by jimwalton » Mon May 11, 2015 2:00 pm
Thanks for the reply.
As for the second point, you are bringing up a common objection called the Euthyphro Dilemma (you can look it up on Wikipedia to discover more about it, if you like). It comes from Socrates himself. The premise of it is this conundrum: Do things become right just because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right? The Biblical response is that it's a false dilemma because those aren't the only two options. It's not true that things become right just because God commands them. Nor is it true that God commands things because they are right. The argument fails on several points.
First of all, the Bible never affirms that there is an independent reality of good outside of God's character that God is following. The Bible also never affirms that anything is good just because God commanded it. The other alternative is that God's commands are good because they reflect his perfectly good nature. His commands aren't arbitrary, but they flow out of his perfect nature. For instance, God necessarily commands us to love our neighbor because God is by nature loving. It's God's nature that is the standard by which actions are judges as good, and God's nature, then, is the basis of morality (it's called the divine nature theory). So it's never true that God is hypocritical. He is always consistently perfect, good, and just.
> Why would God not allow sinners to be in his presence?
This answer has some nuances. In a sense, sin is always in his presence, since God is everywhere and there is sin on the earth. In another sense sin is always in his presence, since He is in my life, and I still sin. From a legal standpoint, however, I have been pronounced innocent (the Bible's word is "justified") so that forensically God doesn't "see" my sin because it's been declared as covered. In the last sense (the one you're talking about), sin can't remain in God's presence because the afterlife with God is spoken of as a place where sin has no hold and sin is of no effect. To allow sin in would be a contradiction. So if you insist on holding on to your sin, that's your choice, but don't expect to get into the place defined by "this is where people have disengaged from their sin".
> when the alternative is so horrible, anyone would be willing to repent and ask forgiveness, essentially taking away our "free will" after death.
Not at all. The Bible is filled with examples of people who saw the power of God, experienced the presence of God, heard the truth of God, and still said, "Nah, I don't want that." It's not taking away your free will, but allowing you to still exercise it.