which I have taken the liberty of liberally re-interpreting using the concepts brought up on this thread.

God created man and the universe (or was contemplating doing so) and he felt it was necessary to introduce some ethics and morality, but also some concept of choice and free will. This led to grace, sin, forgiveness and redemption.

But god also understood it would be unfair to unload this responsibility on his children, that he had to know what they went through, and how they suffered. In other words, he needed to confront the same choices and temptations and pain his children did.

So he created a simulation, and injected himself into it, and made it so he also had doubt and fear and would suffer as they did. In his simulated existence, his memory of his godhood and immortality, his omniscience and omnipotence, was deliberately suppressed. He had to face the same horrors that could conceivably fall on any man with only his own faith and virtue to guide him through it. He understood god had no right to ask of his creation any more than he was willing to accept himself.

Perhaps this is the metaphor used by First Century philosophers to tangle with some of the same questions we're dealing with here.