Hell as everlasting and finite?

[Tyrel]

Having been impressed with the informative response I received to an inquiry in another thread here just recently, I thought I’d try my luck with this one as well.

To start off, I’ll have to provide a bit of context for the question (I will try to do so succinctly). A Catholic philosopher-mathematician, Alexander Pruss, wrote the following very interesting speculative post on his blog titled “Another Model of Hell Worth Thinking About?.” He suggests, as he put it elsewhere, that it is logically possible that torment in hell last for an everlasting eternity even if the torment of the damned is experientially finite; it is possible, in other words, that “the amount of suffering decreases exponentially to zero as time goes on. Then, it seems, the total suffering (the integral of momentary suffering) is finite, even though the suffering goes on forever.”

He writes:
“It should also be remembered that an externally infinite length of suffering is logically compatible with the total amount of suffering being finite (though I am not endorsing the view that the total amount of suffering in hell is finite), e.g., due to asymptotic decrease or changes in the subjective flow of time.”

He continues:

“If one had a painful operation that in fact lasted an hour, but neurological manipulation made that hour seem subjectively like ten seconds, then one really had only ten seconds’ worth of suffering. Now imagine that the internal clock of one of the damned is continually slowed down. During her first year of objective time in hell, she undergoes a year’s subjective time of suffering. During her second year of objective time in hell, she undergoes half a year’s worth subjective time of suffering. During her third objective year, she has a quarter of a year’s worth of suffering. And so on. Even though she suffers for eternity, her total subjective time of suffering is two years. So, assuming that the intensity of her sufferings doesn’t go up with time, her total suffering is finite.”

He acknowledges that “the difficult question is whether this is an orthodox view of hell” but also suggests that “without affirming the model, it can still be of some use in apologetics.”

References:

• Alexander Pruss, “Is Eternal Suffering in Hell Infinite?,” Alexander Pruss’ Blog, December 2, 2007, alexanderpruss.blogspot.ca/2007/12/is-eternal-suffering-in-hell-infinite.html
• Alexander Pruss, “A Common Mistake about Hell,” Alexander Pruss’ Blog, March 17, 2011, alexanderpruss.blogspot.ca/2011/03/common-mistake-about-hell.html
• Alexander Pruss, “Another Model of Hell Worth Thinking About?,” Alexander Pruss’ Blog, January 30, 2014, alexanderpruss.blogspot.ca/2014/01/another-model-of-hell-worth-thinking.html

This proposal seems to severely undercut the primary reason people find conditionalism/annihilationism so attractive. Its advantage is supposed to be that it does not entail that a person suffers a quantitatively infinite amount of suffering for a qualitatively maximally great moral crime (that is, of rejecting God). Obviously, those who are entirely satisfied with the Anselmian answer that a crime of qualitatively infinite gravity can deserve a punishment of quantitatively infinite affliction will be unmoved by the difficulty. However, it is helpful to be able to point out, in addition, that Hell’s being everlasting does not logically entail the sufferings of hell being infinite. Indeed, the subjective suffering in Hell may be apportioned according to the severity of the crimes of the damned, thus the pains of hell will be unequal for different denizens (notice they aren’t merely of differing severities at any particular time t, but are not even of the same severity considered from a God’s eye view - any finite quantity multiplied by a transfinite (infinite) quantity will yield a transfinite (infinite) result, but on the proposal we’re considering the finite amount of torment is never multiplied infinitely - it is, instead, stretched out infinitely). This view manages to preserve not only a sense of proportionality, but also the distinction between eternal and temporal punishments for sin - for the temporal punishments of the damned should presumably be determinative of their apportioned torment, and not just from the perspective of the damned at any time t, but from God’s eternal perspective. This also provides a neat parallel for purgatory (which should never be conflated with or confused for involving the pains of hell per se) insofar as those in purgatory experience a subjective amount of suffering over some unknown objective amount of time (for the Church has made clear that to experience X years in purgatory is not to be interpreted as spending literally X years in purgatory).

Not to engage in self-promotion, but I have blogged about this issue before where I lay out a modest case for this model of hell:
(tylerjourneauxgraham.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/the-paradox-of-hell/) I originally adopted this proposal for apologetic purposes, but the more I considered it the more plausible it seemed to me. To the best of my knowledge it does not depart from the teaching of the Church in any way. Why, then, the reluctance of Catholic apologists to adopt this opinion?

So, here’s what I’m asking (for): play the devil’s(?) advocate and give me what you think are the strongest objections to this model of Hell from a Catholic perspective. Are there any statements from councils, encyclicals (et cetera) which undermine or disqualify it as heterodox? If not, why ought we not accept it (even if only maintaining it as a plausible opinion)? How about you - do you personally think the model is plausible? If not, why not?

 

[Reepicheep]

I’m not sure what is the value of this idea.
If you’re a believer then: we have no reason to doubt (and much reason to believe) that the suffering of the damned remains at full strength for eternity. What is the value of the speculation that it might not be?
If you’re not a believer then: you don’t believe hell is real. In which case what is the value of this speculation about the details of a non-existent thing?

EDIT: You ask about the value of this idea for apologetics. How would you use it? To argue that God is not cruel to the damned because their eternal punishment gets less harsh over time? I think those you hope to convince will just retort that it’s still eternal punishment.

 

[JPUSC]

Seems like the Jewish view of hell is that it is basically the Catholic idea of purgatory, a place to be cleansed in preparation for entry into Heaven. It is not eternal punishment.

If Jesus is the savior of mankind, then why does the Jewish concept of hell seem more merciful?

What exactly was the Jewish belief of hell at the time of Jesus and before?

It is not fair that a Catholic who dies in what the Church defines as mortal sin, such as missing Sunday Mass, is condemned to suffer eternal hellfire.

 

[ffg]

If you desire what is ‘fair’ for someone who rejects God, that is separation from God.

God saves mercifully, of those who seek the mercy.

The best result is to not get what we deserve.

I do not want what I deserve forever, but to taste it in purgatory will give me a better idea of how important prayer will be for folks still breathing.

But if that’s avoided as well, thanks God.

With the subject, people in hell WANT to be there. The permanence comes from a permanent rejection of God.

Just because today you have freedom in a natural sense, dangerous to assume that’s the same after death.

That’s why the church teaches free will being the ability to choose the good. It’s directional, not just chaotic (natural choices).

 

[Tyrel]

Unfortunately not one of you has actually engaged in the way I requested. However, since I started the thread, I guess I’m responsible for cleaning up the mess.

I’m not sure what is the value of this idea.
If you’re a believer then: we have no reason to doubt (and much reason to believe) that the suffering of the damned remains at full strength for eternity.

That’s not necessarily true. The Catholic Church affirms that the suffering is eternal and everlasting, but not that it consists of an infinite amount of torment subjectively experienced. Be careful not to confuse heterodoxy with rigid orthodoxy.

You ask about the value of this idea for apologetics. How would you use it? To argue that God is not cruel to the damned because their eternal punishment gets less harsh over time? I think those you hope to convince will just retort that it’s still eternal punishment.

I have actually gotten a lot of traction with it among evangelicals persuaded of the conditionalist/annihilationist view precisely because the principle advantage that it is supposed to have over the traditional view is undercut. So that’s at least one apologetic advantage it has. I think it has also provided Catholics (and others) with renewed confidence in the reasonability and truth of the traditional doctrine of hell. That’s another apologetic use it has had.

Perhaps you aren’t understanding why the view is so relevant? Basically, it is because there is an objection against the Anselmian apologetic which suggests that it equivocates between qualitative and quantitative senses of ‘infinities’. It rightly observes that the sin of rejecting God definitively is maximally grave, but then argues from this that it deserves a quantitatively infinite punishment - but that doesn’t obviously follow. This view responds to that by insisting that eternal everlasting conscious torment does not logically entail infinite torment, and may involve however much torment the annihilationist would think appropriate.

 

[Tyrel]

Seems like the Jewish view of hell is that it is basically the Catholic idea of purgatory, a place to be cleansed in preparation for entry into Heaven. It is not eternal punishment.

First of all, there isn’t only one Jewish view of Hell (see, for instance, Judith 16:17). Although it is now fashionable in Judaism (as it has survived through the rabbinic tradition post 70 AD) to speak of hell the way universalists like Origen spoke of hell, it isn’t clear that this has unimpeachable pre-Christian pedigree, and it is certain that it was not the unanimous opinion of the Jews, nor even the unanimous opinion of the pre-Christian biblical authors. To suggest otherwise is just anachronistic, frankly.

If Jesus is the savior of mankind, then why does the Jewish concept of hell seem more merciful?

This might be in part a psychological question (and to that extent I won’t be able to answer it for you), but I suspect it may in large part be more merciful in appearance only because of our misunderstandings coupled with failures to reason perfectly. For my money, I think there are no insuperable difficulties with the doctrine of hell; it seems to satisfy God’s justice without overstepping into unconscionable territory.

What exactly was the Jewish belief of hell at the time of Jesus and before?

As I said, sources are mixed and vague about this, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to Ezekiel 32:17-32, to Judith 16:17, and beyond.

It is not fair that a Catholic who dies in what the Church defines as mortal sin, such as missing Sunday Mass, is condemned to suffer eternal hellfire.

Just as there is a distinction between a material heretic and a formal heretic, so also there is a difference between one who sins gravely with little to no culpability, and those whose sin is mortal because they have committed the sin with both the knowledge of its wrongness (and objective gravity), and the free exercise of the will regardless. A person does not go to hell for missing Sunday Mass, even intentionally. A person does reject God and fall into mortal sin if they, by the free exercise of will, intentionally miss mass with the full knowledge that they have a moral obligation to mankind, to themselves, and before God, to attend mass. Missing Sunday Mass is no different from any other mortal sin.

 

[GEddie]

I think the flow of time is crucial to our understanding of both Heaven and Hell.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Tyrel]

I think the flow of time is crucial to our understanding of both Heaven and Hell.

This comment doesn’t go any distance towards making a case against the view of hell I have presented, which is what I’m asking (perhaps begging) people to try to do, even if only for the sake of (edifying) argument. However, I will say that I do not think the philosophical particulars of time’s flow are crucial to our understanding of either heaven or hell. In any case, the view I presented above presents hell as being everlasting, and the damned as perduring infinitely.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Having been impressed with the informative response I received to an inquiry in another thread here just recently, I thought I’d try my luck with this one as well.

(Had to clip)

He writes:
“It should also be remembered that an externally infinite length of suffering is logically compatible with the total amount of suffering being finite (though I am not endorsing the view that the total amount of suffering in hell is finite), e.g., due to asymptotic decrease or changes in the subjective flow of time.”

He continues:

“If one had a painful operation that in fact lasted an hour, but neurological manipulation made that hour seem subjectively like ten seconds, then one really had only ten seconds’ worth of suffering. … So, assuming that the intensity of her sufferings doesn’t go up with time, her total suffering is finite.” (Had to clip)

The problem with this position is that it’s applying our current understanding of the nature of pain and tolerance to the question of Hell. In life, yes, pain “decreases” as we become accustomed to it. We have no reason to believe that this is the case in Hell, and we have sufficient reasons to believe that it’s not, especially based on the revelations of the mystics.

This proposal seems to severely undercut the primary reason people find conditionalism/annihilationism so attractive. Its advantage is supposed to be that it does not entail that a person suffers a quantitatively infinite amount of suffering for a qualitatively maximally great moral crime (that is, of rejecting God).

The rejection of God is not a quantitative offense, it’s an infinite offense. This is one of the things that people misunderstand, and one of the reasons they find Hell so objectionable.

The severity of an act can be based on the person who that act is committed against. For example, it is worse for me to punch my spouse than to punch a stranger. God is infinite, unyielding GOOD. Any offense against infinite good is of infinite severity, and therefore deserving of infinite punishment.

Obviously, those who are entirely satisfied with the Anselmian answer that a crime of qualitatively infinite gravity can deserve a punishment of quantitatively infinite affliction will be unmoved by the difficulty.

…so… missed this bit when I was writing that… my bad XD

However, it is helpful to be able to point out, in addition, that Hell’s being everlasting does not logically entail the sufferings of hell being infinite. (Had to clip)

I believe the Church teaches that the degree of suffering in Hell, and even the nature of the suffering in Hell, is going to be based on the sins which lead a person to Hell. The worse the crimes, the more severe the punishment. However, this isn’t really grounds for claiming that sufferings of Hell are finite.

This view manages to preserve not only a sense of proportionality, but also the distinction between eternal and temporal punishments for sin - for the temporal punishments of the damned should presumably be determinative of their apportioned torment, and not just from the perspective of the damned at any time t, but from God’s eternal perspective. This also provides a neat parallel for purgatory (which should never be conflated with or confused for involving the pains of hell per se) insofar as those in purgatory experience a subjective amount of suffering over some unknown objective amount of time (for the Church has made clear that to experience X years in purgatory is not to be interpreted as spending literally X years in purgatory).

The nature of Hell’s punishments are eternal, Jesus is very clear about this. Whenever He speaks about the pains of loss (the loss of the Beatific Vision), He also speaks about the pain of sense (the fires of Hell). There is never any distinction between the two in His parables and teachings.In each and every case, He makes it abundantly clear that this suffering is infinite.

Not to engage in self-promotion, but I have blogged about this issue before where I lay out a modest case for this model of hell:
(tylerjourneauxgraham.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/the-paradox-of-hell/) I originally adopted this proposal for apologetic purposes, but the more I considered it the more plausible it seemed to me. To the best of my knowledge it does not depart from the teaching of the Church in any way. Why, then, the reluctance of Catholic apologists to adopt this opinion?

So, here’s what I’m asking (for): play the devil’s(?) advocate and give me what you think are the strongest objections to this model of Hell from a Catholic perspective. Are there any statements from councils, encyclicals (et cetera) which undermine or disqualify it as heterodox? If not, why ought we not accept it (even if only maintaining it as a plausible opinion)? How about you - do you personally think the model is plausible? If not, why not?

I’d say the strongest objections are Jesus’s words on the matter. He always describes both the loss and the fire as eternal. If the fire is eternal, there is absolutely no reason to assume that the pain is finite. There’s also the fact that Hell is the antithesis of Heaven. If the joys and pleasures of Heaven are infinite, then it makes sense that the pains and sufferings of Hell are also infinite. You could also approach it from the position that Hell is the absolute lack of Good. (God is the source of all Good, and Hell is eternity without God, so Hell is a lack of all Good.) The lessening of pain would be a good, and therefore could not occur in Hell.

 

[truetofaith]

Your question was too long for me to sift through past the first few sentences.

Never-the-less, I believe the suffering in hell will be continuous and the same intensity for all eternity.

Bottom line : Avoid hell at all cost!

 

[Tyrel]

With respect, I’m afraid I’m pretty dissatisfied (nay, perhaps even disappointed) with the responses here thus far. Look, it is obviously true that, as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes: “Not long ago Mivart (The Nineteenth Century, Dec., 1892, Febr. and Apr., 1893) advocated the opinion that the pains of the damned would decrease with time and that in the end their lot would not be so extremely sad; that they would finally reach a certain kind of happiness and would prefer existence to annihilation; and although they would still continue to suffer a punishment symbolically described as a fire by the Bible, yet they would hate God no longer, and the most unfortunate among them be happier than many a pauper in this life. It is quite obvious that all this is opposed to Scripture and the teaching of the Church. The articles cited were condemned by the Congregation of the Index and the Holy Office on 14 and 19 July, 1893 (cf. “Civiltà Cattolica”, I, 1893, 672).” However, the view I am now proposing has, to the best of my knowledge, nothing relevantly in common with the elements of that theory which were condemned. The view I hold maintains that hell is eternal, that the poena damni and the poena sensus are both everlasting afflictions with no temporary alleviations, that the torments of those in hell are experienced at all times with intensity, but that the torments are finitely bounded over an infinite amount of time.

Frankly, all of you seem to have eagerly rushed to answer the question without actually really thinking about the question.

The problem with this position is that it’s applying our current understanding of the nature of pain and tolerance to the question of Hell. In life, yes, pain “decreases” as we become accustomed to it. We have no reason to believe that this is the case in Hell, and we have sufficient reasons to believe that it’s not, especially based on the revelations of the mystics.

Nowhere did I say or insinuate that the subjective experience of suffering ever decreases in intensity. In no way am I suggesting that the damned grow accustomed to the torments of hell. The view I’m proposing is much more subtle than that!

I believe the Church teaches that the degree of suffering in Hell, and even the nature of the suffering in Hell, is going to be based on the sins which lead a person to Hell. The worse the crimes, the more severe the punishment. However, this isn’t really grounds for claiming that sufferings of Hell are finite.

Actually, in one sense it is, or it seems to be; for, consider that any finite quantity multiplied by an infinite quantity yields an infinite quantity. Even if sufferings are at all times finite, but there are infinitely many times at which the suffering continues, then there is an infinite quantity of suffering in the end. If two different planets each have moons, the first rotating around its planet at twice the rate of the second rotating around its planet, but you allow for them to continue to rotate around their respective planets for an actually infinite amount of measurable times, then each of them will have rotated around their respective planets an equal number of times (namely, because they have rotated an infinite number of times - and although there are different sizes of infinity, it is not hard to prove that the set of rotations in each case could be bijected with the other, implying their equivalence). Similarly, then, even if the torments of one denizen of hell are, at any time, more intense than another denizen of hell, if hell consists in an everlasting eternity of times at which the damned experience suffering, and their suffering isn’t finitely bounded in the way I’m proposing, then the sufferings accrued ultimately will be equivalent by being quantitatively infinite (and, again, we can prove by analogy that these infinite quantities would be strictly equivalent infinities).

The issue I’m raising requires a little more attention than I think you’re giving it based on your comments. Hopefully you can now see why I feel that way, and, hopefully, you can offer a more engaging rejoinder as this discussion progresses.

 

[ffg]

Beggars can’t be choosers.

Perhaps there is related meaning that you do not see.

Nobody can read your mind, but those that are reading this book might get close.

You did a reboot with a similarly long write-up.

If folks aren’t hitting the question - write it in 1 line.

See what happens.

 

[Tyrel]

Beggars can’t be choosers.

If folks aren’t hitting the question - write it in 1 line.

See what happens.

Fair enough. Here is the best I can do at expressing my request/invitation in one sentence:

Give me your best arguments for thinking that the everlasting torments of hell, which objectively persist for an infinite amount of ‘specious presents,’ are not bounded finitely over that infinite period of time in proportion to the temporal punishment corresponding to the desert of the actual committed sin of the damned.

 

[truetofaith]

With respect, I’m afraid I’m pretty dissatisfied (nay, perhaps even disappointed) with the responses here thus far. Look, it is obviously true that, as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes: “Not long ago Mivart (The Nineteenth Century, Dec., 1892, Febr. and Apr., 1893) advocated the opinion that the pains of the damned would decrease with time and that in the end their lot would not be so extremely sad; that they would finally reach a certain kind of happiness and would prefer existence to annihilation; and although they would still continue to suffer a punishment symbolically described as a fire by the Bible, yet they would hate God no longer, and the most unfortunate among them be happier than many a pauper in this life. It is quite obvious that all this is opposed to Scripture and the teaching of the Church. The articles cited were condemned by the Congregation of the Index and the Holy Office on 14 and 19 July, 1893 (cf. “Civiltà Cattolica”, I, 1893, 672).” However, the view I am now proposing has, to the best of my knowledge, nothing relevantly in common with the elements of that theory which were condemned. The view I hold maintains that hell is eternal, that the poena damni and the poena sensus are both everlasting afflictions with no temporary alleviations, that the torments of those in hell are experienced at all times with intensity, but that the torments are finitely bounded over an infinite amount of time.

Frankly, all of you seem to have eagerly rushed to answer the question without actually really thinking about the question.

Nowhere did I say or insinuate that the subjective experience of suffering ever decreases in intensity. In no way am I suggesting that the damned grow accustomed to the torments of hell. The view I’m proposing is much more subtle than that!

Actually, in one sense it is, or it seems to be; for, consider that any finite quantity multiplied by an infinite quantity yields an infinite quantity. Even if sufferings are at all times finite, but there are infinitely many times at which the suffering continues, then there is an infinite quantity of suffering in the end. If two different planets each have moons, the first rotating around its planet at twice the rate of the second rotating around its planet, but you allow for them to continue to rotate around their respective planets for an actually infinite amount of measurable times, then each of them will have rotated around their respective planets an equal number of times (namely, because they have rotated an infinite number of times - and although there are different sizes of infinity, it is not hard to prove that the set of rotations in each case could be bijected with the other, implying their equivalence). Similarly, then, even if the torments of one denizen of hell are, at any time, more intense than another denizen of hell, if hell consists in an everlasting eternity of times at which the damned experience suffering, and their suffering isn’t finitely bounded in the way I’m proposing, then the sufferings accrued ultimately will be equivalent by being quantitatively infinite (and, again, we can prove by analogy that these infinite quantities would be strictly equivalent infinities).

The issue I’m raising requires a little more attention than I think you’re giving it based on your comments. Hopefully you can now see why I feel that way, and, hopefully, you can offer a more engaging rejoinder as this discussion progresses.

It seems you like to expound to show your grasp of he English language…Your points are lost in the verbiage!

 

[Tyrel]

It seems you like to expound to show your grasp of he English language…Your points are lost in the verbiage!

My apologies… Not entirely sure how to fix that. There’s always that balance between precision and clarity for which one must strive in a context like this - I may not always find that happy medium. However, for all my best efforts to be sufficiently precise, not a single person, so far, has apparently understood the view I’m inviting us to challenge - maybe that really is just the result of the lack of clarity? I don’t know, but I don’t really know how to be much clearer either.

 

[ffg]

Fair enough. Here is the best I can do at expressing my request/invitation in one sentence:

Give me your best arguments for thinking that the everlasting torments of hell, which objectively persist for an infinite amount of ‘specious presents,’ are not bounded finitely over that infinite period of time in proportion to the temporal punishment corresponding to the desert of the actual committed sin of the damned.

Without the rest of the thread, this would get some action.

I hope you see some.

I’ll answer this post a little later.

Take care,

 

[pacloc]

I’m not sure that there is really any point in speculating about something there is absolutely no evidence for in Scripture or the Fathers of the Church. One thing that gives your idea hope is that God says we will be rewarded according to our deeds, so this does imply various levels of punishments. I still don’t know if you can put a price on sin the way you mention by saying the “temporal punishment corresponding to the desert of the actual committed sin of the damned”. All the writings of the Fathers of the Church I have read clearly appeal to the stupidity of incurring the everlasting punishments of hell for the very short season of pleasure in sin, and likewise appeal to the everlasting Heavenly realities for the short season of asceticism. So I don’t think it was ever intended to be “fair” in the sense you seem to want to make it.

 

[Beryllos]

GEddie;14614621:

I think the flow of time is crucial to our understanding of both Heaven and Hell.

This comment doesn’t go any distance towards making a case against the view of hell I have presented, which is what I’m asking (perhaps begging) people to try to do, even if only for the sake of (edifying) argument. However, I will say that I do not think the philosophical particulars of time’s flow are crucial to our understanding of either heaven or hell. In any case, the view I presented above presents hell as being everlasting, and the damned as perduring infinitely.

My understanding of GEddie’s reply was the notion held by some (including myself) that our experience of time is presently limited by our dwelling in the universe of matter, energy, time, and space. Freed from all that in the afterlife, our experience of eternity may be timeless, or beyond time. C.S. Lewis, for example, wrote (in my doubtlessly inaccurate paraphrasing) that eternity cannot be understood simply as a never-ending sequence of moments, days, or years, but rather it is one whole thing. This would bear upon our understanding of Heaven and Hell.

 

[Beryllos]

But, to answer your question, I suppose you could integrate suffering over the appropriate coordinate system and come up with a finite integral.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

We have not rushed to answer without reading; we have tried to make sense of a fairly long, looping, and grammatically… difficult… set of passages and arguments that you have presented. The way you’ve presented your argument does not flow well, it is not easy to read. Not due to difficulty in the material, but rather to manner of presentation. That’s not to knock you for your effort, it takes time and practice to really learn how to succinctly present your points in a way that does them justice but makes them accessible for people who are not inside your brain.

Nowhere did I say or insinuate that the subjective experience of suffering ever decreases in intensity. In no way am I suggesting that the damned grow accustomed to the torments of hell. The view I’m proposing is much more subtle than that!

Then please, explain how the suffering of Hell could be finite in nature without decreasing from it’s initial level, or without being practically null from the onset. If there is a finite amount of suffering, stretched out over an infinite time, then there are only two possibles:

1: A set amount of suffering is doled out over an infinite amount of time. In effect, this would reduce the suffering of Hell to nothing, because any amount, no matter how large, will approach zero when divided over infinity.

or;

2: A soul in Hell experiences a definite severity of suffering relative to their sinfulness in life. If this is the case, then once they’ve experienced the amount of poena sensus (pain of the sense or the physical pain of the fires of Hell) due for their transgressions, the amount of pain would decrease. I’ve already given a perfectly reasonable argument for why this cannot be the case.

If, on the other hand, you’re claiming that there’s a cap to the severity of the suffering (or that the suffering is of a finite quantity at a given point), then I don’t think there’s anything controversial about that. People who sinned less in life probably suffer less than those who’s sins were worse in nature. (A thief versus a murderer, or something like that). I don’t know if there’s an official teaching on this, but it makes sense considering that those in Heaven experience the Beatific Vision in proportion to their Holiness in life.

Actually, in one sense it is, or it seems to be; for, consider that any finite quantity multiplied by an infinite quantity yields an infinite quantity. [CUT FOR LENGTH]

Your argument about the planets doesn’t actually work. “Infinity” is not a number, it is a concept. If two moons are rotating around a planet, one moving twice as fast as the other, then the only point in time their number of rotations would be equal is when it is zero. From that point forward it would work like this:

Moon 1 | Moon 2​

 0       |       0
 .5      |       1
 1       |       2
 2       |       4
 4       |       8
 8       |       16

.
…
…

While it’s true that, given an infinite amount of times, planet one will always wind up rotating the same number of times that planet 2 has rotated at a given point in time, the number of their rotations will never be equal at any given point of time.

There are also not multiple amounts of infinity. If you ever quantify an amount of infinity (by placing a cap on its duration) it ceases to be infinity, and becomes that given number. Again, infinity is not a number, it’s a concept. You cannot measure infinity, because it is literally “without end.” If you measure something, then you have reached its end, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to measure it.

Similarly, the sufferings of two different souls in Hell may be different in severity, and the lesser sinner will eventually suffer as much as the worse, but at the point when the lesser sinner has suffered as much as the worse, the worse will have suffered a greater amount due to the increased severity of their suffering. The only way the lesser sinner could catch up to the worse is if the worse sinner’s suffering stopped or lessened to a degree that is lower than the lesser sinner’s.

I think part of the trouble comes from trying to quantify something which is not quantifiable. We can provide subjective interpretations of the severity of our pain, but we cannot actually compare that pain with someone else’s. One person’s ten might be another person’s two. No matter what, we know that the souls in Hell will experience “perfect suffering,” just as each soul in Heaven will experience “perfect happiness.” This suffering will be the full amount of suffering their soul is capable of experiencing.

The issue I’m raising requires a little more attention than I think you’re giving it based on your comments. Hopefully you can now see why I feel that way, and, hopefully, you can offer a more engaging rejoinder as this discussion progresses.

I am a little insulted that you don’t think we’re giving your question due consideration. Just because you don’t like our responses doesn’t mean we’re being lazy in considering your proposition. As I said above, the way you presented your argument was far from concise, and flowed from point to point without clear delineation. I recall one particular… sentence… that I almost commented on. It contained something like a half dozen sentence fragments covering four or five different aspects of your post. This sort of thing makes it really difficult to clearly understand the point you’re trying to make. Please don’t take this as me trying to be mean, but more of a bit of constructive criticism to help make your time on these forums more beneficial.