Eternal but diminishing punishment

[AnthonyB]

What if both glorfication and punishment are both eternal but opposite each other....

Punishment in hell is eternal but the puishment is that you decrease in who you are, never actually ceasing but constantly becoming less as death and destruction increases in you. Part of what therefore decreases is your ability to suffer. The worse you sinned the greater are the appetites and evils that eat away at each other and therefore the longer that you will suffer.

This would maintain the symmetry between eternal life in heaven and eternal punishment. It would allow suffering experienced to be proportional to wickedness. It would mean that punishment is not infinite but still eternal.


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The asterixes are on a curve approaching the bottom line but never reaching it. As time passed the person in hell decreases, never ceases to fully exist but part of the punishment of hell is a decrease is in all that they are including their ability to suffer.
 

[AVZ]

What if both glorfication and punishment are both eternal but opposite each other....

Punishment in hell is eternal but the puishment is that you decrease in who you are, never actually ceasing but constantly becoming less as death and destruction increases in you. Part of what therefore decreases is your ability to suffer. The worse you sinned the greater are the appetites and evils that eat away at each other and therefore the longer that you will suffer.

This would maintain the symmetry between eternal life in heaven and eternal punishment. It would allow suffering experienced to be proportional to wickedness. It would mean that punishment is not infinite but still eternal.


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The asterixes are on a curve approaching the bottom line but never reaching it. As time passed the person in hell decreases, never ceases to fully exist but part of the punishment of hell is a decrease is in all that they are including their ability to suffer.

Mathematically this is a moot question.
In an infinite situation, there is no bottom line and neither is there a top line.
Hence the ability to suffer always is infinite.

[B-man]

Interesting idea.  I don't think avz's point holds up, though; it places God in a subservient role to His created universe.  Seems to me He within His power to create the conditions laid out in the op if He wants  to.

At least the decreasing affliction idea is an attempt to solve the tension naturally imposed by the contradictory term "eternal punishment".  Punishment by definition is corrective, so adding "eternal" to it is incoherent.  The logical conundrum that it fails to address is that imposed by the idea that God will restore all creation to perfection as in the beginning (1Cor 15:28), a pretty orthodox idea.  If there are people separated from Him then He can never bring all together into a final state of glorification...there's always going to be that dark, nasty place (hell) where imperfection yet exists.  Only universalism is able to overcome these tensions.

[fish153]

Interesting idea.  I don't think avz's point holds up, though; it places God in a subservient role to His created universe.  Seems to me He within His power to create the conditions laid out in the op if He wants  to.

At least the decreasing affliction idea is an attempt to solve the tension naturally imposed by the contradictory term "eternal punishment".  Punishment by definition is corrective, so adding "eternal" to it is incoherent.  The logical conundrum that it fails to address is that imposed by the idea that God will restore all creation to perfection as in the beginning (1Cor 15:28), a pretty orthodox idea.  If there are people separated from Him then He can never bring all together into a final state of glorification...there's always going to be that dark, nasty place (hell) where imperfection yet exists.  Only universalism is able to overcome these tensions.

The whole universe supposedly exploded out of an incredibly small piece of matter.  Many scientists believe it is possible it could all implode back into itself one day.  What if God created the Universe---time and space--to destroy evil once and for all----and once it implodes, God will keep it as a marble in a jar?  It will exist eternally, but will be so small almost no one will notice it. And there it will sit for eternity in God's marble jar---a whole universe of evil compacted into a small speck of matter forever and ever.

Just a thought.  lol

[B-man]

What if God created the Universe---time and space--to destroy evil once and for all----and once it implodes, God will keep it as a marble in a jar?  It will exist eternally, but will be so small almost no one will notice it. And there it will sit for eternity in God's marble jar---a whole universe of evil compacted into a small speck of matter forever and ever.

Another interesting idea.  Same problem as diminishing punishment, though, in light of God's apparent plan to restore literally all to perfection: evil, even the size of a marble, would tarnish an otherwise perfect universe.  Besides, why keep it around at all?  Someone would just be tempted to jump start it and get it going again....

[Lady At The Well]

Wouldn't the concept of eternal punishing preclude omni-benevolence?

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Not if you deserve it.

[SkyWriting]

Wouldn't the concept of eternal punishing preclude omni-benevolence?

If you kill a handful of pregnant women, would you like for those memories
to just go away when you get to the next life?

How about, you remember what you did....but you never feel any remorse?  Is that better?
How about, you feel bad for a few minutes, but your memories fade very quickly?

Which do you feel is healthiest for you?

[garee]

Another interesting idea.  Same problem as diminishing punishment, though, in light of God's apparent plan to restore literally all to perfection: evil, even the size of a marble, would tarnish an otherwise perfect universe.  Besides, why keep it around at all?  Someone would just be tempted to jump start it and get it going again....

According to the letter of the law, what the natural eye sees is condemnation: "Thou shalt not"—and the wages of sin is death.

Under the sun we presently experience the sufferings associated with sin and death. But yoked together with Christ, the burden is made light because faith looks beyond present suffering to the promised hope.

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." — Matthew 11:30

That hope goes beyond what the letter can accomplish. Paul said:

"But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." — Romans 7:6

The letter and Spirit are two different kinds. The letter exposes sin and condemnation; the Spirit gives life.

"For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." — 2 Corinthians 3:6

And Scripture shows the final end of death and hell:

"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." — Revelation 20:14

Notice what is finally being destroyed: death itself and hell itself.

They are not preserved somewhere as a little marble of evil that might someday start another creation of suffering. Their judgment is final. They belong to the former order that passes away.

Then comes the promise:

"And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." — Revelation 21:4

And even the former troubles will no longer dominate the mind:

"The former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." — Isaiah 65:17

So God's answer to evil is not to preserve a little piece of it forever.

Death and hell themselves die.

The instrument of condemnation has finished its work. The former things pass away, never to rise up and destroy God's creation again.

The second death is the death of death.

And the death of death is the beginning of life where death can never reign again