From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 9:55 AM
To: India
Cc: James Holding
Subject: RE: Best argument for justness of hell?


> While I won't claim it's the
> best argument, it's a little different.

A little different, yes, but as easily refuted as Holding's.

From: brian@holtz.org (Brian Holtz)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Best argument for justness of hell?
Message-ID: <29c16047.0201240951.7d69662@posting.google.com>

I asked how Christians can justify hell, and one pointed me to
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/hell.html, which says:

> Eternal punishment = infinite punishment?
> [..] infinity is really an abstraction, not something that 
> can actually be experienced. In the afterlife, people will 
> never reach a point where they can be said to have lived 
> for eternity

In-finite means "without end". The suffering
in hell is without end, and thus temporally infinite.

> [..] We say that as [time] goes to infinity, so does [amount
> suffered]. This holds whether s is large (the rate of suffering
> of a person in hell) or small (the rate of suffering of a 
> person on earth).

What people care about is not the total amount of suffering
experienced in the past, which of course will sum toward
infinity for any immortal being that can ever experience
the slightest and most infrequent suffering.

What people care about is a) the amount of new suffering per
marginal period of time, and b) how many of those periods
they are sentenced to endure.

> Yet we would hardly say that living for an eternity on 
> earth is the same as spending an eternity in hell

Indeed, if the amount of new pleasure per marginal period
of time exceeds the amount of new suffering (as it does
for most people on earth), then extending the 'sentence'
is a reward and not a punishment.

> the wrongs we've committed aren't just against other people, 
> but against a holy and perfect God. The nature of the object 
> against which the sin is committed, as well as the nature 
> of the sin itself, must be taken into account when 
> determining the degree of heinousness. [..]
> God isn't physically or materially injured by our sin [..]

A basic principle of justice is that where there is no injury
or risk of injury, there are no grounds for punishment.
Humans can only suffer finite injury.  If God cannot suffer
any injury whatsoever, then there are no grounds for
infinite punishment.

> Thus God is [..] punishing the inherent wrongness of their 
> actions

Yes, and not all wrong human actions are equally wrong,
which is what is implied by giving them all equally
infinite punishment. Furthermore, no wrong human action
is infinitely wrong.

> which include rebelling against God and rejecting 
> his perfect standards of right and wrong

Non-perfection is simply not the same thing as infinite
imperfection. This is just a simple confusion of the
two concepts of negation and infinity. The Christian
argument is essentially this: 

God is perfectly good. Even a single evil act in a lifetime
of sinlessness makes one fall infinitely short of God's
standard of perfect goodness, and thus constitutes grounds
for eternal punishment.

An equally invalid argument can be made the other way:

Satan is perfectly evil. Even a single good act in a lifetime 
of evil makes one fall infinitely short of Satan's
standard of perfect evil, and thus constitutes grounds
for eternal reward.

> we have to choose to accept God's grace [..]. If we 
> refuse to do this, how can we be allowed to live in the 
> direct presence of God?

If a terrorist sets up an unjust outcome for you but then
offers you a way out, that doesn't change the fact that
he's a terrorist.

> "That servant who knows his master's will and does 
> not get ready or does not do what his master wants will 
> be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know 
> and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with 
> few blows." (Luke 12:47-48). God [..] punishes people 
> according to their degree of guilt. 

This is an clear and outright contradiction of the argument
that any sin against a perfect God is an infinite sin.

-- 
brian@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net