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

[meshach.livejournal.com]

I agree that the idea of an eternal hell doesn't make much sense. The only justification I can think of is basically that God doesn't punish - we punish ourselves with guilt over what we've done.

[ikeepaleopard]

I agree that hell implies God is obnoxious. Interestingly, similar reasoning can be applied to the concept of a literal messiah. That is, once the messiah comes suffering ends or is minimized or life is better or something. Therefore God can make the world better without taking away free will or God doesn't actually care about taking away free will. Therefore God is just being obnoxious.

[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.

[lasa.livejournal.com]

This is my take on the whole bit.

We're imperfect beings, and when we die, we'll have a list of mistakes, wrongs, sins, what have you that makes us even more imperfect.
The concept of judgement is realizing these imperfections, but then as we're feeling crushed about how many opportunities we've missed, how many hurts we've caused, how broken we are, Christ will ask us if we then wish to be made whole again.
I really can't imagine anyone saying no - but I suppose if they do, they stay broken, and that's hell.
BTW, I think everyone - no matter what their faith - will have the opportunity to say yes.

And to address the point about the Messiah - I'm not a process theologian, but I would classify myself as an open theologian - which is one who believes that the world is still in the process of being created. I think that the second coming refers to the culmination of the creation process. It's God's image for the completion of the cosmos - what God is working on, and what we're called to work with God towards. So I guess I don't see it as being arbitrary at all as to when this happens - it's the end of a process.

This is Aristopheles on a defective browser

[(Anonymous)]

I think this is one of many things that just make more sense if you decide that it was made up for human purposes.

A Christian acquaintance told me about hosting a Cambodian family when they came to America. He said their favorite concept from Christianity was hell. Without a notion of hell, they would have to believe that Pol Pot and his henchmen got away with everything they did to their people.

I don't think of retribution as a very good moral cause, but human beings sometimes have a powerful emtional need to feel that justice will be done or that some balance of misdeeds will be corrected. "You cannot DO that to me!" is a feeling that can burn inside someone for ages. "Kiss the hand you cannot bite and pray that someday God will break it." People who cannot take vengeance themselves want to believe that there will be divine justice in the long run.

Sorry, this is a bit simplified, and poorly organized and written. Try to focus on the central idea. Religion is IMO made up to address certain human needs, and this is just one example.

punishment

[intlxpatr.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

It seems to me that when people do wrong, they often punish themselves. There can be a case made for the need for hell if one doesn't recognize how one has sinned, against God, against another, against oneself. . . sort off like a holding pen until one achieves an epiphany.

And I do believe that God is far more merciful than any of us can imagine, but that sometimes punishment - discipline - is necessary for our spiritual growth.