So again, logically, if eternal punishment does in fact occur, is God to then be understood as not being the ultimate telos/end of all that exists? — javra

Okay. It just seems like a separate question from my post, unless you think something from the post elicits or naturally causes that question.

Here is how I would phrase one of your arguments:

1. If someone is damned, then their teleological end is not fulfilled
2. If Hell is not empty, then someone is damned
3. Therefore, if Hell is not empty, then God cannot be the teleological end of all that exists/occurs

See, I don't find this argument to be valid. Therefore I would ask you to spell it out further, rather than me guessing at what might get us to the conclusion.

There are different problems, but I think the primary one is the idea that if something does not fulfill some end then it doesn't have that end as a final cause. For example, on that reasoning if an acorn does not grow into an oak tree then it does not have the final cause of an oak tree. But I don't see how that could be right. A teleological ordering does not depend on each individual reaching the end in question.

See, I don't find this argument to be valid. Therefore I would ask you to spell it out further, rather than me guessing at what might get us to the conclusion. — Leontiskos

I already spelled out the argument here:

If eternal hell/damnation in fact does occur, then God cannot logically be the ultimate telos/end of all that exists/occurs - for those eternally damned cannot ever, for all eternity, approach God teleologically as their ultimate end, and this irrespective to changes in their psyche’s constituency and character that might occur over the span of eternity. — javra

Since its you who does not find this argument valid, I would ask you to express which part(s) of it you, in fact, find to be invalid. To be blunt: since you explicitly affirm that you deem the argument to not be valid, then you must know why you deem it invalid.

"If some acorn does not become an oak tree, then the oak tree cannot logically be the ultimate telos/end of all acorns - for that acorn cannot ever, for all eternity, approach oakness teleologically as its end."

And here I thought you favored rational discourse. It looks otherwise. So be it.

- This is a good example of the basic irrationality involved in so many arguments against classical religion, as well as the intransigence which accompanies that irrationality. You gave a very bad argument; I pointed out why; and rather than facing the problem you decided to ignore it.

Dude - or your royal highness, whichever title you prefer going by - acorns becoming trees is NOT an ultimate telos/end. News flash though this might be. God, and only God, is defined as that which is the ultimate end/telos in "classical" theology. But no, there no point in explaining this, especially for one who presumes to be so astute in the subject matter. But wait, this must be "irrationality" on my part.

What are you guys' thoughts? — Bob Ross

Abrahamic religions, just as all religions, are made for people living in a society. Religions give us answers to questions that we cannot get logical answers, like what is morally right or wrong or how one should live ones life well. Earlier, they gave us stories of our genesis, which we didn't have any understanding of. And of course, religions tell us what happens to us when we die.

The eternal damnation or eternal bliss is one answer to make people follow the moral rules how to live given by the religion. Some would say it's a way to control people.

I understand that this wasn't the answer you are looking for, but perhaps a more of a theological discussion. Eternity creates naturally many questions: what is life after death, when it's not 40 million years, not 5 billion years, but eternity. :wink:

acorns becoming trees is NOT an ultimate telos/end — javra

That's a pretty standard ad hoc response. If an oak tree is not an acorn's ultimate end, then what is? And who cares whether or not it is "ultimate"? Does Aristotle or Aquinas somewhere claim that "ultimate" (whatever that means) ends are not able to be frustrated?

That's a pretty standard ad hoc response. If an oak tree is not an acorn's ultimate end, then what is? And who cares whether or not it is "ultimate"? Does Aristotle or Aquinas somewhere claim that "ultimate" (whatever that means) ends are not able to be frustrated? — Leontiskos

OK, you. The fully grown acorn become tree is in and of itself a/the unmoved mover of all that exists. You got me.

- Come back when you're serious, and have real arguments to hand.

I'm exceedingly serious. As for real arguments ... wake up some. The unmoved mover is the only ultimate telos that there can rationally be - beyond which no other telos occurs.

You have a penchant for ignoring the parts of a post that are more crucial. For example, you said:

I would ask you to express which part(s) of it you, in fact, find to be invalid. — javra

But you had already ignored the answer given, namely:

There are different problems, but I think the primary one is the idea that if something does not fulfill some end then it doesn't have that end as a final cause. For example, on that reasoning if an acorn does not grow into an oak tree then it does not have the final cause of an oak tree. But I don't see how that could be right. A teleological ordering does not depend on each individual reaching the end in question. — Leontiskos

-

And similarly, in this case you chose to ignore this:

And who cares whether or not it is "ultimate"? Does Aristotle or Aquinas somewhere claim that "ultimate" (whatever that means) ends are not able to be frustrated? — Leontiskos

I don't deal well with dishonest people - for I don't in any way respect them.

You have a penchant for ignoring the parts of a post that are more crucial. For example, you said:

I would ask you to express which part(s) of it you, in fact, find to be invalid. — javra


But you had already ignored the answer given, namely:

There are different problems, but I think the primary one is the idea that if something does not fulfill some end then it doesn't have that end as a final cause. For example, on that reasoning if an acorn does not grow into an oak tree then it does not have the final cause of an oak tree. But I don't see how that could be right. A teleological ordering does not depend on each individual reaching the end in question. — Leontiskos — Leontiskos

This is not what you originally posted and what I replied to. You might notice that even clicking on the link, as of now, leads one to a post in which no such thing is stated.

Shame. Or maybe the lack of it.

And similarly, in this case you chose to ignore this:

And who cares whether or not it is "ultimate"? Does Aristotle or Aquinas somewhere claim that "ultimate" (whatever that means) ends are not able to be frustrated? — Leontiskos — Leontiskos

Whom else but Aristotle originated to concept of an "unmoved mover"? And this asked of someone whose supposedly an authority on "classical" theology?

Have your last say to make yourself look righteous at the expense of others. I'm done here.

This is not what you originally posted and what I replied. — javra

Of course it is. The mods are free to check edit history or whatnot to confirm that no edit was performed.

I don't deal well with dishonest people - for I don't in any way respect them. — javra

Then as Aristotle pointed out, it must be terrible for you to be alone with yourself.

• Leontiskos: "Does Aristotle or Aquinas somewhere claim that 'ultimate' (whatever that means) ends are not able to be frustrated?"
• Javra: "Whom else but Aristotle originated to concept of an 'unmoved mover'?"

(Yet another red herring that altogether avoids the question posed. Yet more avoidance of any semblance of philosophical dialogue.)

Within mainstream Abrahamic religions, it is a common belief that God will punish unrepentant sins committed against finite beings with eternal punishments and this is prima facie objectionable. — Bob Ross

It would be interesting to see someone try to flesh out this argument. Certainly an eternal punishment is temporally infinite. But what is it about sin that is supposed to be finite? We have something like this:

1. To repay a finite transgression with an infinite punishment is unjust
2. All sin is finite
3. Therefore, Hell is unjust

We could say a lot about this, but the most pressing matter is to focus on the term "finite" from premise (1) and what is meant by it. Aquinas' interlocutor is thinking of a transgression with finite duration or malice. You yourself are thinking of a transgression against a finite being (and this sets up Anselm's argument). But to take an easy and recent example, the Vatican recently released a document claiming that human beings have infinite dignity. Although it was a sloppy document, it is echoing a cultural presupposition (and, ironically, a presupposition that is often wielded against the doctrine of Hell). If we follow that cultural lead and say that humans have infinite dignity, then Anselm's argument in fact holds vis-a-vis humans; and what is sinned against is not therefore finite.

In any case, the claim that it is "prima facie objectionable" won't hold unless we understand what is supposed to be finite about a particular transgression.

I will just chime in that here the objection 2 seems weakest to me.

Reply to Objection 2. Even the punishment that is inflicted according to human laws, is not always intended as a medicine for the one who is punished, but sometimes only for others: thus when a thief is hanged, this is not for his own amendment, but for the sake of others, that at least they may be deterred from crime through fear of the punishment, according to Proverbs 19:25: "The wicked man being scourged, the fool shall be wiser." Accordingly the eternal punishments inflicted by God on the reprobate, are medicinal punishments for those who refrain from sin through the thought of those punishments, according to Psalm 59:6: "Thou hast given a warning to them that fear Thee, that they may flee from before the bow, that Thy beloved may be delivered."

Punishment delivered as a means of deterring other would-be transgressors is punishment oriented towards an end that is distinct from retribution. But clearly it will not deter anyone from sinning to continue to punish sinners after the Judgement, assuming that those who have been beatified are incapable of sin. One only needs a continuous deterence policy when the people one is hoping to deter are capable of transgressing.

But the larger issue is that, if one takes infants to be born under the rupture in the order St. Thomas refers to, this could be read as saying:

"All men are subject to damnation from conception, since they cannot repair the order that is ruptured in Adam. And they can do nothing to repair this order themselves."

I.e. the Calvinist vision.

But the reply to objection four could be used just as well by Calvin in arguing for the impossibility of most men receiving any mercy from God, since the means of repair can only come from God, and it will remain unrepaired for so long as it is not repaired. But then there is no point even thinking in terms of human justice, since all are under condemnation and it is only lifted if it is lifted ("at God's good pleasure.") This remains just as true for infants and children who die without the sacraments, yet pace (later) Saint Augustine (who I feel might only be taking up the position to skewer the Donatists re ineffective baptisms) mainstream Catholic theology says God repairs this rupture for those who have died (either by way of beatitude or by way of sparing them from active punishment in Limbo).


Yet I would say rather that a means of repair does exist, that this is the key point of the Gospel, where Christ tells us to "repent," and mourns that Jerusalem has not repented, so that he might gather it up in his wings. This is, of course, a repair accomplished "by God," but it is also one attainable by man. So, to objection four, which seems the main point, the idea then has to be that repentance is not an option for the damned. For, were the damned alive and guilty of the same sins, they could repent and be saved. But can the dead not repent? Or if they repent are they punished anyhow?

Dante pointedly dodges this question by not having a single sinner in the Inferno take any responsibility for their sins or show any repentance.


Anyhow to the OP, I am now realizing in my rambling first post it probably would have been more helpful for me to note that all sin was generally taken as being primarily a sin against God. And I would agree with this, the idea of God as some sort of disengaged "third party" to sin does not make a lot of theological sense.

The question of whether eternal punishment is justified seems to me to be different from the question as to whether eternal punishment is theologically sound. The two need not go hand in hand, and indeed they usually don't go together, with the claim that God would be justified in punishing repetent sinners, but shows mercy instead, being a common one.

Theologically, the focus on "extrinsic punishment" and "extrinsic reward," seems less helpful, and it becomes a philosophical problem when it leads into voluntarism, such that "good" is just proper calibration of action, thought, and belief towards extrinsic goals. This is something Pope Benedict XVIII avoids here:


47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Savior. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.

Yet aside from being an "opinion of recent theologians," this is also a conception right at home with many of the earlier Church Fathers.

Forget eternal damnation, I'm not seeing the logic in gods punishing humans at all.

A man is said to have sinned in his own eternity, not only as regards continual sinning throughout his whole life, but also because, from the very fact that he fixes his end in sin, he has the will to sin, everlastingly. Wherefore Gregory says (Dial. iv, 44) that the "wicked would wish to live without end, that they might abide in their sins for ever." — Aquinas, ST I-II.87.3

I'm not sure how the argument here is persuasive. It is said that during life it is always possible to repent. During life, then, the will is not invariably fixed in sin.
So, the 'fixation' in sin must come after death. But why?

For the fact that adultery or murder is committed in a moment does not call for a momentary punishment: in fact they are punished sometimes by imprisonment or banishment for life — Aquinas, ST I-II.87.3

I think that one can retort here that all punishment that humans can make are finite, not infinite. Even if death penalty lead to the annihilation of the person, it would probably be still a 'finite' punishment since people are finite beings and the suffering experienced by the person would be finite. If hell lasts forever, however, the amount of suffering of the damned is infinite, even if the punishments were 'mild'.

Furthermore, in human justice one should also take into account the safety of others. So, say, a life sentence does not necessarily entail that society would banish the person 'forever and ever' but simply that the person is considered so dangerous that the best course of action is held to be life imprisonement. Human justice is not perfect. Of course, it can be read the way Thomas reads it, i.e. an endless banishment, but it isn't necesssarily so.

Even the punishment that is inflicted according to human laws, is not always intended as a medicine for the one who is punished, but sometimes only for others — Aquinas, ST I-II.87.3

In my post, for instance, I never claimed that punishment must be corrective. In fact, I worked within a purely retributive account of justice.

And I argued that even if one accepts Anselm's view that sin deserves an infinite punishment because iti is against God, who has infinite dignity, it can be argued that one should take into account the limitations of human life.

Since death is assumed here as a 'point of no return', consider this simple example.

Two men A and B commit a murder. They are discovered while doing it by police and they initiate a gunfight with the police in order to not get caught. Both murderers are shot in self-defence by police. Murderer A is killed on the spot, while murderer B is hurt, taken into hospital just in time to avoid death and then goes to prison. During his time in prison, for some reason murderer A sincerely repents.

It's clear to me that A and B had unequal opportunities to repent for their crimes. Murderer B was more lucky. He didn't live because he was a 'better person' than murderer A but simply because he wasn't shot in the wrong place and was brought to the hospital in time (and saved by the hospital staff). For all these reasons outside of his control, B got the chance to repent which A didn't simply due to the fact that he was shot in the wrong place and/or died because he didn't arrive at the hospital in time or whatever.

Given that the times and circumstances of death are uncertain and beyond the control of people, death just seems an arbitrary cut-off.

Of course, if one takes into account the fact that human beings are finite in their understanding and capabilities in general, it is even more difficult to understand how a form of 'unending suffering' is a just recompense for sinners.

Not sure how these objections are just 'cultural' and not 'rational'.

We could say a lot about this, but the most pressing matter is to focus on the term "finite" from premise (1) and as what is meant by it. Aquinas' interlocutor is thinking of a transgression with finite duration or malice. You yourself are thinking of a transgression against a finite being (and this sets up Anselm's argument). But to take an easy and recent example, the Vatican recently released a document claiming that human beings have infinite dignity. Although it was a sloppy document, it is echoing a cultural presupposition (and, ironically, a presupposition that is often wielded against the doctrine of Hell). If we follow that cultural lead and say that humans have infinite dignity, then Anselm's argument in fact holds vis-a-vis humans; and what is sinned against is not therefore finite. — Leontiskos

Even if it were true, this would only true 'objectively' (see this post). One still has to take into account the 'subjective' aspect of sin.

Even in our legal systems, responsibility for crimes is mitigated or even denied by, for instance, 'reason of insanity'. In evaluating the severity of culpability one seemingly has to take into account the capacities of the transgressor. Can a human being reach the level of perfect culpability once the limitations and finiteness of human life are taken into account?

You are grossly miseducated.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/accepting_jesus_as_your_savior

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent

-- Acts 17:30

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents

-- Luke 15:10

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

-- Acts 2:38

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

-- 2 Peter 3:9

Etc.

:up:

This seems to me to be a straw man of theology. Not all theological theories include religion; and those that do don't necessarily fall prey to your critiques here. Mainstream religion tends to though (to be fair).

Jewish hell is no longer than 12 months and it exists only to purify you of your sin, not to punish. So I'd change your "mainstream Abrhamic religions" to be "Christianity."

I don’t think Judaism itself dictates a 12-month purgatory (e.g., there are plenty of jews that believe in eternal punishment); and Islam is also an Abrahamic religion.

For my part, when I say infernalism has difficulties, this is not to say the other views don't themselves have difficulties. I think these are mostly theological though. When David Bentley Hart says that we couldn't be happy with our own ignorance about damned family members or their eternal torment without having been radically changed so as to be "replaced," he might be right. But this seems equally true vis-á-vis the truly wicked. What of the BTK Killer or Ted Bundy, or even a Jeffery Epstein would really remain once selfishness and attraction to finite ends is removed? Not very much it would seem, suggesting a sort of annihilationism within universalism (unless God is simply replacing the wicked).

Or, to the infernalists' point, it seems that some might refuse to turn towards God. Universalists make a good point that it makes no sense for a rational nature to flee from the Good forever, if only because movement will continue until it finds rest in the Good. Yet, just as St. Gregory of Nyssa sees an eternal ascent into the Good, an asymptotic approach to the infinite, one can envisage a similarly unending movement away from the purifying light that burns. Moreover, if one has disfigured the Imago Dei enough, are we still talking about a rational nature?

Or perhaps the Augustinian curvatus in se, the curving inward of the self in sin, becomes so extreme that, like a black hole, there is no escape velocity capable of pulling away from its gravitational pull.

I don't really find these questions to be resolvable in terms of philosophy. The case in Scripture seems more concrete though.

For, it is obvious that aion is sometimes used in the Scriptures to mean less than "infinite temporal duration" but also seemingly as an adjective for the uncreated, that which is without beginning or end (at least plausible). This can render a different reading of Matthew 25, and at any rate, annihilation is as much an infinite punishment as continuous extrinsic torment. So too, a lesser reward (because one has made oneself incapable of a higher beatitude) might itself be a sort of punishment. But this requires a perhaps less than straightforward reading of Matthew 25.

On the other hand, the New Testament is full of quite explicit references to "all," "the entire cosmos," "all in all," "every knee," etc. And the difficulties in rereading the inclusivity out of these seem fairly monumental, requiring us to attribute to the Apostles a seeming inability to write clearly such that straightforward readings of their words will result in us taking away the exact opposite of "what they really mean." "All" must really mean "some," "especially" means "exclusively," "not just us [Christians] but the entire cosmos," means "just the elect," and "all were made vessels of wrath that mercy might be shown on all," means "all were made vessels of wrath that mercy might be shown on some."

I think it would be fair to say that the decline in support for infernalism has pernicious causes in a culture whose ethics has become hung up on only the worst sort of offenses, and a general comfort with sin and lack of concern with the spiritual life, etc. But it also has certainly been helped by the widespread expansion of access to critical texts and education in Greek, that make at least some of the efforts to radically re-read what New Testament texts appear to say in a straightforward manner appear to be little more than doctrinal massaging. A good infernalist response to these issues, IMHO, cannot rest on trying to bulldoze through these passages by explaining that "all in all," really means "all in some."

And this is where I take umbrage with some historical narratives that try to dismiss the history here are little more than "some Church Fathers let too much Greek philosophy into their though and followed Origen, and this trend lasted a good deal longer out East because they were isolated." Because that isn't how the position was primarily argued, from abstract philosophical grounds, but rather by pointing to the straightforwardly universalist sounding lines of Scripture that appear in virtually every New Testament book, but particularly in St. Paul's epistles.

Your take is very interesting. I would say, despite it not pertaining to your take directly, I still don’t see how sin is ‘objectively infinitely bad’ (viz., infinitely bad).

To me, the ‘subjective’ vs. ‘objective’ factors in sin is false (albeit it useful for conveying your point); since an act is the volition of will, so it stems from this ‘subjectivity’ which you described and so two people are held unequally culpable for a sin are not committing the same sin. We like to say colloquially, e.g., that the schizophrenic and the normal person—or the child and the adult—who both directly intentionally killed an innocent person in the same manner have committed the same murder (objectively, as you put it); but they haven’t: the intentions, wherefrom the volition arises, is drastically different. In fact, the schizophrenic, in this case, has not committed (objectively) the act of murder assuming they are hallucinating to the point where in the hallucination they are committing valid self-defense or perhaps manslaughter.

In short, the problem with your objective vs. subjective distinction is that acts have embedded into their identity intentionality to which it corresponds—e.g., murder is the intentionally killing of an innocent person in the manner where the intentionality is towards killing THAT innocent person.

Now, I would say, in this light I have depicted, this distinction is erased and the question becomes: are some acts, of which are sins, simply not deserving of infinite punishment?

For example, if you believe that a child that shoots someone and kills them while insufficiently understanding what a gun is cannot be held morally culpable to the same level as an adult who does understand guns who does the same relevant things and that this child cannot be held accountable to the point of infinite punishment, then I submit to you that you believe the act of shooting someone with insufficient understanding of what a gun is does not carry with it, objectively, infinite punishment.

I'm not a theologist, but I think that eternity should be distinguished from unending procession. Notably, the present can be regarded as 'eternal' in that the meaning of "now" isn't defined in relation to a time series. In this sense, your present emotions, as in the mood you have now, can be regarded as 'eternal' even though your moods are not permanent. Moods can also feel timeless in that those feelings do not involve temporal cognition. Also, the seven deadly sins seem to refer to moods rather than to actions; so I would guess that biblical references to eternal heaven or to eternal punishment should probably be interpreted in the presentist's sense of timelessness, rather than in the sense of unbounded duration.

Perhaps I am misreading Acquinas, but it seems as though, even in your excerpt, he is arguing that sin is the disruption of God's order and, as such, incurs a debt of eternal punishment.

This may true, but it isn't necessarily true; and I don't believe that religions were created with this in mind: they were seeking the truth the best way they could. Just because we can retrospectively determine that they got a ton of stuff wrong, given our understanding now, doesn't mean they were making stuff up to "get answers to questions they can't get a 'logical' one for". That's a very shallow interpretation of religion.

So again, logically, if eternal punishment does in fact occur, is God to then be understood as not being the ultimate telos/end of all that exists?

That man's telos lies in God does not mean that man reaches his end. On a deflationary evolutionary naturalist view, man's telos is to reproduce. That doesn't mean all men will eventually have children.

There is a more nuanced question of whether or not God would allow sin to exist forever, or if perhaps God's hands are tied in that God cannot both create free creatures and ensure that all shall reach their end in God. However, to my mind, sustaining this problematic becomes more fraught when it has to rely on the accident of the time of one's death marking an absolute limit on repentance, if only because there is no strictly logical reason why this must be so. Indeed, there is no logical barrier to reincarnation, etc. Hence, we rely on revelation. But in turning to revelation we see what appear to be claims of the total conquest of sin (as opposed to its sequestration and eternal persistence), e.g. that God shall be "all in all."

But nothing would seem to preclude things not attaining to their end. Hart makes a similar sort of argument, but it is crucially different. He says a rational nature stays in motion until it reaches its natural ends, and so barring extrinsic limits, it will move forever, at the limit turning towards its true end.

This may true, but it isn't necessarily true; and I don't believe that religions were created with this in mind: they were seeking the truth the best way they could. — Bob Ross

But wouldn't that be philosophy, the love of wisdom, and science?

Just because we can retrospectively determine that they got a ton of stuff wrong, given our understanding now, doesn't mean they were making stuff up to "get answers to questions they can't get a 'logical' one for". — Bob Ross

What I mean here is that you simply cannot get a logical, objective answer to what is morally right and wrong. It's not a question of retrospect or our ignorance. The question is inherently subjective, hence you cannot get an objective answer to. Science can tell us what the World is like. Not how it should be.