If God didn't pay an infinitely high price to get what He wants, wouldn't it mean that no one would be saved and, thus, there would have been no point in creating us?
I came across this question and your answer to it: Why did God create all of this the way He did it? In your response, you said this:
Of course, it can be argued that, if all of this is true, God must be unimaginably self-centered, self-absorbed, self-seeking, and downright selfish to have set into motion circumstances that, in due course, will enable Him to get what He wants, at the expense of the suffering of others. In fact, though, in having taken severely drastic measures to reach His own goal of eternal satisfaction and pleasure, God has paid an infinitely costly price.Although in your answer you say that "God has paid an infinitely costly price," the end result of paying this price still leads to God's getting what he wants. So if God DIDN'T pay that price, wouldn't it mean that no one would be saved and, thus, there would have been no point in creating us?
Ted’s Response:
I agree that in the end, although it involves God paying an infinitely costly price, He will get what He wants. However, if we think of self-centered, self-absorbed, self-seeking, and selfish people who want something, typically they would rather not experience emotional and physical pain to obtain it.
Furthermore, such people generally can be expected to exploit things that belong to other people (money, property, emotions, etc.) along the way to getting what they want. They have no right to these things, nor do they have a right to hurt others to attain their ultimate goal of self-satisfaction and/or self-advancement.
God is in a unique category, though. He made everything, all things belong to Him, and He has every right to do whatever He wishes and chooses to do with His Creation and everything in it. I know that when we experience pain and suffering, we wish that God would have done things differently and had exempted us from the affliction and distress.
However, when we ultimately are with Him, and we experience ecstatic happiness, joy, and bliss that never ends, we will comprehend how all things had to happen the ways that God set them forth to occur. At that time, all of the heartache, grief, and anguish that we had to endure will be more than worth it. We will see God as purely loving us and bringing us eternal pleasure, as opposed to selfishly exploiting us to gratify His own desires.
I agree that if God hadn't been willing to pay an infinitely costly price, then no one could or would be saved. In my opinion, there would have been no point in creating human beings. I believe that God longs to connect and commune with us for eternity, and we will obtain as much enjoyment and satisfaction in being in that relationship as He will. But none of that could happen without an unfathomable amount of pain, suffering, torment, and misery in this present creation, both for us and for Him.
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