Another deep thought to consider is that the cross was God's choice in an alternative substitutionary atonement. An absolute substitutionary atonement would be Christ at the judgement seat about to condemn sinners into the lake of fire and then he takes off his robes and throws himself into the lake of fire for an eternity! If he took our exact punishment for sin that is what he would have done. But the point is that God in his soverignty, chose the cross as an alternative substiutionary atonement in order that the wrath of God would be appeased. With this alternative atonement God places the condition of faith upon it. If we believe, we receive atonement. This understanding prevents us from understanding the atonement as either limited or universal. It simply means he did it so that regeneration would even be possible. If Christ threw himself into the lake of fire for an eternity for the sins of mankind, even Hitler would be in heaven. This is universalism and requires no response in faith. God ordained a moment in history for a substitutionary atonement which is known as the cross, where he maintained his attributes, maintained the trinity, and maintained the responsibility of man to respond to the gospel.

I realize that this is what Christians are saying, not what you are saying.

You may not realize that God is unable to do this, unable to simply sweep sin under the rug, to let sin go unpunished. So what I meant was that perhaps without realizing it, you require God to either not create us with moral choice or to create us then wipe us out. You may believe that God could just let it ride, but Christians deny that that is an option for God.

That does not mean that God is not all-powerful. He could have just not created us in the first place. He has done things, made decisions which have constrained His options in the future. For example, after giving the first humans a choice to obey or disobey, and after they disobeyed, He could not let them remain in the same relationship with Him; He banished Adam and Eve from Eden. He has voluntarily made commitments to us and given us a degree of freedom to interact with Him. But He has never at any time stopped being sovereign over everything. God’s sovereignty means He doesn’t ask anyone’s permission to do anything and no one can do anything without Him allowing it. It’s sort of like how a parent can give a child some freedom without relinquishing their authority or waiving their right to ever in the future require that child to do something. We do not all have to be puppets on a string for God to be sovereign and all-powerful.

The relationship between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility is one of those issues which God through His Word has given us some insight into but has withheld much that would allow us to fully understand it.

God was not forced to do anything. He wanted to save us, and He gave His Son so we could Be. Jesus is the Way, the mechanism, the mediator that God provided for our salvation.

Really??? Because after reading what you just wrote it sounds like God has a limited number of options:

"God cannot do anything contrary to His nature."

"He cannot let us sin without holding us accountable."

"because God is good He cannot let our sin slide."

"You may not realize that God is unable to do this"

"He has done things, made decisions which have constrained His options in the future."

You're placing an awful lot of qualifiers and limitations on God's sovereignty. Whoever made God must have had the same sorts of problems that God has with us.

So then God is not all-powerful if he was forced to something he didn't want to do. Thanks for the explanation. I'd be interested to know what other things God doesn't have control of as well.

And I think you are misrepresenting our views. We are not saying that God could only have done two things. It's my understanding that God is all-powerful and thus can do whatever he wants. If this is the case, then obviously he can do anything, which means he didn't need to do the whole Jesus thing because he could have handled it a variety of other ways as well. It is you who seem to be restricting God's choices by saying that his only option was to kill Jesus.

God doesn't make mistakes, we do. He didn't have to correct a mistake He made, He wanted to correct the mistake we made. Still, we must want to be reconciled to Him. The reconciliation is on His terms, not ours. And they are very generous terms.

If we say that God was wrong to give us the choice to rebel or not, and wrong to require us to accept His peace terms, then what we are saying is that an all-powerful God can only do one of two things: 1) just create a bunch of creatures who are incapable of making moral choices and therefore incapable of being in a relationship with Him or having discussions like this one (or just not creating the universe to begin with) or 2) simply wipe us out as soon as we mess up, with no hope for redemption. We are saying that these are the only two choices He has; no other possibilities exist. That is a pretty big assumption, isn't it? The Bible says God created beings He could have a real relationship with, and He provided the means for that relationship to be possible even after we messed up.

I didn't read your whole last entry (no time) but did get so far as to read the part about some people are born without the belief in God and you're absolutely right! I am well aware of this fact and had forgotten that some people just don't see it the same way as I do. My apologies.

Nat

Intellectualizing and religious faith go together like oil and water.

I appreciate your honesty.

Andy wrote:

A price had to be paid for sin. Either we would pay it or God would.

This doesn't make sense. Why would God have to pay a price? He's God, isn't he? I thought he could do no wrong?