[editor’s note:  This question rambles quite a bit.  I did a lot of correcting of grammar, spelling and the like, but I am afraid it still is a bit hard to follow.   Hopefully, you will get the idea.]

Question:

Aren’t the Bible and the Christian religion a Catch-22?  This would be defined as a requirement that can never be met until a prerequisite is met however the prerequisite can not be obtained until the original requirement is met?  Gods prerequusite is perfection of humans, but God made humans imperfect because they sin.  We all fail God’s passing grade of 100% perfect.   The Bible says Jesus died for our sins so we should be free from sin.  Fine, then why do we need to worship God?  Now you will say because we have sinned but I thought our sins were forgiven with the death of Jesus, but Christianity says we need to pray for forgiveness!   Forgiveness for what?  And then you will say for our sins.  What sins?  I thought they were forgiven.  Then you will say for not worshiping God.  But we are free of God’s contract [?] because Jesus said so when he cried “It is finished.”   Surely this means man is free of sin. If we are free of sin,then we all get to go to heaven.  Correct? So why do we need God?  You will say ‘So you can go to heaven’ and I say I am free from sin.  I already get a free pass.  But if God forgave Adam and Eve for the original sin of disobeying we wouldn’t be in the need of Jesus to die for our sins.  Yet God is all knowing and if he would have left them in the garden we would all be perfect.  But God seems to be like a cat with a mouse and plays with humans.  He made them imperfect just as he made the angels imperfect and he made Satan imperfect.  However, because he is all knowing, he knew what would happen.  This means that he planned man’s suffering and toys with man like the Greek gods played with their people.   So how do you expect people to take your God seriously when you use circular reasoning to justify your God? Man can never win and no one has ever answered this question for me Why is God so intent on having all these people in heaven with him ? What’s the reason for this? Is he lonely? I mean if you read the Bible it’s like ok you didn’t worship me or star completely without sin.  Fine, then I throw you out of the garden.   You didn’t worship me or remain without sin after the flood?  You didn’t worship me after Jesus?  What’s up with this God?  I don’t he get it.  It’s like he keeps bribing humans to worship him.  Are you a god if you’re not worshiped?  [?]  I mean He didn’t do a very good job of explaining himself.   Look at all the different branches of religion and types of religion.  So now we get to the “special people ” Well, if God created the earth and the people why are they not all Christians?   You will say Christians on this side to heaven and everyone else on this side Wow guess he still didn’t get his message across so what”s with this God. [?]  Please explain the claim that God is all powerful all knowing.  I do not understand this religion.   Did God make it just for Christians, because they are special?   Once again not good PR.  I still don’t get it, so what’s Gods plan?  Is it that a certain number gets in.  That’s a nice God!  I made you imperfect.  I knew ahead of time and eternity what will happen so humans will never win because I knew and preplanned who would do what.   Sounds like a catch 22 to me.

Answer:

I will have to say that your interpretation/version of Christianity would be a Catch-22, as described. The problem is that your understanding of the religion is rather far from what Jesus taught and from what a real Christian church will teach. So, please allow me to clear up some misconceptions.

First of all, God does not require perfection of humans. If we were perfect, we would be in fellowship with God by our own power and righteousness, but the Bible teaches on almost every page that it is not possible for humans to attain to perfection. (1 John 1:8 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”) However God, in his love, has offered a means through which we can be forgiven and treated as if we were “perfect.” The solution is the forgiveness of God through the sacrifice of Jesus. Perfection is not attainable by humans. The reason for this is found below.

Second, you are also incorrect in your assumption that God made us imperfect, at least from the biblical perspective. According to the Bible, everything God made is good (Genesis 1:31). In his love and goodness, God gave his highest creation free will–the ability to choose whether or not to love God and to do his will. According to the Bible (and according to any common sense observation of human beings), we chose to rebel and to do evil. Thus we lost our innocence. God did not make us imperfect, but he made us with free will so that we could become imperfect if we so chose.

Jesus died for our sins so that we could be forgiven of our sins, so that we could be freed from the consequences of our sin, but not so that we could “be free from sin.” We all sin, unfortunately. Why do we need to worship God? Because that is what we were made to do. A dog was made to bark. A tree was made to grow. A fish was made to swim and a human being was made to have a relationship with God and to praise and worship his creator. This has nothing to do with our sinfulness, but it is our nature to worship our Creator. We do not “have” to, but it is what we were created to do. We do not worship God because we have sinned but because he is great, he is powerful, he is loving, he is Lord, he is the source of life and of salvation. He is our protector and the one who loves us more than any can love us. That is why we worship, not merely because he forgives our sins, although that is another reason to worship him. A good list of reasons to worship God is found in Colossians 1:15-20 (and the list includes the fact that he provides reconciliation for our sins).

Religion might say that we need to pray for forgiveness, but the Bible does not say that. This is a common Protestant teaching, but the Bible does not say that saying a prayer will result in our forgiveness. Our forgiveness comes from faith and repentance. Of course, when we sin we should thank God for his forgiveness.

You are taking Jesus’ words out of context here. When he said “It is finished” he meant that his work on the cross was completed. This does not mean that men are free from sin. It meant that, for those who will in the future repent and be baptized, they can be forgiven of their sins (Acts 2:37-38), but it definitely does not mean that all people are free of sin. In fact, the majority, unfortunately, are NOT free of sin, because the majority do not put their faith in Jesus, do not repent of their sins, and are not baptized into Christ. So, the majority are on the broad road to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). I hope that you, for one, will choose the narrow road to life in Christ. But that is your choice and, until you do, Jesus’ work in your life is not completed. Unfortunately, not all go to heaven. Like Jesus said in Matthew 7:14, only a few find that way.

Why do we need God? You say we have a free pass. This is, unfortunately a rather gross misinterpretation of scripture. Where does the Bible say we get a free pass? Even if I am forgiven of my sins, I still need God. I need God to sustain my physical life. I need God because he loves me and because he works in my life. As a Christian who is forgiven of his sins, I still need God for many reasons. I need God just as much when I am saved as when I was lost.

You say that God forgave Adam and Eve of their sin. What is the authority for this statement? I do not see the slightest indication in the Bible that they were forgiven of their sin. Maybe they were. Maybe they repented, but the Bible does not mention this, so your statement is not supported by scripture, so it is speculation at best.

You say that if God had left Adam and Eve in the garden, then we all would be perfect? There is absolutely no biblical basis for this statement. Where did you get this from? I am sorry and I may even be coming across hyper-critical. If so, I am very sorry, but to be honest, very little of what you are saying is even remotely similar to what the Bible says. I believe you should radically reconsider a great number of your (in my opinion) false presuppositions about God and read the Bible for what it says. In order to do this, you will need to throw away much of what you have heard about Christianity as well as some of your own assumptions and let the Bible speak for itself.

You accuse God of “playing with” people. To tell you the truth, according to human reasoning this makes some sense. What I mean is this. From a human perspective, to foreknow is to predetermine, which would be “playing” with us. To us, bound by the linearity of time, it seems obvious that if we know what will happen, then we must also predetermine what happens. If this were the case, then God could be accused of predetermining who will accept him and who will reject him, and then later punishing us for the decision he made. Here, I will have to admit your argument appears to make sense.

However, from God’s perspective this does not make sense. God exists outside of time and space. He can know what will happen, yet at the same time give us the freedom of action to decide whether or not we will obey him. Human experience confirms what the Bible says, which is that we choose whether or not to do what is right. God is powerful enough to create us with free will and with a choice. He does NOT predetermine whether we will obey him, although he does foreknow what we will do. To a human this is hard to grasp, but not for God. God does not “play” with us. He is reaching out to us so that we will respond to his love, as a parent will do with their adult children (Acts 17:24-29 explains this quite well).

By the way, you make another assumption which does not agree with the Bible. You assume that people, angles and Satan were created imperfect. This is not true. All were created innocent and free of evil. Some angels rebelled against their Creator, and thus Satan and the demons became evil, but they were not created evil. The same applies to human beings who were born “naked and unashamed” (Genesis 2), They were perfect and innocent, but God loved them enough to give them a choice. They rejected God’s love and evil came into the world.

You ask why not everyone is a Christian, as if this proves God is not powerful. The answer is really quite simple. God does not force us to love him. In fact, you literally cannot make someone love you, if they have free will, which we do. God gives us the choice whether we will love him and do his will or not. Love give a choice and God gave a choice. He does not and will not force anyone to repent and to choose Him over the things of the world. It is God’s will for all to have a relationship with him, but God gives us sovereignty over our own lives and most of us push God away. He does not force himself in, which would explain why only a relatively few are true Christians.

God’s “plan” is that all men be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4). Yet, God’s will is not always done (which is why Jesus, in his model prayer, prayed for God’s will to be done). God’s will is not always done because those he loves so much choose not to reciprocate that love. Fortunately, for you and me, we can decide to break this terrible pattern. We can live according to God’s will and can love him and receive his love. That is his plan, but he does not force us to obey. This is the clear message throughout the Bible, and it is the answer to your question about why, if God is so powerful, everyone is not a Christian.

To summarize, some of your thinking is logical and reasonable, but throughout your diatribe you make assumption after assumption about the Bible and about Christianity which simply is not correct. When we use deductive reasoning based on false assumptions, we reach false conclusions.

I hope this helps.

John Oakes