Isn't an eternal punishment for a finite sin illogical and unjust?

[TK421]

Q: What happens if a person repents after going to Hell?
A: They can’t.
Q: Why can’t a person repent after going to Hell?
A: Because if they didn’t they wouldn’t be in Hell.

Are you saying that if a person did acts worthy of going to Hell, but God saw that they would sincerely repent of those acts after they’d be sent to Hell that God would instead not send them to hell?

No. Not quite, anyway. People don’t change their minds in the hereafter.

In this life, in comparison to the angelic life, we are muddled in limitations, ignorance, emotions, and an extreme lack of experiences. We have souls like the angels, which means that we are capable of the theological virtues (faith, hope and love, and by default, their counterpart vices), but we also have natures and physical forms (matter) like animals and are bound to the laws of the material universe around us. From the angelic perspective, this would be like intellectually & spiritually living in a closet your entire life when the entire world is beyond the walls. It is radically limited. We don’t even know with certainty what’s going to happen to us 5 minutes from now. We can still sin, since we are creatures of conscious, but God doesn’t execute judgment in the way he does with the angels. There are all sorts of new experiences that - whenever we encounter them - can either move us towards making amends, or make us deeper ingrained in our vices, depending on how we respond to them with our rational capacities. We have these experiences every second, and the culmination of these experiences form us into the unique individual that each of us are. Some of us have great advantages in being able to cultivate virtue, because of the people around us that participated in forming & developing us, or the wider society, or the environment. These people, God holds to greater standards. Others live in a world of darkness from the earliest age. Most, somewhere in between. God knows and judges each accordingly. Before the soul departs from the body, the culmination of our choices leads us to either embracing God or - in an act that is inexcusable - rejecting him.

In the hereafter, our consciousness expands, and our will is perfected, and as David says, we become “gods”. There is no longer anything that can change our minds or shift our worldview. Our true self is left bare and we are either damned or we are with the blessed. In as much as the damned despise their misery, they do not repent, and nor would they ever want to. This is the mystery of iniquity that we cannot fully understand. There is something about humbly serving God as though we were nothing that is repulsive & offensive to the devil and everybody that follows him, and that repulsion remains even when God is in plain sight.

Then you’re running completely counter to what TK421 is saying that a person in Hell is incapable of repenting after death, and that those people are committing an infinite sin by never repenting. Which of you two is right?

Not really. It is too late for a person in hell to repent, but it’s not because God suddenly doesn’t want to forgive them anymore or make all of their problems go away. He’s a Divine Parent. There isn’t a proverbial rope dangling from Heaven where God arbitrary pulls it up after a certain point and refuses to let it down again.

 

[Bradski]

By definition of hell (since God knows past, present, and future) this can’t happen, otherwise they would not have gone to hell.

I hope you realise that that makes zero sense whatsoever.

You are saying that if someone goes to hell and then repents, then God will know this and he won’t go to hell. But He needed to go to hell to repent there in the first place.

Perhaps you have heard of Schrodinger’s cat?

 

[Bradski]

Not really. It is too late for a person in hell to repent…

Now you are contradicting yourself. Which is not surprising, because the whole concept of hell is a contradiction waiting to happen. Ask ten Catholics for their concept of hell and you’ll get 12 different answers.

First off you said that someone who would have repented in hell would not be sent there (although he needed to go there to actually do it) and now you are saying that if someone does goes to hell, it’s too late to repent.

Which is somewhat the same as Christine said ( so we’re up to three different views from 2 people - maybe 12 from 10 is being too generous). Which goes directly against any sense of justice that we could possibly imagine.

Once you are through the doors, they slam shut and there is no chance of parole. No matter how contrite you become. And you call that justice.

What would you call it if there was no chance of parole in the here and now? All crimes carrying a lifetime sentence with no chance of remission.

 

[davidv]

Now you are contradicting yourself. Which is not surprising, because the whole concept of hell is a contradiction waiting to happen. Ask ten Catholics for their concept of hell and you’ll get 12 different answers.

So what? Ask the Church and you will get only one answer.

First off you said that someone who would have repented in hell would not be sent there (although he needed to go there to actually do it) and now you are saying that if someone does goes to hell, it’s too late to repent.

Which is somewhat the same as Christine said ( so we’re up to three different views from 2 people - maybe 12 from 10 is being too generous). Which goes directly against any sense of justice that we could possibly imagine.

Once you are through the doors, they slam shut and there is no chance of parole. No matter how contrite you become. And you call that justice.

What would you call it if there was no chance of parole in the here and now? All crimes carrying a lifetime sentence with no chance of remission.

Not a sentence to hell.

 

[on_the_hill]

I agree with the idea that it seems unjust.

Or maybe we need to rethink what is deserving of hell.

To wit: Question: “A 14 year old boy masturbates and does not go to Confession. Will he go to Hell when he dies?”
Answer: “Yes. His actions condemned his immortal soul to eternal damnation.”

Question:
Is Hitler in Hell?
Answer: “It is not for us to say whether he is in Hell.”

 

[Wesrock]

Also are all sins equal, are intended murder and rape equal to masturbation or premarital sex?

Sins are not equal, and neither will be the punishments of hell. Worse unrepentant sinners will have worse punishments.

As for finite amount of sin, it’s not finite. What you do in this life puts you on a path. Those who endure eternal punishment are obstinately unrepentant and continue to will evil even after death. This inequity in continuing to will evil is deserving of punishment to account for it.

 

[Wesrock]

I agree with the idea that it seems unjust.

Or maybe we need to rethink what is deserving of hell.

To wit: Question: “A 14 year old boy masturbates and does not go to Confession. Will he go to Hell when he dies?”
Answer: “Yes. His actions condemned his immortal soul to eternal damnation.”

Question:
Is Hitler in Hell?
Answer: “It is not for us to say whether he is in Hell.”

In the first scenario you’ve specifically defined a hypothetical in which the sinner is specifically unrepentant. In Hitler’s case, we have a real scenario in which we don’t know. It’s not the same.

Though going back to the fourteen year old, I don’t think the average fourteen year old in this situation would meet the three criteria for mortal sin, anyway, so there’s that. Just because it’s gravely wrong doesn’t automatically mean it’s mortal.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

It would be, if there was such a thing. However, by definition anyone who chooses hell is engaged in ‘infinite’ sin. . .unrepented mortal sin at death.

Now let me ask you a question. Isn’t eternal bliss in heaven for a finite goodness in a person’s life illogical?

 

[Wesrock]

First off you said that someone who would have repented in hell would not be sent there (although he needed to go there to actually do it) and now you are saying that if someone does goes to hell, it’s too late to repent.

Hypthetically, if one could repent after death, hell would not be eternal. The issue is that you can’t. Not because it’s arbitraily forbidden, but because it’s in the nature of bodily existence to change one’s mind. It’s not in the nature of existence as a pure intellect to change its will. By it’s nature, it makes an instant decision in which its will is set, not to be changed. No second guessing or dicursive thinking anymore.

 

[on_the_hill]

Hypthetically, if one could repent after death, hell would not be eternal. The issue is that you can’t. Not because it’s arbitraily forbidden, but because it’s in the nature of bodily existence to change one’s mind. It’s not in the nature of existence as a pure intellect to change its will. By it’s nature, it makes an instant decision in which its will is set, not to be changed. No second guessing or dicursive thinking anymore.

And we know these things about pure intellect because we’ve talked to them? Observed them? Thought about them for a really long time?

 

[USMC_Convert]

Think of it like this, if I sit here and watch Google stock and think wow it would be really awesome to buy into that and have it go up, but I watch and watch and 30 years from now it hits an all time high of 1400 dollars a share then what will having watched it gained me?

Nothing, but if I got in, and had faith then in that 30 years I’d be able to cash in and walk away better off.

You have to buy in now, because if it’s 30 years from now or 30 days when your stock comes up, you won’t be able to suddenly buy in and walk away the wealthier.

I will reframe the argument, explain to me why I shouldn’t be a believer. Explain away all the miracles which still happen today, explain to me the first cause which created all this that we know of today. Explain to me everything, when you can do that then you will have some sort of legitimate argument (not that you will ever convince me but I will debate it with you).

 

[TK421]

And we know these things about pure intellect because we’ve talked to them? Observed them? Thought about them for a really long time?

Because it is Magisterial teaching - under the direction of the Holy Spirit and in the public revelation given to mankind - that a person’s state in the next life is set. That’s the main reason for a Catholic.

You can also accompany it with the rationality of it: that when you take away all of the material limitations of man, the human will would be unobstructed and no longer shifting. Private revelation also goes into much greater detail, even if this isn’t something binding on the faithful, it is useful. I wish I remembered the particular article: there was an account that was circulated by Pope Pius XIII, in which a damned soul was compelled to write a letter to her friend in life (who was a nun). The details included:

1. Do not pray for me.
2. She hated her friend and wanted her to be in hell with her.
3. She committed idolatry - in her case - by pursuing a man she was romantically interested in as though he were God. She was married to him for a year or two prior to dying in a car accident. She was compelled to admit that she would have done anything to win him.
4. The consciousness expands and the will becomes mechanical after death: one does not either fall or repent after their judgment. She explained that she was not repentant for the life she lived, and that she never would be.
5. Immediately prior to her soul’s departure, she was questioned a final time by an inner voice if she was sorry. Her response was “no”.
6. In addition to hating everybody on earth and in Heaven, the damned all hate each other as well. She hates the devil, but she also “likes” him, because of the work he does.
7. The reason hell is eternal is because its inhabitants’ obstinacy is eternal. They never stop sinning.
8. The pain of being crushed to death in the car accident was trifling compared to her current misery.
9. Even in hell, God’s mercy is present, because their torment is reduced by existing in hell rather than in the presence of God. They have a severe repulsion towards everything that is good and noble.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

Please bear with me because this is from a youtube video. Although it was from a priest. I might still be saying it incorrectly.

God made the world. He wanted it to be perfect but, sinful creatures that we are, we are not giving Him what He is owed because we sin.

God brought us and the world into existence from nothingness, thus using infinite power (infinity x 0 = something; that’s just me talking . . . ). When we sin, we command that nothingness x infinite power (infinite power on loan from God) and use God’s infinite power in a way contrary to His Divine Will. He could stop us cold, but He still graciously allows us to misuse and abuse his creations; we are still “stealing” from Him though because He did not make the world to be the way it is.

This is the crucial mistake the OP is making:

Isn’t an eternal punishment for a finite sin illogical and unjust?

It has yet to be demonstrated that sins are finite.

 

[Bradski]

Hypthetically, if one could repent after death, hell would not be eternal. The issue is that you can’t. Not because it’s arbitraily forbidden, but because it’s in the nature of bodily existence to change one’s mind. It’s not in the nature of existence as a pure intellect to change its will. By it’s nature, it makes an instant decision in which its will is set, not to be changed. No second guessing or dicursive thinking anymore.

Somebody needs to tell you that what you wrote there makes no sense at all. Where did it come from? Is this word salad what you think is Catholic teaching? It honestly seems like you just made it up.

‘It’s not in the nature of existence as pure intellect to change it’s will’.

English is my first language. I am reasonably well read. I am somewhat competent in stringing a few words together to construct a comprehensible sentence. What you said is gibberish.

 

[Jomann]

Your free will collapses after you die and it will be fixed in the state of the hour of death. You can’t change your will after you die. Afterlife it’s not a second chance.

Eternity in afterlife it’s not an infinite of time as we known but the lack of time as we known.

We don’t know what exactly is the “hour” of death. It denotes a short time but not a very short time. Maybe there’s time to everybody makes a decision in a more neutral state (free from the devil) with more information. Maybe…

 

[STT]

Where did you get that idea?

Common sense.

 

[Bradski]

Your free will collapses after you die and it will be fixed in the state of the hour of death. You can’t change your will after you die. Afterlife it’s not a second chance.

Eternity in afterlife it’s not an infinite of time as we known but the lack of time as we known.

You just made that up.

 

[Jomann]

This is the basics of Catholicism since Christ. It’s nothing new…

 

[Jomann]

Purely spiritual beings (the case of human souls after death) have the ability called instantaneous discernment after the time of probation. The very angels were in a time of probation too. Our probation is the time of our conception until the hour of death. You can change your will many times you want in this period but after death you will not be able to do so.

 

[petra22]

Perpetual sin incurs perpetual punishment. The obstinacy of the damned is eternal: they never stop hating God, and this elicits retribution. The sin never ceases, therefore the retribution never ceases.

Not all sins are equal.

Masturbation and premarital sex are grave sins: meaning they destroy charity in a serious way and deliberate way.

Yes to all you said AND any sin committed can be forgiven with sincere sorrow and purpose of amendment… which means if you are sorry for any and all of your sins, you will not be separated from God for all eternity. Only those who do NOT repent and do not try to amend make it THEIR WILL to be separated from God… That is my understanding…