The same encyclopedia article claims that there is no happiness in hell. If I venture a hypothesis I would say that just as different degrees of happiness in heaven doesn’t imply sadness, so too it appears that different degrees of suffering in hell doesn’t imply happiness.
I’ve already given reasonable argument through the syllogism: If all mortal sins are intrinsically evil, and all intrinsic evils are unequal in their evil, then all mortal sins are unequal in evil. But if different punishments are for different evils, and if all mortal sins are different evils, then it follows that they require different punishments. But the pain of loss and sense are both punishments of hell. So if there are different mortal sins and the sinners go to hell, then there must be different punishments in hell.
I’m pretty sure that all logically flows together and that if it doesn’t, there are very few needed amendments to make it so. So if you accept one of the statements above, then you must accept all of them as certain truths unless you want to be unreasonable or unless you want to dispute one of the premises -that much is obvious. It is clearly not “speculation” in the sense of “giving an uncertain argument”; it suffices for perfect certainty on its own terms.
And plus, the Council of Florence stated:** “But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains.”**
But since it is not at all impossible for me to be wrong, I asked for other info.
