How The Afterlife Completes And Makes More Sense Of This Life

"Many murderers have died in their beds unpunished; where then is the righteousness of God? Yea, ofttimes a murderer guilty of fifty murders is beheaded once; where then shall he suffer punishment for the forty and nine? Unless there is a judgment and a retribution after this world, thou chargest God with unrighteousness. Marvel not, however, because of the delay of the judgment; no combatant is crowned or disgraced, till the contest is over; and no president of the games ever crowns men while yet striving, but he waits till all the combatants are finished, that then deciding between them he may dispense the prizes and the chaplets. Even thus God also, so long as the strife in this world lasts, succours the just but partially, but afterwards He renders to them their rewards fully." (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 18:4)

Clarence Thomas

This PBS documentary is only available to watch for free for a couple more days:

"Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words"

Rape in the OT

Rapists often come to sticky ends in biblical narratives.

Ammon rapes Tamar (2 Sam 13) and so gets murdered by his half-brother.

Shechem rapes Dinah (or does abduction marriage, Gen 34). Consequence: tricked into circumcision & killed while his offending body part is in pain.

— Peter J. Williams (@DrPJWilliams) December 8, 2018

Men of Gibeah rape the concubine (Judges 19:25) and their entire city is destroyed.

Lot foolishly offered his daughters for non-consensual sex (Genesis 19:8). No act is carried out, but he's repayed by non-consensual sex with them in Genesis 19:31-35.

— Peter J. Williams (@DrPJWilliams) December 8, 2018

Conclusion: even though biblical narratives usually do not directly comment on the morality of actions, they often emphasize poetic justice in ways that we miss.

— Peter J. Williams (@DrPJWilliams) December 8, 2018

Does annihilation fit the crime?

A sequel to my prior post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/02/self-refuting-annihilationism.html

One of the primary philosophic and intuitive or gut level objections to ECT is that it seems unjust to punish people forever for temporal sins. It can be viewed as cruel or tortuous and out of proportion. In the context of punishment the common expression for this is that the punishment should fit the crime.

http://rethinkinghell.com/explore/

Does annihilation fit the crime? What are ways in which a punishment is fitting or unfitting, proportionate or disproportionate, in relation to the offense?

Here the annihilationist takes issue with the temporal disparity. According to that objection, eternal punishment is quantitatively disproportionate. I already addressed that in the prior post. 

But what about about punishment that's qualitatively fitting or unfitting? Punishment in kind. Consider the concept of poetic justice or lex talons, where the punishment is ironically akin to the offense. The perpetrator suffers the same kind of thing he inflicted or intended to inflict on his victims. 

A classic example is financial restitution for a property crime. Here the punishment corresponds to the nature of the crime. 

To take a harsher example, if a hacker makes a living by ID theft, it is fitting that he should experience ID theft. Likewise, if a mugger beats up the victim, it's fitting that he should undergo public flogging. A violent punishment for a violent crime. If an arsonist burns down someone's house with everything in it, it is fitting if he should suffer the same fate.

Here the principle is proportionality in kind as well as degree. That can be taken to an inhumane or mechanical extreme. Lex talionis is controversial in some circles, but it's intuitively popular. A straightforward concept of just desert. It's mainly frowned upon by overbred critics who've been insulted from certain kinds of harm. At a safe distance, they can afford to be disapproving.  

Compare that to everlasting oblivion. How does that have anything in common with the offense? Isn't that utterly arbitrary in relation to the nature of the wrongdoing? How does everlasting oblivion correspond to different kinds of sin? 

Self-refuting annihilationism

One of the primary philosophic and intuitive or gut level objections to ECT is that it seems unjust to punish people forever for temporal sins. It can be viewed as cruel or tortuous and out of proportion. In the context of punishment the common expression for this is that the punishment should fit the crime.

http://rethinkinghell.com/explore/

I quoted this once before in a different context, but now I'd like to comment on the objection directly. This is, of course, a stock objection to everlasting punishment. I've responded to that objection on many occasions, so I having nothing to new say on that front. 

What's striking about the objection in this context is that an annihilationist organization is lodging the objection. And in that context, the objection is ironic and incongruous. 

1. How is everlasting oblivion a proportionate punishment for temporal sins? Isn't never-ending oblivion out of proportion to whatever a sinner did in a few decades on earth? 

So the objection backfires. If you grant the principle, it cuts both ways. It cuts against any kind of infinite punishment for finite wrongdoing, whether infinite conscious misery or infinite oblivion. Given the principle, both kinds of punishment are vastly incommensurate with the offense. 

2 Moreover, annihilationism is inequitable in another regard, because the damned are punished equally regardless of their sins. All the damned suffer the same fate: eternal oblivion. So the punishment is indiscriminate.

If memory serves, some annihilationists try to rectify this inequity by posting that God doesn't annihilate all the damned instantly. Some undergo temporary punishment before they are zapped.

That, however, doesn't solve the problem. There are different factors that make punishment punitive. Memory can be a factor. Some people continue to be haunted by what happened to them even if its a thing of the past. Some people never recover from psychological injuries. 

Conversely, foreboding can be a factor. Dread of what awaits you. The fear that things will never get any better. You will never put the worst behind you. 

But even if some of the damned suffer temporary punishment prior to annihilation, oblivion erases memory and foreboding alike. They can't fear the future and they can't be haunted by the past. Once they cease to exist, they can't suffer at all. So, at the end of the day, annihilationism metes out a disproportionate punishment in two respects. 

No country for good men

The following post on Rod Dreher's website is from a homosexual man named Matt in VA who makes makes a number of insightful observations about homosexual culture: "The Wild West Of Male Sexual Desire".

Matt in VA's post is well worth reading in its own right. However, in my post here, I simply use it as a jumping off point to discuss different matters. Also, my thoughts don't have an entirely cohesive theme, just a loosely connected one at best.