A caller asks how a temporal action can merit eternal punishment. Dr. Karlo Broussard gives the Catholic Answer.
Transcript:
So, Karlo had a article in the Catholic Answers magazine that discussed the why temporal sinfulness can merit eternal punishment. And I kind of wanted to… I read it, I’ve forgotten it, I was hoping we could give a quick summary of it. And the second part was kind of about,
similarly, how can people merit or condemn to hell when, to a certain extent, almost everyone can have mitigating circumstances where they don’t fully know or understand their own simpleness. So, where it might not merit a… I guess what’s that level of symptomacy?
Be a mortal sin, not necessarily a being a female sin. Right.
Okay, yeah, two excellent questions, Matthew, and thank you for them. So, with regard to my article for Catholic Answers magazine online, the title of the article is “Doesn’t Hell Make God an Unjust Tyrant?” And so, I deal with this question of the temporal nature of the sin with regard to the duration of the action, the sinful action itself, and the eternal punishment. For some, the eternal punishment seems to be disproportionate to the temporal or finite duration of the sinful behavior itself. But in response to that sort of critique or objection, we can say that judgment is not based on the duration of sin, but the gravity of the fault. And also, the gravity of the fault is going to be determined by the dignity of the person whom you’re offending. Right? And so, with regard to the duration of sin, for example, it takes only a few seconds to take the life of an innocent human being. And yet, most people of good will would recognize that even though that crime only took a few seconds, that murderer can be detained in prison for a very, very, very long time. And so, notice there the nature of the punishment, the duration of the punishment, even though disproportionate to the duration of the crime, we still acknowledge that the punishment itself is proportionate to the crime given the gravity of the crime against an innocent human being. And the same would be true with regard to a mortal sin, which involves the rejection of God and anything that’s consistent with the love of God in grave serious situations. And so, the gravity of the fault, namely the separation, the self-exclusion of the individual from the love of God, merits an everlasting punishment. But I think, Matthew, here’s the key for the everlasting portion of that punishment.
Notice that a grave serious fault involves separation, self-exclusion from the love of God.
After death, that separation from the love of God is fixed. It remains forever. Okay? And that just follows from the metaphysics of the choice of an incorporeal being like a soul or even an angelic being. And for further information on that, you might want to check out Ed Fazer’s article, “Does God Send You to Hell?” I think the title of it is on his blog. But the fault involves separation from the love of God. Separation from the love of God is fixed for the rest of that soul’s existence.
And so, therefore, that soul, insofar as it’s forever separating itself from the love of God, merits proportionately for itself forever punishment. And so, you can see how the forever part of that punishment follows from the soul being fixed or remaining in its self-exclusion from the love of God. So, as long as you got the crime, you got the proportionate punishment. You got the crime of separating itself from the soul separating itself from the love of God. And so, you’re going to have the proportionate punishment of torment for the rest of its existence. And so, that’s one way in which we can show or reconcile or let me retract. That’s one way in which we can argue for the justice of an everlasting punishment for a finite duration of a sinful behavior. Now, with regard to your second question, how can people go to hell with regard to not having a true understanding? Or is there room for a lack of sufficient knowledge such that one does not incur mortal sin? And the answer would be yes.
The church teaches, Matthew, in its teaching on the distinction between venial and mortal sin, that in order for an individual to incur the guilt of mortal sin, which means destroying charity in the soul and separating itself from God, full knowledge, along with full deliverance and consent, are necessary. So, if someone is not responsible for his or her lack of the full knowledge concerning the gravity of the offense, well, then, that individual would not incur the guilt of mortal sin. And if that individual dies, that individual would not go to hell because the only thing that sends someone to hell is death in the state of mortal sin. And so, to speak to your question specifically, yes, it is possible that someone can lack sufficient knowledge that’s necessary to incur the guilt of mortal sin. Even for a grave serious offense against God’s law, even though you might have, objectively, the grave matter, the behavior itself being seriously wrong, the individual might not be meeting those other conditions on the subjective level in order to merit the guilt of mortal sin.