God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to provide a loophole to rules he knew we could never live up to. Cool, huh? He tried different things at first. Killing everybody but Noah and his family as a do-over, for example. But then he had this one crazy idea..
I’m on an island among Christians, but I think you make a good point. That’s why I believe God is omniscient, but in that He knows all POSSIBLE future outcomes. God tried to steer humanity towards Him with certain methods, the flood, the exodus, but people continue to turn. I believe God saw these things as ways to help people turn towards Him, and it was possible. God foresaw a path where humans would come to repentance for those things, but it didn’t happen. In the end God had to come down Himself to solve the problem, which was always His ace in the hole, but He would have preferred not to do it that way. Does that make sense? God is never surprised by anything, and will always make it work, but He would have rather had humanity turn earlier, but since we have free will we continually choose ourselves over others. Think about it like a web of possibilities, God knows the infinite possibilities, nothing surprises Him, and He reacts to humans perfectly. But us humans with free will keep on screwing up so in the end He said ‘I’ve given you enough shots at it, I’ll do it myself’, and brings Jesus.
Why do people say Christ died for our sins? What does that mean?
God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to provide a loophole to rules he knew we could never live up to. Cool, huh? He tried different things at first. Killing everybody but Noah and his family as a do-over, for example. But then he had this one crazy idea..
Why would God try different things? Hes infallible and omniscient, he would know the outcome ahead of time.
I was being sarcastic. God would certainly know the outcome, which is why the story makes no sense.
I’m on an island among Christians, but I think you make a good point. That’s why I believe God is omniscient, but in that He knows all POSSIBLE future outcomes. God tried to steer humanity towards Him with certain methods, the flood, the exodus, but people continue to turn. I believe God saw these things as ways to help people turn towards Him, and it was possible. God foresaw a path where humans would come to repentance for those things, but it didn’t happen. In the end God had to come down Himself to solve the problem, which was always His ace in the hole, but He would have preferred not to do it that way. Does that make sense? God is never surprised by anything, and will always make it work, but He would have rather had humanity turn earlier, but since we have free will we continually choose ourselves over others. Think about it like a web of possibilities, God knows the infinite possibilities, nothing surprises Him, and He reacts to humans perfectly. But us humans with free will keep on screwing up so in the end He said ‘I’ve given you enough shots at it, I’ll do it myself’, and brings Jesus.