Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord

[qatarperegrine]

Last week, the issue of hell came up at an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians at Education City. One of the participants explained hell by saying that God loves people so much that God punishes us when we hurt another one of God's beloved servants. And, in fact, God loves us so much, God even punishes us for hurting ourselves. As happens every time the subject of hell and divine retribution comes up, I was struck by how little sense this concept makes to me.

I've never formally studied theories of justice, but when I worked in corrections, it seemed like there are a couple of different justifications given for punishing wrongdoers, for example:

• incapacitation: wrongdoers should be prevented from being able to commit further crimes against the community.
  
• specific deterrence: wrongdoers should be punished in order to discourage them from committing further crimes.
  
• general deterrence: wrongdoers should be punished in order to discourage other people from committing similar crimes.
  
• rehabilitation: wrongdoers should be helped to become more productive members of society in future.

All these justifications are essentially utilitarian: they say that punishment is justifiable only when it serves a purpose. As a pet owner, I can relate to this. If I smack my cat for biting me in the (vain) hopes that this will dissuade her from biting me in the future, this is punishment. If I smack my cat simply because I am angry, knowing that it won't change her behavior, then IMHO I am not punishing her; I am abusing her.

But hell can't possibly serve any of the functions we accept as possible justification for punishment. It can't incapacitate or even deter people from committing further sins, since, well, they're dead. It can't rehabilitate them (this may be debated if, like Muslims, you believe hell may be temporary). I suppose you could argue that hell provides a general deterrent, since people might abstain from sins for fear of going to hell. But if that's the real justification for hell, then God is effectively sacrificing some people's eternal happiness in order to make an example of them for others, and it's hard to imagine God being so... well, un-Kantian.

When you've ruled out the utilitarian justifications for punishment, it seems like the only one left (to my knowledge) is retribution. The retribution theory of justice says that it is moral to punish someone for wrongdoing even if the punishment won't improve the situation, simply because wrongdoing merits punishment. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, for the reason discussed above in the kitten example. There may be circumstances in which it is ethical to harm someone, because that harm is necessary for a greater good. But if no greater good is served, then harming someone is wrong, even if they've previously harmed someone else. Two wrongs don't make a right.

So, readers, what do you think? Is there any utilitarian justification for the existence of hell? Is retribution an adequate justification? Or is there some other justification entirely? (Of course, if things are virtuous because they are godly and not vice versa, there is no reason to justify God's actions whatsoever -- but, then we also shouldn't advance arguments like the one that came up at the interfaith dialogue.)

Comments

[underpope.livejournal.com]

It seems to me -- based primarily on my reading of Jesus' parable of the landlord and his workers -- that God's notion of what is fair does not necessarily match up with what we human beings want to think of as fair. God gives equal wages to all of his workers, no matter when they started, but as human beings we think we deserve more money because we started earlier. Recent primate studies have suggested that this human notion of fairness has its roots in our evolutionary heritage (I love thinking of sin as holdover behaviors from our evolutionary heritage -- it makes so much sense to me!).

Extending on that, I don't know if human standards of justice, which are usually meant to keep a society going, apply in a divine milieu. We can take the worst case scenario of a serial killer who has a neurological or physiological abnormality which compels him to kill despite his knowing that it's wrong to do so. A human standard of justice would put this person away in prison, if for no other reason than because we want to keep the rest of society safe from him (I guess this is part of an incapacitation model of punishment). Specific and general deterrence aren't necessarily realistic models of punishment; if they were, then crime would always go down instead of going up. Rehabilitation is appropriate in some cases, but in other cases -- such as with our hypothetical serial killer -- it is impossible (if for no other reason than because we lack the technology to fix that kind of neurological or physiological abnormality).

I'd suppose, then, that God would have His own way of handling such a person. Does God punish him because he was a serial killer? Or does God reward him for doing his best to overcome his compulsions and not killing as many people as his compulsions would have forced him to? If the compulsions are part of a physiological or neurological issue, then is it really the killer's fault that he was a killer?

The point is that there may be a hell, but I don't know if we're fit, as fallen and imperfect human beings, to decide what the nature of hell really is, or to speculate on whom God has put into Hell and why. Through Jesus we have some insight into the nature of God's love, but we're also cautioned not to judge on this matter.

Traditional models of Hell and God make God to be an obnoxious and whimsical being who punishes for no very good reason. I think that these models are based on human notions of justice and punishment, and are therefore inappropriate for speculating on God's notions of justice and punishment.

There. Having solved that problem, I shall move on to world hunger.

[kevin143.livejournal.com]

You're just repeating the age old line of "God works in ways we can't understand."

The Christian understanding of the afterlife that makes sense to me is that heaven is "eternal connection with God" and that hell is "eternal disconnection with God." It even works for atheists!

[qatar.livejournal.com]

"It seems to me -- based primarily on my reading of Jesus' parable of the landlord and his workers -- that God's notion of what is fair does not necessarily match up with what we human beings want to think of as fair."

Yes... although this parable suggests that God is more merciful than us, not more punitive. Hell seems more like: some of the workers get paid at the end of the day, and others get eaten by crocodiles.

"There. Having solved that problem, I shall move on to world hunger."

Heh. Let me know how that turns out.

[underpope.livejournal.com]

Yes... although this parable suggests that God is more merciful than us, not more punitive. Hell seems more like: some of the workers get paid at the end of the day, and others get eaten by crocodiles.

I wasn't hoping to suggest that God was more punitive or more merciful than us; only that the human standards of fairness are not necessarily God's standards of fairness. And yes, I would tend to think, based on the parable, that God is far more merciful than we are.

Still no love on world hunger.