This is part of a series on the book A Theodicy of Hell by Charles Seymour. For the index page, go here.Seymour covers "The Argument from Justice" in this chapter. The argument is as follows. Humans over their lifetime only commit a finite amount of wrongdoing. Hence, they are only deserving of a finite amount of punishment. An infinite amount of punishment would be wrong for only a finite amount of finitely wrong acts. Hence, an eternal view of hell is unjust.
Section II covers preliminary responses from Augustine and Aquinas.
Augustine (p. 38)
Augustine makes two main points:
- The length of the punishment is not always equal to how long the wrong act took to commit. For example, a crime that only took a moment may take years of jail time to pay back the debt to society.
- The government has the right to punish people in a 'permanent' fashion (through death or life imprisonment). Since these are justifiable, then God punishing sinners in a 'permanent' fashion could also be justifiable.
Augustine's first argument misses the point. The original argument from justice is not commenting on how long it takes to commit the act but the severity of it (that it is only finitely wrong). This argument also fails to prove eternal punishment is justifiable. While he proved that a crime that only takes a moment to commit can be paid back with years of punishment, he has not proven that therefore an infinite amount of punishment is justified. Hence, the argument from justice is unaffected.
His second point is more effective but still falls short. While we can sometimes punish people in a permanent fashion, these punishments are not truly eternal. Life imprisonment may last a long time but will eventually come to an end. It is still doubtful whether eternal punishment is just assuming Augustine's second argument.
Aquinas (p. 40)
Aquinas responds to criticisms of Augustine's second argument as follows. He argues the finite length of punishments like life imprisonment are only accidentally finite. If humans lived forever, then life imprisonment could go on forever and that would still be a just punishment.
However, the assumption that an eternal punishment can be justified is exactly what is under dispute. Aquinas needs to provide an argument why this is so.
The Infinite Intention of Sin (p. 41)
Aquinas also argues that the fact that a sinner only sins a finite amount is due to his mortality. Given the opportunity, the sinner would sin forever.
However, Seymour notes that not all unrepentant sinners have the intention of sinning forever. For whatever reason, they may not be thinking about the future at all. Even granting that those that intend to sin forever deserve eternal punishment, this is only a subset of unrepentant sinners. The rest of the sinners would not deserve eternal hell.
Even for those who intend on sinning forever, it still does not imply that we should punish people eternally for this intent. Suppose someone wants to rob a bank and steal $100K but only gets away with $10K since he hears the cops are coming and cuts it short. Should he be punished for the $10K, $100K, or as if some intermediate amount was stolen?
It is also the case that some sinners may also intend to perform other good acts as long as they live. A thief may also intend on giving a portion of his money to the poor or feeding those in need. However, this would imply that a person who has both good and bad qualities would be entitled to an eternity of reward and punishment. Maybe the person would deserve a state that is neither great nor terrible? Maybe they deserve some reward and some punishment back to back for eternity? This is clearly difficult to square so the principle should be rejected.
This argument only works if there is a sinner who intends to sin constantly for eternity and not perform any commendable actions for eternity. Since this only justifies hell for an extremely unusual set of people, this does not justify an eternity of suffering for those who fail to repent.
Symmetry Between Heaven and Hell
I covered this argument in this post. To restate the argument, Aquinas tries to use the argument from justice to show that it works against heaven as well. Aquinas argues that it is 'unfair' to send those who repent to heaven since they have only done a finite amount of good acts in their life. At most, they only deserve a finite amount of reward, not an infinite amount. However, it is fair to reward some with eternal heaven. As a result, the argument from justice fails.
This argument is easy enough to refute. One can agree that heaven is not owed to the good people but that doesn't make it unjust. If I find $20 on the ground and give it back to its owner, there wouldn't be anything unjust about the person giving me $40 to thank me for returning it. However, when one commits a wrong act, then any more punishment than what is necessary is unjust. There is a necessary disanalogy between rewarding people for good actions and punishing them for bad actions.
Conclusion
So far, I generally agree with Seymour's defense of the 'argument from justice.' The arguments so far do not justify an eternal hell. See my upcoming post to see how the book continues to defend the argument from justice against an eternal hell.
The Infinite Intention of Sin (p. 41)
Aquinas also argues that the fact that a sinner only sins a finite amount is due to his mortality. Given the opportunity, the sinner would sin forever.
However, Seymour notes that not all unrepentant sinners have the intention of sinning forever. For whatever reason, they may not be thinking about the future at all. Even granting that those that intend to sin forever deserve eternal punishment, this is only a subset of unrepentant sinners. The rest of the sinners would not deserve eternal hell.
Even for those who intend on sinning forever, it still does not imply that we should punish people eternally for this intent. Suppose someone wants to rob a bank and steal $100K but only gets away with $10K since he hears the cops are coming and cuts it short. Should he be punished for the $10K, $100K, or as if some intermediate amount was stolen?
It is also the case that some sinners may also intend to perform other good acts as long as they live. A thief may also intend on giving a portion of his money to the poor or feeding those in need. However, this would imply that a person who has both good and bad qualities would be entitled to an eternity of reward and punishment. Maybe the person would deserve a state that is neither great nor terrible? Maybe they deserve some reward and some punishment back to back for eternity? This is clearly difficult to square so the principle should be rejected.
This argument only works if there is a sinner who intends to sin constantly for eternity and not perform any commendable actions for eternity. Since this only justifies hell for an extremely unusual set of people, this does not justify an eternity of suffering for those who fail to repent.
Symmetry Between Heaven and Hell
I covered this argument in this post. To restate the argument, Aquinas tries to use the argument from justice to show that it works against heaven as well. Aquinas argues that it is 'unfair' to send those who repent to heaven since they have only done a finite amount of good acts in their life. At most, they only deserve a finite amount of reward, not an infinite amount. However, it is fair to reward some with eternal heaven. As a result, the argument from justice fails.
This argument is easy enough to refute. One can agree that heaven is not owed to the good people but that doesn't make it unjust. If I find $20 on the ground and give it back to its owner, there wouldn't be anything unjust about the person giving me $40 to thank me for returning it. However, when one commits a wrong act, then any more punishment than what is necessary is unjust. There is a necessary disanalogy between rewarding people for good actions and punishing them for bad actions.
Conclusion
So far, I generally agree with Seymour's defense of the 'argument from justice.' The arguments so far do not justify an eternal hell. See my upcoming post to see how the book continues to defend the argument from justice against an eternal hell.
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