# Why did Jesus appear when He did? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 8, 2006, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806 "2006-08-08T03:10:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![srmclauren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@srmclauren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srmclauren)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806/61 "2006-08-17T05:17:00Z")
[QUOTE=Valteron] I cannot even believe I am writing this because I am neither a Christian nor a member of any religion, although I am not 100% certain there is no supreme being. This is kind of like those questions theologians ask, like “Can an omnipotent God make something so heavy that he cannot lift it?” But what do you think of this possibility? An omniscient, omnipotent supreme being has everything, right? Well, amazingly enough, no! There is one thing that such a God would not have: The freely given love of intelligent beings with free will who are capable of loving of **not** loving him. If this sounds ridiculous, think about this: Why do people have children? To enrich themselves? Yeah, right! Ask any parent about the cost of raising kids. So what do you “get” out of having kids? I think that in the long run, all we want is to have a little creature that we “created” that we can love and who loves us back. But love simply **cannot** exist if it is not freely given. I could put a gun to your head and order you to say you love me, and I bet that unless you are suicidal you would say it, but both of us would know that your declaration of love is 100% false and worthless because it is not freely given. So this is the dilemma of a God who craves the feeling of being loved by creatures he has created. He must make them capable of freely rejecting him and NOT loving him, or the feeling “They love me” will be 100% worthless. So God does indeed have the option of creating humans incapable of sin and automatically hard-wired to love and obey to him. But that would be as ridiculous as creating a robot that sends you a Valentine’s card every Feb. 14, and saying, “Oh, boy, somebody loves me.” An omnipotent God who craves and enjoys the feeling of loving you and being loved back by you MUST make you capable of rejecting him and not loving him, or else the love is worthless. Does any of this make sense to anyone? [/QUOTE] Maybe God only hard-wired the angels that serve Him so that they love and obey Him. If I’m reading correctly in the Bible, God created the angels, even the ones like Lucifer who would rebel. If He is omniscient, He knew, even planned that they would rebel. If He is omnipotent, their rebellion will serve his purpose. My theory is that He wants to produce perfect character in the Body of Christ/the Church/ the Bride of Christ. See Revelation 2 and all the promises made to those who overcome. How can God produce the character of an overcomer without something/someone to overcome? “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” (Revelation 12:11) The one they overcame was Satan/Lucifer/the devil/the accuser of the brethren. Who knows how we are wired? God knows. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. I don’t think we will understand until we see Him face to face. (as in I Corinthians 13:12 and I John 3:2) ---
**Author:** ![srmclauren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@srmclauren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srmclauren)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806/62 "2006-08-17T05:17:32Z")
[QUOTE=Valteron] I cannot even believe I am writing this because I am neither a Christian nor a member of any religion, although I am not 100% certain there is no supreme being. This is kind of like those questions theologians ask, like “Can an omnipotent God make something so heavy that he cannot lift it?” But what do you think of this possibility? An omniscient, omnipotent supreme being has everything, right? Well, amazingly enough, no! There is one thing that such a God would not have: The freely given love of intelligent beings with free will who are capable of loving of **not** loving him. If this sounds ridiculous, think about this: Why do people have children? To enrich themselves? Yeah, right! Ask any parent about the cost of raising kids. So what do you “get” out of having kids? I think that in the long run, all we want is to have a little creature that we “created” that we can love and who loves us back. But love simply **cannot** exist if it is not freely given. I could put a gun to your head and order you to say you love me, and I bet that unless you are suicidal you would say it, but both of us would know that your declaration of love is 100% false and worthless because it is not freely given. So this is the dilemma of a God who craves the feeling of being loved by creatures he has created. He must make them capable of freely rejecting him and NOT loving him, or the feeling “They love me” will be 100% worthless. So God does indeed have the option of creating humans incapable of sin and automatically hard-wired to love and obey to him. But that would be as ridiculous as creating a robot that sends you a Valentine’s card every Feb. 14, and saying, “Oh, boy, somebody loves me.” An omnipotent God who craves and enjoys the feeling of loving you and being loved back by you MUST make you capable of rejecting him and not loving him, or else the love is worthless. Does any of this make sense to anyone? [/QUOTE] Maybe God only hard-wired the angels that serve Him so that they love and obey Him. If I’m reading correctly in the Bible, God created the angels, even the ones like Lucifer who would rebel. If He is omniscient, He knew, even planned that they would rebel. If He is omnipotent, their rebellion will serve his purpose. My theory is that He wants to produce perfect character in the Body of Christ/the Church/ the Bride of Christ. See Revelation 2 and all the promises made to those who overcome. How can God produce the character of an overcomer without something/someone to overcome? “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” (Revelation 12:11) The one they overcame was Satan/Lucifer/the devil/the accuser of the brethren. Who knows how we are wired? God knows. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. I don’t think we will understand until we see Him face to face. (as in I Corinthians 13:12 and I John 3:2) ---
**Author:** ![srmclauren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@srmclauren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srmclauren)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806/63 "2006-08-17T05:26:42Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] 1. The serpent in Genesis wasn’t Satan, just an ordinary talking snake. 2. The serpent did not deceive Eve. He told her the truth – that eating the fruit would give them knowledge of good and evil. It was God who lied to them by telling them that eating the fruit would kill them. 3. Since Adam and Eve ate the fruit before they knew the difference between good and evil, it couldn’t have been a sin (since they didn’t know it wrong to disobey God). 4. There actually was no Adam and Eve, so why do we need to be redeemed for something that never really happened? If it’s an allegory, what does it mean? [/QUOTE] Sorry, it looks like he’s done a good job on you too. It would be funny if it weren’t a matter of life and death. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806/64 "2006-08-17T06:01:56Z")
[QUOTE=srmclauren] Sorry, it looks like he’s done a good job on you too. It would be funny if it weren’t a matter of life and death. [/QUOTE] Do you really imagine that this sort of thing is going to work on anybody? Do you have a substantive response to my post? Can you tell me anything I said which was factually wrong or “sinful?” If you have nothing more than a non-responsive appeal to what (I can only imagine) you hope will be some sort of lingering fear or doubt on my part (which is completely non-existent, I assure you) then you are providing nothing of any debatable content and merely degenerating into empty witnessing. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806/65 "2006-08-17T06:08:01Z")
[QUOTE=srmclauren] My theory is that He wants to produce perfect character in the Body of Christ/the Church/ the Bride of Christ. See Revelation 2 and all the promises made to those who overcome. How can God produce the character of an overcomer without something/someone to overcome? [/QUOTE] Sounds like the kind of father who beats his kids to “toughen them up.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-jesus-appear-when-he-did/367806.md?page=3)