McCulloch wrote:As far as I know, this one passage is central to most, if not all, of the Christian gospel.
John 3:16 wrote:For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
If God really loved the people of the world so much, why could he not come up with a plan that would have more people saved?
Why is it that God cannot avert his own wrath without sacrificing his only begotten Son? Why could he not just forgive without the sacrifice?
Why is belief necessary? Why couldn't God just forgive?
Boy, can you pick them or what??
1) If god existed, I think he would have picked a better plan. Why punish many generations for the sins of their great great great great great grandmother. We shouldn't need salvation if we didn't commit the original offense and we shouldn't have to pay the price for someone elses screw up.
2) God didn't really sacrifice his only begotten son. God was Christ. Unless his conversion to man negated his knowledge of why he was born man, then there was no sacrifice. God knew he couldn't die, so anything is tolerable as man when you know that it is short lived and you can exact revenge later on. If his knowlege was negated by the conversion from god to man, then he negated christs free will to choose to be a sacrifice. Had Christ chosen not to sacrifice, god would no longer exist. And if the conversion negated previous knowledge of his god status, then how could he preach what no one else knew to teach him to begin with. See where I am going with this.
3) I wouldn't have a problem with belief, if you could just tell me what exactly I was suppost to believe and prove to me the belief was right. But if what is preached is right, then a little part of god was placed in each one of us at birth, so we should all be able to believe from the get go right? See where I am going with this. We can't believe when no one really knows what to believe in. In why is it necessary for him to forgive my ancient relatives sins in order for me to gain access to his heaven?
A final answer to the subject, no there is no sense in the core message of the gospel.