From atheism to Christianity? How so?

[Tonus]

It's an interesting question. Yes, I think it was possible for Him to sin in human weakness in the sense that it says he was tempted in every way, and suffered the same kind of afflictions. Tempted means he was being swayed to do it; it wouldn't have been a real temptation without the possibility I think. Satan tempted him to take the easy way out and assume control of the world right then and there; all He would have had to do was worship Satan and he could have avoided the cross.

If he had sinned then no one could be saved, I think; it would have also made God a liar since He promised a Savior. Yet, I don't think God would have sent His Son if He didn't know he was going to succeed and overcome every temptation. So, while it may have been possible, in a sense it wasn't because God already knew the future.

Most other theists (who answered the question) responded similarly, and I probably would have when I was a believer. Though the responses usually are along the lines of "he couldn't really have failed." The situation brings up some important questions that I think the believer has to ask himself.

Did god rig the game? Jesus became flesh so that he could trade one perfect human life for another (the one that Adam lost). He became flesh that he might better understand our frailty (per Paul's writing). So if he knew he would not give in to temptation, then there was no risk of failure as there is for a frail human, and god played a game of Russian Roulette where he knew there was no round in the chamber.

And that's actually the better option, since the other option would be to risk failure and the possible consequences if Jesus had transgressed even once. With the only hope of salvation lost, humanity would face a future of despair, with no hope of ever recovering the gifts given by god and lost by Adam before any of us had a chance to make the choice ourselves. At this point, what does god do? Wipe everything out? He would need to acknowledge that creation was not "good" and that he had gotten it wrong and that Satan may have been right!

Think about it. Why bother to set up that scenario? It either risked failure, which put the fate of all creation on a roll of the dice. Or it could not have failed at all, in which case it was an exercise in pure vanity, god reminding us that there was still one being in the universe who couldn't screw up something as simple as "do this, don't do this." None of those options gives us god as we envision him if we are a believer. Not easy to reconcile without handwaving or admitting that there's a lot we can't know about the situation until such time as god clears it up, if he ever chooses to.