" (Hebrews 1:10).
4. There is no room for a "lesser god"
"Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none" (Isaiah 43:10), the verse from which Jehovah's Witnesses take their name ("You are my witnesses"). "I am the first, I am the last; there is no God but me" (Isaiah 44:6). A formed god is ruled out, and a second true god contradicts Isaiah.
5. St. Thomas: "My Lord and my God!"
"Thomas answered and said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:28). He says it to Jesus, and Jesus does not correct him. The Gospel opens with "the Word was God" and climaxes with "my God."
6. Hebrews calls the Son God
Hebrews addresses the Son with Psalm 45: "Your throne, O God, stands forever and ever" (Hebrews 1:8). (The NWT renders it "God is your throne.") Titus 2:13 may say the same, though we note it with care: the NABRE reads "the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ," but its footnote adds that "another possible translation is 'of our great God and savior Jesus Christ'" (Titus 2:13).
Objections Answered
(a) "The Word was 'with God,' so He can't be God."
At its strongest: You cannot be with someone and be that someone. Since the Word was "with God," there are two, and the Word is not Almighty God.
Answer: Catholics agree the Word is distinct from the Father. That is exactly why the last clause lacks the article: the Word is not the Father, but He is what the Father is. Jesus prays, "Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began" (John 17:5). Two persons, one divine glory.
(b) "Jesus has a God, so He can't be God."
At its strongest: Jesus says, "I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17).
Answer: "And the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). As a true man, Jesus prays to and obeys His Father. Yet in the same chapter St. Thomas calls Him "my God" (20:28). Hebrews holds both together: the Son is addressed "O God" (1:8), and then, "God, your God, anointed you" (1:9). True God and true man.
(c) "'God' can mean a mighty one."
At its strongest: Scripture sometimes calls creatures "gods." Jesus quotes it: "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods"'?" (John 10:34; see Psalm 82:6). So the Word could be "a god" in that lesser sense.
Answer: Jesus explains that those "gods" are those "to whom the word of God came" (10:35). The Word is not someone the word came to. He is the Word, who already was in the beginning and through whom all things came to be (1:1–3). No creature fits that description.
(d) "The ancient Coptic translation reads 'a god.'"
At its strongest: The Watchtower points out that Greek has no indefinite article but Coptic does, and that the Sahidic Coptic version "uses an indefinite article with the word 'god' in the final part of" John 1:1. It dates the Coptic translations to the third century and concludes that their translators "realized that John's words... did not mean that Jesus was to be identified as Almighty God" (The Watchtower, November 1, 2008).
Answer: Start with the inspired Greek, not a translation of it. St. John himself tells us what kind of "God" the Word is: the One through whom "All things came to be" (John 1:3), "The only Son, God" (1:18), the One St. Thomas calls "My Lord and my God!" (20:28). No translation can make the Creator of all things a creature.
Now the Coptic. A Coptic indefinite article does not automatically mean "one god among many." Like English "a," it can describe a thing by its kind or quality. Brian J. Wright and Tim Ricchuiti, who examined the Sahidic texts, found that where the Greek theos lacks the article, the Sahidic usually uses the definite article, and uses the indefinite article in only five places. Two of those five are 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Ephesians 4:6, both about the Father ("one God"). They conclude that the Copts most probably meant that the Word "possesses the same qualities as God" (Christian Research Journal, 2012). That is exactly the NABRE note's point: "predication rather than identification." And the Christians of the same era who read St. John's Gospel in Greek spoke plainly. St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. AD 200–210) quoted John 1:1 and said St. John "acknowledges this Word as God" (Against Noetus 14). The Coptic tells us what the Word is. It does not demote Him.
(e) "Even Origen called the Word 'God' by participation, not God of Himself."
At its strongest: Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254), the most learned Bible scholar of the third-century Church, noticed the same missing article. In his Commentary on John (2.2) he calls the Father "Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself)" and says that "all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity." The Word, he writes, "by being with God is at all times God, not possessing that of Himself, but by His being with the Father" (newadvent.org). So, the Witness argues, a third-century Christian read John 1:1 as Witnesses do.
Answer: Scripture first, and Scripture settles it. St. John does not say the Word received godhood. He says "the Word was God" and "He was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1–2). "All things came to be through him" (1:3), so He is not one of the things that came to be. St. John calls Him "The only Son, God" (1:18); St. Thomas says to Him, "My Lord and my God!" (20:28); Hebrews says to the Son, "Your throne, O God, stands forever and ever" (Hebrews 1:8). A god by participation is a creature raised up. The Creator of all things participates in nothing.
Second, Origen is not a saint and not a rule of faith. He was a brilliant and devout teacher, but the Church never canonized him, and where his speculation ran past Scripture she did not follow him. At Nicaea in 325 she confessed the Son "consubstantial" with the Father, "one only God with him" (CCC 242), which shuts out any God by participation. The Second Council of Constantinople (553), in its eleventh anathema as it has come down to us, lists Origen by name among the heretics to be anathematized (canon 11). One teacher's error shows only that he was not the Church.
Third, the Fathers before and after him say plainly what he hedged. Before him, St. Ignatius greets the Ephesians in "Jesus Christ, our God," St. Irenaeus confesses "Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God," and Tertullian writes that "the Son is God" (see below). After him, St. Athanasius, the champion of Nicaea, writes of the Son: "He is very God, existing one in essence with the very Father" (Discourse I Against the Arians 9).
Finally, even Origen gives the Witness no comfort where it matters most. Witnesses hold that the Son was created and had a beginning. Origen denied it. In On First Principles 1.2.2 (preserved in Rufinus's Latin translation) he says the Son "derives from Him what He is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time" (newadvent.org). St. Athanasius preserves his words to the same effect: the Image of the invisible God, "as being the likeness of the Father, never was it not" (De Decretis 27). Origen's subordinationist language was wrong, and the Church corrected it. But an eternal Son is no creature, and Origen's own witness to that is the part the Witness cannot use.
The Early Church Agrees
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Ephesians, c. AD 107) opens with a greeting in "Jesus Christ, our God" (preface) and writes, "For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary" (18).
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, c. AD 180), summarizing the faith received from the apostles, looks to the day when every knee bows "to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father" (1.10.1).
- St. Hippolytus of Rome (Against Noetus 14, c. AD 200–210) quotes John 1:1 and says St. John "acknowledges this Word as God." (newadvent.org)
- Tertullian (Against Praxeas 13, c. AD 213) calls John 1:1 "a still grander statement" and concludes: "the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and each is God." (newadvent.org)
Conclusion
Jehovah's Witnesses are right to take the Bible seriously and to ask hard questions about the Greek. Follow those questions all the way. The Word through whom all things came to be, whom St. Thomas called "my God," is not a lesser god. Isaiah leaves no room for one.
If you are a Jehovah's Witness, read St. John's Gospel from 1:1 to 20:28 and ask one question: who does St. John say Jesus is?
Come home. The Word who was God, whom St. Thomas confessed as his Lord and his God, is worshiped today as true God in the Catholic Church. Christ promised, "upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18), and His Church never fell away or disappeared. It is the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of St. Peter and the bishops in communion with him. "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). We invite you to come and see the Church Christ founded, and to enter her.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Is "a god" a possible translation of John 1:1? Context decides, and John 1:3, 1:18, 20:28 and Isaiah's one God rule out a lesser god.
What is Colwell's rule? E. C. Colwell's 1933 observation that definite predicate nouns placed before the verb usually lack the article. It shows the missing article does not require "a god."
Do Catholics believe Jesus is the Father? No. "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father" (CCC 254).
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Psalm 82:6; Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 44:6, 24; Matthew 16:18; John 1:1–18 (with NABRE note on 1:1); John 10:34–35; John 17:5; John 20:17, 28; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:6; Titus 2:13 (with NABRE note); Hebrews 1:8–10.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 241, 242, 253, 254; 816.
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, preface, 18 (ANF vol. 1); St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.10.1 (ANF vol. 1); St. Hippolytus, Against Noetus 14 (ANF vol. 5); Tertullian, Against Praxeas 13 (ANF vol. 3); Origen, Commentary on John 2.2; Origen, On First Principles 1.2.2 (ANF vol. 4); St. Athanasius, Discourse I Against the Arians 9 and De Decretis 27 (NPNF2 vol. 4).
Councils (newadvent.org): Second Council of Constantinople (553), canon 11.
Jehovah's Witness sources (jw.org): New World Translation (Study Edition), John 1 and Hebrews 1; "John 1:1—'In the Beginning Was the Word'"; The Watchtower, November 1, 2008, "Was the Word 'God' or 'a god'?" (wol.jw.org).
Other: E. C. Colwell, "A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament," Journal of Biblical Literature 52 (1933). Brian J. Wright and Tim Ricchuiti, "Jehovah's Witnesses and John 1:1: New Evidence Advances the Discussion," Christian Research Journal (2012).