Huh? In what way does "I never said anything about Jesus being unwilling" sound like "I say God made Jesus do something he was not willing?"
What I said was, "You made it sound like God made a rule in which his son had no say." Why do you keep changing up what I said?
Ok, there is a rule that says, "God could not simply forgive sin without payment of the debt of sin."
Who made that rule? You said God made that rule. Why did God make a rule that says, "God can not simply forgive sin, without payment of the debt of sin." He is God. Doesn't he have free will to decide what the rules are?
Did I even say it was a rule? Why do I suspect I did not, and once again you are misquoting me? I'm not even going to bother to go look. But if I did, I only meant the principle involved comes from God.
Either way, it is 'the way of things' after God's own nature. It is a contradiction of his nature to do otherwise. He is perfectly just.
Once again, you show your assessment of Almighty God according to your time-and-earth-bound mentality. You suppose he has to weigh options and decide before acting? He doesn't make up rules that govern what he does. He simply does, and if you want to call the principles involved rules, then treat them as you treat any old rule (throw this one out, make up a better one) —and worse, treat the logically self-contradictory as genuine options— go ahead with dispersion of reason. You are positing a strawman. It is not God.
We went over this before. Suppose you offend your neighbor and he says somebody needs to kill his (willing) son before he forgives you. When you ask him why in the world he makes such a demand he tells you, "It is just my nature to have a (willing) son die before I forgive anybody". Is your neighbor being rational?
One would think an omnipotent, loving God would have a nature that looks to us to be more rational.
OK, so suppose the neighbor you offended says somebody needs to kill his (willing) son because otherwise it would ignore the nature of you carelessly overspraying weed killer on his flowers. Is that neighbor's response rational?
Is God a neighbor?
Why should his nature look to you to be more rational? He does not live for your sake. He is using you for his sake. If he convinces you, he will do so when the time is right.
I am not saying the Creator is a liar or irrelevant. I am asking why the Creator's nature is such that he needs to have his (willing) son killed before he forgives.
You continue with this misrepresentation of what happened in the substitution of Christ on behalf of those to whom God chose to show mercy. It is
NOT merely that "he needs to have his (willing) son killed before he forgives."
Let me try to get this across to you by way of parallel. In Reformed circles, we say that God chose each person for the particular purpose he had in mind for them from the foundation of the world. He has no substitutes, in case something goes wrong with the original plan. What he planned from the beginning will happen. All that I just described is background for the parallel I will try to show you: Some would say that since there is only one person for that purpose to which God has made him, that God
NEEDS that person to do what he does, in order to bring about the plan. But the doctrine of the Aseity of God shows that God has no needs. What God
does, will happen. Divine Simplicity shows that God need not consider and weigh options, before deciding. God simply
does. He is not a victim of circumstances, subject to the vagaries of chance, or to principles outside of his control.
But you suppose him to be altogether as we are, other than tremendously powerful. No, it's worse. You suppose him to be able to do the logically self-contradictory.
Understood that if the result is that millions of people are saved from eternal agony, it is worth the result.
That does not address the question of why God could not simply forgive without having his (willing) son die first.
If his thoughts appear to us to be irrational, how do you know they are not irrational?
Because he is God, beyond us. Also, they don't appear to everyone to be irrational. Those who assume he is irrational don't know him, or don't know what he is doing. They assume a goal he does not have in mind.
How do you know God did it this way? All you have is an ancient book that is full of contradictions.
I have yet to find a contradiction. I have seen lists of supposed contradictions, and they are just silly. I have seen brain twisters they haven't thought of, things they would not comprehend, things I don't understand, and hope to ask him about, but they don't contradict.
If he was God, and he died, then God was dead. How did God rise from the dead if God was dead?
Jesus Christ possessed two natures, human and divine. That does not imply that his human nature was not also himself as God, but it was a human nature. That human nature died. He was not two beings, but one.
Here's how RC Sproul describes it:
"Godness and humanness are mutually exclusive categories. Something or someone cannot be God and man at the same time and in the same relationship. That is why the formula for the incarnation is not that Christ is totally God and totally man at the same time and in the same way. We are not saying that Christ's physical body is a divine body. We are saying that the single person has two natures. The divine nature is truly divine, the human nature truly human. The two coexist or are united in one person, but the two natures are not mixed, confused, separated or divided. Each nature retains its own attributes (see Chalcedonian Creed) The divine nature is not both divine and human. The human nature is not both human and divine. The person is both human and divine, but not in the same relationship."
RC Sproul --Not a Chance (God, Science, and the Revolt against Reason)
If Jesus suffers for no reason other then the fact that God demanded that Jesus (willingly) suffers before God can forgive, then why would that suffering not be needless?
What makes you think he suffered for no reason other than the fact that God demanded that Jesus (willingly) suffers before God can forgive? Have you not heard of the substitution? Or of his love for certain among us, redeeming those particular ones? Have I not told you of his plan for Heaven, (the Bride of Christ, God's Dwelling Place), from before the foundation of the world?