Reply #41: You know your stuff, believer. However, the core of the thing still

[funflower]

doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Second, because God gave the human race the choice between good and evil, He could not unilaterally destroy that choice. Therefore, He needed a human being to defeat the power of the force of evil--someone who understood exactly what the choice was and would choose God and good.

OK. I understand the concept that Adam and Eve had conceded some territory to "the force of evil."

Because he loved God and loved the human race, he chose for himself to go to the cross; he knew that because he had never let go of God, the force of evil could not destroy him. He had already obtained the promise from God that if he would die, God would raise him from the dead, so he chose to die.

What I don't get is why God "needed" a sinless human to voluntarily sacrifice his life, if temporarily, in order to win back that territory. Why did God need Jesus on a cross rather than the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West?

Unless I understand the theology of substitional atonement (which, I believe, really wasn't articulated clearly until St. Augustine came along) as merely a step forward from the primitive idea that animal or human sacrifice will appease the gods so they will (we hope) stop sending so many locusts or flooding your farm every year, it makes no sense to me.

on edit: corrected typo