Does the idea that God could not forgive you from himself unless his son was killed make any sense to you?

Question

God couldn't just say "I forgive you"?

If we are sinners because he gave us free will, wasn't it his choice to give us free will and make us all sinners from time to time. Why do we need to be forgiven for what HE did to US?

Answer 1

No it does not. Religion does not need to make sense. They created that story to make you feel guilty, that someone just HAD to die for you, it couldn't be any other way. That want you to be indebted to the religion by means of making you feel like you are responsible for the death of a mythical character. Don't buy into it. If you don't believe in hell and the rest of the stories, then the Christian hell threats hold no weight. Just be prepared for other means of attack from the Christians. They will slander the hell out of you and demonize you because without your belief in hell, they cannot control you any other way. They must resort to relational aggression in order to continue their power trip. Stay strong.

Answer 2

We had a choice and we were incapable of the kind of reconciliation needed. As sinners we could not accomplish what the need was; therefore only God the Son, could be the unblemished sacrafice for the entire sins of a world gone wrong. God reigns in the Trinity and is within him self the same. Is it really so hard to believe? He didn't do it to us, he saved us from what we chose, the nature of the beast!

Answer 3

God created us and the universe, but we "sin" through our own free will. God is not a dictator. He gave us free will so that choosing the "good" would mean something to us and not be an empty act because we have no choice.
According to many Christian theologies, Jesus, God's son, had to die because original sin, or man's sinning and rejection of God, had "closed the Gates of Heaven". The gates opened to admit God's son. In addition, Jesus's death shows how much God suffers because of the sins of mankind and that He was willing to die for us to show us what effort we should make to help others and so that we do so because we need fear nothing, not even death.
I hope you continue asking questions AND continue looking for answers. Eventually you will come to a deeper understanding of your place in the universe, or at least in your own home town, wherever you make it. Good luck.

Answer 4

first of all there is not such a thing as free will, everything has been designed by the experiences that you must encounter Through your life, That's why when you have some plans and don't matter what you do, they never happen the way you want, why? because they were not in your destiny, or how about when things happen to you that they are so bad and you did nothing to be in that situation? because that's the experience that you need to Learn from.

Answer 5

Yes your statement makes no sense to me. Nor would it to any intelligent man or woman. However.....
If you read the Bible correctly you can see that having His Son killed for forgiveness isn't the reason for the Christ sacrificing His life for the world.
Start with Genesis and go through the books enclosed to the last one called "Revelation". Here you will see the history and the love, the mercy and the forgiveness throughout the Bible. It culminates with the greatest love anyone can give to you or Me. A life for our lives.
Now then; about this free will you want to know about. You are free to accept the Bible or reject it for your own wisdom. You are free to accept the Christ's love or reject it. You are free to twist the Bible and it's meaning to suit your own agenda , or study it for the wisdom it holds.
It's your choice not mine, God's or your mother's. It's your choice, choose wisely.

Answer 6

that is a very intersting question. I look at the bigger picture. God created man(human beings) to live in a perfect state and have complete fellowship with him. He chose to give us free will, so that we wouldn't be robotic followers. God intended man and woman to work together in harmony. He told man not to access the fruit of the tree of knowledge and tree of life. satan of course planted doubt in the woman's mind and she chose to disobey, while her husband was not with her. In numbers it's easier to say "no". when you're solo Satan is very deceptive and whatever fruit he puts before you, he knows just how to persuade, and get you at your weak point. so the woman took the "bait". The perfectness and fellowship was broken until Jesus died for us. we have direct access to the kingdom. I don't know about you but I am glad I was created with free will. we exercise that daily and sin daily. but forgiveness is always available just by asking. with all due respect to my christian/catholic sister, saying rote prayers won't get you a relationship. as a believer it does get complicated, temptations are everywhere, so it's best to find a good church, a good group of christian friends, a bible and prayer. It doesn't take much to "drift" and that's when you fall to temptation. I'll pray for you and ask that you pray for me God bless.

Answer 7

Saying your sorry is not enough. You have to repent (and say 10 hail mary's and 4 our fathers). Jesus was sent to do our penance for us. -That's what I learned anyway.

He gave us free will, but he did not absolve us from all sin. We are suppossed to do the right thing, and if we don't there are consequences. He gave us the right to choose for ourselves to do the right thing. He made us better. The same way we send our kids into the world and allow them to make their own choices. This does not mean that will not be punished when they make a bad decision, it means they have the right to make the decision on their own.

Answer 8

Sorry's mean nothing to God. Back in biblical time their were burnt offerings (goats, etc) for true forgiveness. The last sacrifice was Jesus Christ whom shed his blood for our sins . Now we can go to God one on one and as for forgiveness.

Answer 9

Can an ant understand you? Can you expect to understand the Creator of the Universe?

Answer 10

Even if you back away from Christian doctrine, Christ's sacrifice gains force from his living a pure life, and being a most-godly human, whom God would love especially. That such a human would suffer for the rest of humanity demonstrates to humanity that God doesn't love only those who toe the line, but also those who sin, and who take refuge in Jesus' message of repentance and forgiveness. Even for a pagan, Jesus' sacrifice is a forceful way to communicate, via loving sacrifice, that moral error is forgivable if one recognizes one's error and dedicates himself or herself to doing better in the future.
___Jesus brought repentance and forgiveness to the forefront of human morality, and pushed superficial observance of moral rules to the background. He presented a more authentically idealistic schema of morality, which integrated unattainable perfection with a means to break free of moral culpability.
___Unattainable perfection makes for ideals that can never become obsolete from their being attained. When you reach a goal, you have to find another one. The attained goal can't be strived for, since you already possess it. For ideals to serve as ideals, they HAVE to be unattainable. But if one considers this unattainability in a superficial way, then the human moral circumstance is simply hopeless. The moral scheme of unattainable perfection alleviated by the possibility for redemption through dedication (and rededication) to striving to be better is an appropriate scheme for the human circumstance.
___In our materialist age, it can be hard to take the dynamism of the human condition seriously, and we tend instead to view human personhood in the mechanical terms derived from the physical sciences, which in turn limit the approach of the social sciences. But quantum physics hints at elements of physical reality that do not conform to the mechanical model, and which may in some future science come to revitalize the notion of human behavior as having a component of creative self-causedness, a component that transcends merely passive nature or nurture.
___The notion of moral responsibility, the notion that what we do matters, is based on this presupposition that we have some degree of self-causedness in our makeup. But this kind of notion is not easily cognized, and doesn't fit easily within the customary proceedures and cognitive skills by which the finite human mind renders the infinite and infinitely complex world intelligible. In an age when scientific techniques grant humanity a high degree of effectuality in the world, we tend to treat our intelligibility-granting techniques and skills as having absolute power, and even more arrogantly, as having absolute power in their PRESENT FORM. (This is bad empiricism. We experience human will all the time, but since we can't get it to conform to our limited intelligibility-granting techniques, we denigrate it. We let our deeper theoretically assumed principles dictate to our experience. This is epistemic dogmatism at a deep level.)
___There has been a lot of theological ink spilled on the matter of the degree to which God is bound by the limits of possibility. (Can God creat a round square, or a rock so big that He couldn't move it?) It is at least arguable that God could not have created us without free will. In a more skeptical vein, one can chalk it up to evolution. If one extrapolates the material self-organization evident in the origins of life into an extremely complex integrated being such as a human, and consider the butterfly effect, then free will is a plausible or even inevitable outcome.
___Forgiveness has to be somewhat conditional if morality is to have any meaning. Of course humans or God can choose to forgive the unrepentant, but making this automatic would render human behavior morally without any consequence. It wouldn't matter what we did in such a world-- we wouldn't be "guilty" or "culpable". What would this mean for other people, whom I would be free to harm? Shouldn't they be just as free to harm me? And how would this freedom to harm others be managed in a population that avoidedkinning itself off? It seems that the notion of culpability would have to come in via the back door. And then this raises the question of what constitutes a viable notion of forgiveness.
___There are certain necessities that must be observed if human morality is to be taken seriously, and human behavior is to matter. The Christian model is a lot more sophisticated than it appears upon superficial examination. It would be nice if every Christian lived up to it, but to expect that would be to misunderstand the human condition and the proper role of ideals.