First in series of objections

[Tanais]

I am writing a letter to my family and in it I have inserted several attacks about the Catholic Faith. I was wondering if some of you could help me answer a few of these. Here is the first one:
Why did God require Christ to suffer on the cross? If God is omnipotent, why does He seem to bow to some law above Himself that requires Him to use blood to reconcile us to Himself? And if He it isn’t some other law beyond Himself but some requirement He set up then it seems rather arbitrary.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Richard_Lamb]

Tanais:

I am writing a letter to my family and in it I have inserted several attacks about the Catholic Faith. I was wondering if some of you could help me answer a few of these. Here is the first one:
*

Why did God require Christ to suffer on the cross?

He Did not require this, he did it as a show of his love, we required it he did not…

If God is omnipotent, why does He seem to bow to some law above Himself that requires Him to use blood to reconcile us to Himself?

God is not bowing to any law he is acting acording to his nature which self-sacrificing love

And if He it isn’t some other law beyond Himself but some requirement He set up then it seems rather arbitrary.

Acting according to love is not arbitrary, its logical…
Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Dr.Colossus]

God created Human Beings as physical entities, comprised of not only a soul, but a body. We experience things through the physical world, and come to know God by this way as well. In His infinite wisdom, Christ chose to use His Precious Blood to be the physical manifestation of His Grace. This is the very foundation of all the Sacraments, using physical objects and rituals to convey God’s grace and love for us. As for being arbitrary, God’s choice to make Human Beings out of matter is arbitrary from our point of view, but we trust that God knew what He was doing. In the same way, His use of His Body and Blood for our salvation is tailored specifically to our physical state of existence.

 

[Matt16_18]

Tanais

Why did God require Christ to suffer on the cross? If God is omnipotent, why does He seem to bow to some law above Himself that requires Him to use blood to reconcile us to Himself? And if He it isn’t some other law beyond Himself but some requirement He set up then it seems rather arbitrary.

God isn’t some “other law beyond himself”. That statement is illogical - how can God be beyond himself? This illogical statement is a good starting point to refute the other numerous erroneous assumptions that are being made.

God is what he knows. The “law of love” is not something that God knows about because the “law of love” exists as something apart from God. God is the love that God knows. The law of divine justice is not a law that exists outside of God. God is his divine justice. God is mercy. God is good. God is holy. God is. God is the almighty I AM, and God never changes. God’s justice never changes because God is his justice.

Offences against divine justice require an expiation in order for those offences to be remitted. God became the expiation of the sins that were committed against God. No created being could ever offer the perfect sacrifice necessary for the expiation of sins against the perfect God - especially not sacrifices offered by creatures corrupted by sin.

• If God is omnipotent, why does He seem to bow to some law above Himself that requires Him to use blood to reconcile us to Himself?*

God is omnipotent. But his omnipotence is not apart from his justice nor his mercy. The fallacy of the above statement is in the underlying assumption that God possesses both act and potency. Humans possess both act and potency - God alone is pure act. There is a false assertion being made that God could have done something other than what he did. That God could have reconciled sinners to himself because God has potency, that God can commit an act that is less than perfect. That God could have effected our Redemption with a more perfect act than the death of the Son of God upon the Cross. This way of thinking is a projection of our human nature onto God’s divine nature. Humans, by nature, have potency. We can use our free will to bring out the best of our potential, or we can choose to suppress our potential and act shabbily. We can say, in truth, that we could have made a better choice than the second rate choice that we opted for. God can do nothing less than what is perfect.

He [Jesus] showed me the whole plan of Redemption with the way in which it was to be effected, as also all He himself had done. I saw that it is not right to say that God need not have become man, need not died for us upon the Cross; that He could, by virtue of His omnipotence, have redeemed us otherwise. I saw that He did what He did in conformity with His own infinite perfection, His mercy, and His justice; that there is no necessity in God, He does what He does, He is what He is!

The Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich

 

[RobedWithLight]

Tanais:

I am writing a letter to my family and in it I have inserted several attacks about the Catholic Faith. I was wondering if some of you could help me answer a few of these. Here is the first one:
Why did God require Christ to suffer on the cross? If God is omnipotent, why does He seem to bow to some law above Himself that requires Him to use blood to reconcile us to Himself? And if He it isn’t some other law beyond Himself but some requirement He set up then it seems rather arbitrary.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

Because if God would not do that, man cannot be redeemed since no man is worthy enough to make amends for the infinite offense against God that began with Adam and Eve. Because by nature God is infinite, hence, an offense against God is likewise infinite. If an offense is infinite, the offering must also be of infinite value. Who else but God Himself has infinite value. Therefore, God willed to give man a second chance by sending His Divine Son to earth and clothe Himself with our nature, though without our weaknesses. His will is His own and not bound to some higher law.

God may be omnipotent, but in the same token God cannot save us without our consent. Therefore, if God uses His power to “force” a reconciliation, then it is not reconciliation, for even such requires free choice. Thus by sending His son God gave us a chance to choose the path towards redemption.

Gerry

 

[Della]

Tanais:

I am writing a letter to my family and in it I have inserted several attacks about the Catholic Faith. I was wondering if some of you could help me answer a few of these. Here is the first one:
Why did God require Christ to suffer on the cross? If God is omnipotent, why does He seem to bow to some law above Himself that requires Him to use blood to reconcile us to Himself? And if He it isn’t some other law beyond Himself but some requirement He set up then it seems rather arbitrary.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

Forgive my obtuseness , but I am not clear about where your family stands with regards to Christianity, nor what you meant when you wrote: “I am writing a letter to my family and in it I have inserted several attacks about the Catholic Faith”. I am assuming you mean that your family have made several attacks against the Catholic Church that you want us to help you answer. Am I right? I only ask so I can understand what you are asking and why, so my answer(s) might prove helpful to you.

Is your family Christian? I ask because of this first question you’ve cited as coming from them (I presume). What is their faith background?

 

[Origen]

During the Catholic mass, in the liturgy of the Eucharist, we sing the words of the prophet: holy, holy, holy Lord! the words of the angels in heaven looking at God in the ark of the covenant; facing Yahweh in all His glory, the priest becomes our high priest overseeing a sacrifice. He invokes the power of the Holy Spirit, he pronounces the words that transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of a living sacrifice, Jesus Christ whose blood is “shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven” in accord with the new covenant.

If we understand why Christ asked us to observe this sacrament in memory of Him, we understand much.

Rewind history 3000 years. The Jewish high priest of the tribe of Leviticus would go into the tabernacle carrying with him the most spotless lamb he could find, and all the sins of the people would be ritually laid on that lamb; the high priest would enter the tabernacle and kill the lamb on an altar, then he would come back out and sprinkle the sacrificial blood on the people, in atonement of their sins, in accord with the old covenant.

Some centuries later, King David after committing barbaric sins, realizes that animal offerings and sacrifices are powerless. David cries out in anguish: God doesn’t want our burnt offerings, he wants a shattered and contrite heart. In the old covenant, an external sign was our atonement. But God was soon to offer a new covenant in which we internalize the law, making our atonement a personal act of humility.

So far, so good?

We must die to our selves. And here’s the important part: If we refuse to die to our selves, which we as a people did and still do, the Son of God will die for us.

Do you see the many, many layers of meaning in the death and resurrection of Christ, in the Holy Eucharist? It’s can take a life time to absorb, but my advice to your questioner is to turn to God on the basis of trust alone, and then take a life time to understand what it’s all about. Nobody I know has ever been left unsatisfied if they gave it a serious effort.