Divine Punishment as a Problem in Theodicy
by Roberta Allen
What is Divine Punishment?
In asking what does it mean to say God punishes, we are approaching a problem of hermeneutics. As McFague says, in order to understand a biblical text appropriately and with any degree of accuracy, the basic metaphors must be taken into account. The major problem is, as McFague states,
That texts are interpretations by speakers and that hearers come to the texts with interpretative frameworks of their own by which they prejudge what a text means. Hence, the total interpretive situation of a text is a complex triad of speaker, text, and hearer in which many possibilities are present for misunderstandings, differences of opinion, varying interpretations, and revisions of previous interpretations.(1)
When a 'nature' metaphor such as fire is used, it is appropriate at any stage of history. The nature of fire does not change and its purpose remains the same. (2) The same can be said of human emotions, love and wrath for example; also of family relationships, mother, father, husband, wife, etc, But punishment is a juridical metaphor and belongs to a certain context. The language of the law court pervades the Bible, but the Hebrew law court differs from the Graeco-Roman law court, which in turn differs from contemporary law courts. In view of this one could plead a case for cultural relativity and abandon the search for meaning, but I wish to argue that present understanding of punishment may throw as much light on divine punishment as do ancient ones.
In the last section I suggested that divine punishment is a metaphor and that metaphors have two important characteristics, tension and interaction. In this section we will try to discover if there is any tension in the biblical understanding of divine punishment and also to see if ideas of human and divine punishment interact. We will examine biblical and traditional ideas of divine punishment and subject them to some of the philosophical criticisms usually directed at human punishment. More time will be spent on the retributive theory as this is the most popular understanding of divine punishment. As we follow the development of the theories of punishment from the original retribution to present day theories, we will see how ideas of human punishment have affected our understanding of divine punishment. Because human theories of punishment are at the same time justifications of punishment, we will also attempt to determine whether punishment can be justified or whether it is in some sense evil. The answer to this question might have repercussions for theodicy.
Divine punishment as retribution
The initial understanding of divine punishment was through the concept of retribution. Eichrodt states:
It was in keeping both with the living justice element in the terms of the covenant, and with the basically rational character of Israelite thought, that men sought to elucidate Yahweh's juridical activity by means of the fundamental principles of human retributive punishment. Above all it was by applying the maxims of the talion that they tried to illustrate God's irreproachable righteousness.(3)
The lex talionis, the 'law of retaliation' (eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth), is not in itself the same as 'retribution', but it is commonly thought to be. (4) The lex talionis is, however, one aspect of what is now understood as the 'theory of retribution', that is, the notion of commensurate desert.
Scholars have suggested that the lex talionis represents an advance in ancient penal policy; E. Moberly says that the idea of only a tooth for a tooth replaced the idea that it was fitting to knock out every tooth a man had in return for one tooth knocked out. (5) However, while it is one of the most well known prescriptions in the Bible, Towner suggests that there is only one case in the entire Bible in which the law is applied by one man against another, namely, Judg. 1:7. (6) In the Israelite legal system it appears that compensation or restitution was the preferred method of dealing with offences. (7) The principle lex talionis apparently being preserved primarily for describing God's way of dealing with people.
It may be how one would like to imagine God deals with people but there are some examples in the Bible which put rather a large question mark over the lex talionis ideal. The story of the children taunting Elisha is one such example.
He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. (8)
As J. Garrison puts it, what is unfathomable about the wrath of God is that it is not commensurate with the evil done. For a finger, it seems as if God seeks a hand, or even an arm. (9) Perhaps the solution to God's 'injustice' can be found by returning to the metaphorical nature of religious language.
In the discussion on metaphor we saw that the tension, the 'it is and it is not' quality, is the most important characteristic of a metaphor. This is the characteristic of a living metaphor but the tension is lost when the metaphor dies. When a religious metaphor dies it is necessary to recapture the tension and I suggest that the seemingly inexplicable, arbitrary, and unjust actions of God provide one aspect of the necessary tension in speech about the way God punishes. Thus the tension of metaphorical speech is not only contained within one word or phrase but also in contradictory statements. Another aspect of the tension can be found in Wisdom literature, especially Ecclesiastes and Job.
Nearly every discussion of Job begins with a statement of how the book deals with the most profound of subjects; the question of why God lets good people suffer. The answers given to this question are various. Job's 'friends' suggested that his suffering was the deserved punishment for sin, either deliberate or inherent. They also suggested it might be disciplinary. The opening and closing chapters imply it was probationary, a testing of Job's piety. Other answers include: Man is man and God is God. Man must accept the conditions of his existence, whatever they are. The latter may either be seen existentially or as a prescription to surrender to the sovereignty and mystery of God. Kushner suggests the conclusion points to the implication that God has limited omnipotence.(10) Few are inclined to take the view that Job's suffering is arbitrary and morally meaningless.
The book of Job, however, is not an affirmation, it is on the contrary a firm denial. It denies the accepted doctrine of retribution and with it the lex talionis applied to God. The answer Job is seeking is only secondarily concerned with innocent suffering. Job has two problems which are distinct but closely interrelated. The first is, given that Job is innocent and yet is suffering, what is God's attitude towards him; does it involve evil intentions or good? This is the personal, faith element. The second involves the question of the justice of God vis a vis what is thought to be the justice of God. This is the theodical element. The former is answered while the latter is left ambiguous.
'Wisdom' is not simply one particular kind of teaching, it has its various schools just as philosophy and theology, and Job represents a debate within them. Job, in this respect, is an attempt to explore the notion that God runs the world in accordance with the principles of prudential ethics. It is in this sense almost anti-theodical. If Job does in any sense offer a theodicy it is, as Eichrodt suggests, by way of rebuilding it on the basis of creation. (11) But it is not clear whether this is the intention of Job. Job is the primary 'is not' of the metaphor of God dealing with men retributively.
This message of Job's, however, was a warning that was not heeded and the justification of God by a theory of retribution remained dominant. Or it could be said that Job's attempt to discredit it actually encouraged a new retributive theory, one that extended the retribution into an afterlife, which is the theory used in the New Testament. However, the message of the New Testament, with its emphasis on grace not merit, should also be seen as a negation of the theory. Specifically Christ himself denied the retributive theory in the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Labourers in the Vineyard. If rewards are not given because they are deserved there is no reason why punishment should be inflicted if it is deserved.
Wisdom, in the sense that it attempted to find the true nature or unity of experience, is a key to why the doctrine of retribution continued. Two great theologians who have influenced how Christian theology has developed, Augustine and Aquinas, have themselves been influenced by 'wisdom type' philosophies. Their fundamental answer to why God punishes is based, like wisdom's retribution, on what is believed to be the inherent nature of things, the order of the universe. And, again like, wisdom's retribution, was initially based on moral precepts which developed into metaphysical realities.
Augustine rejected the dualism of Platonism and Manicheaism in the interests of the unity of Being and experience. Following Parmenides, Augustine developed the doctrine of privatio boni. However, although evil was of a negative origin its presence was not to be denied and sins resulting from the evil will in man had to be punished. But because eternal punshment might be thought to be a form of eternal evil Augustine argued that the punishment of sin was a good. He says:
Sin, which is a culpable misuse of freedom, is not allowed to mar the perfection of God's universe, because the balance of the moral order is preserved by the infliction of appropriate punishment. A universe in which sin exists but is precisely cancelled out by retribution is no less good than a universe in which there is neither sin nor punishment ... the penalty of sin corrects the dishonour of sin.(12)
This understanding was continued in Aquinas:
...the order of justice belongs of the universe and this requires that penalty should be dealt out to sinners. And so God is the author of the evil which is penalty, but not of the evil which is fault.(13)
Thus, the idea of moral balance appears to be a reassertion of the lex talionis, but on a cosmic scale.
Philosophical critique of retribution
Some of the ideas seen in divine punishment as retribution will now be examined from a philosophical viewpoint.
The fundamental basis of retributive divine punishment is the notion of desert, which itself is closely related to justice. As the book of Job implies and T. Honderich explicates, if someone says a man 'deserves punishment'
The claim is that his penalty is in accordance with a certain system of penalties...[this claim] involves a form of the fallacy of petitio principii. Very simply, he argues that punishment is justified in a particular case because it is justified in all cases of this kind. But exactly this is what is in question.(14)
Honderich continues by pointing out that retribution is a particular application of a general principle of justice, namely, that equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally. (15) This principle would be satisfied, he notes, if we were to punish those who do not deserve it and not punish those who do. (16) As a principle it would also have to apply to all of life and not only to that part to which punishment pertains, but Honderich suggests it is not true of our societies that their members are at any time equal. Honderich says that given our societies as they are the general principle would direct us in at least a great many cases to the conclusion that we ought not to punish offenders. (17) This notion could be contrasted with Calvin's which maintained, presumably also on the basis of equality, that all men deserve punishment.
The 'moral balance' aspect of retribution was taken up and developed by Hegel, whose philosophy of absolute idealism is grounded in the presupposition of the rational structure of the world. His theory is that punishment has the consequence of restoring a moral principle which itself has a kind of independent 'spiritual' or 'personal' reality. This is quite difficult to understand but Hegel's theory has been reinterpreted, by F.H. Bradley, W. Temple, and W. Moberly, to express the idea that punishment is a reaction of the community against conduct that weakens it. That is, the function, or one of the functions, of punishment is to repair the damaged order of society. Punishment symbolises society's judgment upon behaviour that disqualifies the offender from being part of that society, It does not deviate far from this view to say that society's condemnation of the offender can be seen as expiatory or propitiatory. However, the same ambiguity surrounds these notions in the context of human punishment as it does in the controversial New Testament text Rom 3:25.
On a slightly more mundane level Honderich suggests that such claims imply that a man is rightly punished because his punishment brings satisfaction to others. In particular, but certainly not exclusively, it satisfies desires of the person or persons he has offended against. (18) This may not be a popular thought but at least it is consistent with experience.
Honderich is correct in saying that retribution is an application of a general principle of justice. And perhaps retributive punishment could be justified if this principle could be proved, but putting this principle into a realm of 'actuality' is only attempting to derive an is from an ought. Furthermore, God is not even just by these standards for, as Bevan says,
If, by the principle of justice, God wills that the doing of evil should issue in pain for the doer, how is God not unjust if, by forgiving, he wills that this nexus between sin and pain should be broken, that the sinner should be freed from the painful consequences of his sin?(19)
Wherever we get our ideas of justice from it is not by analogy from God's justice, whatever that is. And this in fact was what Job was saying all along. Retribution, it seems, is exactly what Bentham said it is, that is, an act of vengeance. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (20)
Divine punishment as a deterrent
As Eichrodt suggests, expressing how God punishes was possibly influenced by ideas of human justice. It is equally possible that our understanding of divine punishment in turn influenced how we punished, that is until this itself was questioned in the eighteenth century when as Rowell observes,
Many became uneasy about a doctrine [hell] which was so clearly retributive in an age whose understanding of punishment was increasingly influenced by the theories of Bentham and the Utilitarians with their emphasis on deterrence and reformation(21)
Bentham rejected the idea of hell because it seemed to be evil and also because it was, in his understanding, obviously not successful; it did not deter people from committing sins or crimes.
It is difficult to distance ourselves from an idea which is part of the way we now understand punishment, but one might argue that the fact that hell was rejected rather than any suggestion made that it was solely deterrent or reformatory might imply something about the deterrence theory as an ideal. Either the doctrine of hell and divine punishment could not be adapted to Bentham's deterrence theory, possibly because there is not enough scriptural evidence, or deterrence was recognised, even if only subconsciously, to be an equal if not worse evil.
However, some people do think that the descriptions of God's wrath in the Bible are intended as deterrents. Philo said the attribution of anger to God is pure fiction (basically because he though God was immutable), but it is a useful fiction, in so far as sinners can be frightened by it. (22) Origen said God knows that fear is a powerful motive in keeping men from sin. (23) A. Heschel implies that the prophets were 'utilitarians' when he says,
The divine intention, according to the prophets, is not primarily retributive, to impose penalty in consequence of wrongdoing; but rather deterrent, to discourage transgression by fear of punishment; and reformatory, to repair, refine, to make pure by affliction.(24)
Wenham maintains that fundamentally we are all Cains at heart, who would willingly kill our enemies if there were no deterrents. He suggests that God's early painful judgements are warnings lest a man allow himself to be destroyed in the final judgement. (25) In his discussions of conditionalism Wenham says, "conditionalists regard their doctrine as providing a more effective deterrent than the traditional teaching, on the ground that the latter is incredible to those who hear and is simply not believed." (26)
If God is thought to be loving and good any attempt to discourage transgression by fear of punishment could be interpreted as a contradiction of his nature. A loving and good God uses persuasion not threats. If, on the other hand, God is thought to be coercive this would not matter. If God is thought to threaten us as a father threatens his children, it could be argued that children respond better when they are rewarded after they have done something well rather than either being bribed or threatened before. Rewarding after is using positive retribution for conditioning good behaviour, and while it may not be any more moral than the alternatives at least it does not lead to resentment on the one hand or wrong motives on the other. As E. Moberly says, in theory a reward should point to the innate quality of goodness. (27) The same theory applies to punishment. Eichrodt seems to agree with this theory, he suggests that the purpose of a prophet's threats is to be found not in the deterrent element but
In the fact that they bring the impact of the divine reality to bear on the sphere of moral conduct ... "That the righteous God is to be taken as God seriously and unconditionally", and is not to be treated as a harmless bogeyman ...(28)
Furthermore, as Heschel says, "The prophets, however, discovered that suffering does not necessarily bring about purification, nor is punishment effective as a deterrent." (29)
Both Heschel and Wenham mention the efficacy of deterrence, and in any theory the efficacy is ultimately what counts. As C. S. Lewis notes, "We demand of a deterrent not whether it is just but whether it will deter." Arguments against the deterrence theories usually include the notion that it would be equally justified to 'punish' innocent people if it deterred them and others in the future. C. S. Lewis says:
If the justification of exemplary punishment is not to be based on desert but solely on its efficacy as a deterrent, it is not absolutely necessary that the man we punish should even have committed the crime. The deterrent effect demands that the public should draw the moral, 'If we do such an act we shall suffer like that man.' The punishment of a man actually guilty whom the public think innocent will not have the desired effect; the punishment of a man actually innocent will, provided the public think him guilty. (30)
If deterrence is used only as a threat, to be efficient the threat must be carried through if necessary, but, as the book of Jonah illustrates, God tends not to carry out his threats. However, the idea of hell probably does deter some people from some sins, but while, as we shall see later, fear is the feeling that the idea of hell is intended to bring about, it is not meant to bring about a fear of the consequences.
Most people will agree that punishment as a deterrent if taken in isolation from desert is or could be evil, however, deterrence is usually combined, if not with desert then almost certainly with rehabilitation, to which we now turn.
Divine punishment as rehabilitation
That divine punishment is disciplinary or remedial is not so much formal doctrine as it is an answer to the problem of why God permits or imposes suffering. Divine 'discipline' in the Bible is summed up by the author of Hebrews who quotes Prov. 3:11 - 12
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him who he loves, And chastises every son whom he receives (Heb. 12:5-6)
The early fathers, Clement and Origen, explained divine punishment thus: Clement says:
If like the 'deaf adders' (Ps. 58:4) they will not listen to the song...let them be disciplined at the hand of God, enduring paternal correction before judgement, until they be ashamed and repent, and not incur the final condemnation by stubborn unbelief....But our chastisement by Providence has been that of children by a teacher or father. God does not take vengeance, which is the requital of evil for evil, but he chastises for the benefit of the chastised. (31)
Origen prefers to see God as a doctor:
God acts in dealing with sinners as a physician... the fury of his anger is profitable for the purging of souls. Even that penalty which is said to be imposed by way of fire is understood as applied to assist a sinner to health ... (32)
There are two poles to 'rehabilitation': one is education and the other is treatment. They are closely related but can be used to serve two different traditions of theology. Education is forward looking and progressive and suits an 'evolutionary' theory while the treatment model relates to both the past and to the future. In the medicinal analogy the purpose of the pain imposed is to repair the fault, but it also points to a healthy future life; this analogy would suit an orthodox position. While these two poles may be used to serve different traditions their common denominator is love. Hick has used the 'educational' model in his theodicy and we will compare his model with that of the rehabilitation theory of punishment.
Hick suggests that man is brought into being within the evolutionary process as a spiritually and morally immature creature. He says that human personality is developed through challenge and response and suggests that this can be verified by the fact that with regard to intellectual development this is a well established principle in the modern educational process. Therefore, says Hick, we may assume that in a world devoid both of dangers to be avoided (for these it is possible to read punishments) and rewards there would have been virtually no development of the human intellect and imagination. Similarly, in a world in which there was no pain or suffering there could be no moral choices and hebce no possibility of moral growth and development. (33) Hick explains that the randomness of suffering is necessary because, on the one hand, if it was proportioned to desert morality would inevitably be replaced by prudential self interest. (34) If, on the other hand, innocent suffering could always be seen to work for the good of the sufferer,
In such a world human misery would not evoke deep personal sympathy or call forth organised relief and sacrificial help and service. For it is presupposed in these compassionate reactions both that the suffering is not deserved and that it is bad for the sufferer. We do not acknowledge a moral call to sacrificial measures to save a criminal from receiving his just punishment or a patient from receiving the painful treatment that is to cure him. (35)
It is interesting to note how Hick, although not in the sense we intend it, brings together the notions of 'just punishment' and 'painful treatment' in a discussion of the educational aspect of innocent suffering. Dare we assume that Hick equates them? If he does not he at least seems to accept an element of discrimination against some unfortunate individuals. In the discussion of the deterrence theory it was noted that the lack of a guilty person to use as an example opens up the possibility of the use of an innocent person. Here Hick seems to be saying that it is good that innocent people do suffer with the result that others learn compassion. It is not merely a possibility that innocent people will be used; it is a necessary condition that innocent people are used. There also seems to be a contradiction here because if it is presupposed that the suffering is bad how can it be in any sense good, which is what Hick is trying to prove.
So far we have only seen Hick's answer to innocent suffering in this life, but he also makes a suggestion about 'guilty' people I am assuming they are guilty because Hick is speaking of them being penalised. Hick says death, as the moment of absolute significance,
Has to be criticised in light of modern, biological, psychological and sociological knowledge. The conditions of a person's life as these are determined by his biological inheritance and by the influence of the family and the wider social matrix upon his early development, are often such as to make it virtually impossible that God's purpose for the individual will be fulfilled in this life. It would thus be intolerably unjust for such a victim of adverse circumstances to be eternally penalised. (36)
I suggest that Hick's God of love would probably know this and take it into consideration. However, Hick has another comment to make about 'hell'. He says,
Even if the divinely ordained suffering which we call hell were purely retributive it could not in equity be an eternal and therefore infinite penalty. But surely we may infer from God's love that it is remedial and is part of the long, complex, soul-making process by which God is fashioning children who shall freely love him and one another. (37)
Hick's theodicy was developed during the period in which rehabilitation was the 'ideal' of penal policy. The similarities between Hick's theory and contemporary penal theories may be coincidental but, as it has already been noted, the understandings of human justice and punishment have seemed to influence our understanding of God's ways with man.
Hick seems to believe that man has freewill but that this, in many cases, is overridden by man's immaturity and 'adverse circumstances'. The facts that man is immature and that outside causes play upon him mean that he is not entirely responsible for his volitions. Hence it would be unjust to penalise him. But it would be both kind and just, in other words, the action of the God of love, to educate him. The view may be compared with the 'rehabilitative ideal'. K. Bottomley states:
In an important article, written in 1959, Francis A. Allen set out the main tenets of what he first termed the 'rehabilitative ideal':
It is assumed, first, that human behaviour is the product of antecedent causes. These causes can be identified as part of the physical universe, and it is the obligation of the scientist to discover and to describe them with all possible exactitude. Knowledge of the antecents of human behaviour makes possible an approach to the scientific control of human behaviour. Finally,...it is assumed that measures employed to treat the convicted offender should serve a therapeutic function. (38)
In a rehabilitation theory punishment is justified because it provides an opportunity for us to take steps to reform offenders and so reduce offences. In Hick's theory 'natural evil' is justified both as the condition for and the mode of the learning process, as is 'purgatory'. The learning process will eventually lead man to perfection and in the process will reduce moral evil.
However, the 'rehabilitative ideal' has recently collapsed in penal policy. It has collapsed because it is theoretically faulty, (it implies that criminal behaviour has its roots in the deficiencies of the individual's biological and psychological make-up and his upbringing, etc.), is systematically discriminatory in application, and inconsistent with some of our most basic concepts of justice. (39) A.E Bottoms says the basis of the criticism of the rehabilitative ideal is that it is essentially coercive in nature. He suggests that many adherents of the ideal blinded themselves to this coerciveness in the false belief that benevolent intentions preclude a coercive result. (40)
Divine punishment as an evil
It has been attempted in this section to discover what is meant by divine punishment. Traditionally, retribution is considered to be the theory of divine punishment. However, we have seen that the Bible offers a negation of this theory, or at least an 'is not' of the metaphor. Turning to the utilitarian theories, we have seen that if there is a deterrent element to divine punishment it is of an ambiguous nature and is not used much in traditional teaching. However, the other utilitarian theory, rehabilitation, has been used. Because the traditional doctrine of hell has been out of favour, rehabilitation, in the sense of education or treatment, has been used as the theory of divine punishment. The new 'hell', which is similar to the idea of purgatory, is not thought to be a problem for theodicy which the traditional hell certainly was.
However, by looking at the philosophical justifications of punishment it is noticeable that all three theories have weak points, especially if taken in isolation. Honderich asks, "Does it follow that punishment ...lacks moral justification?", and replies, "The short answer is yes." (41)
There is no adequate justification which therefore means that punishment, whether human or divine, is in some sense, as Flew defined it, an evil. Divine punishment is an action of God and, as stated above, God's action cannot be separated from his being. Therefore, if an action of God is in some sense evil so is God's nature or being. This being rather a radical statement needs some explanation. Here it will be necessary to return to the insights gained from the discussion on metaphor.
The main purpose of metaphor is to say something that cannot be said in any other way. We saw how the metaphor fire could say a lot of different things about God, but one of its primary uses was to express the wrath of God. Fire says something that wrath, as a human emotion cannot say. Fire already holds within itself a tension, somewhere expressed as a 'come close and stay away' tension. Wrath,on the other hand, is a human emotion which can issue in action, namely punishment. When applied to God it should say 'God does and does not punish', and it should convey a similar meaning as does fire. Whatever else was intended to be filtered out in the metaphor punishment one element that was intended to remain was fear.
Whoever has the power to judge and therefore, whether directly or indirectly, to inflict punishment, also has the power to have mercy. The fear with which one approaches the judge can thus be seen as similar to the fear of God, which Eichrodt describes as an oscillation between repulsion and attraction. (42) Job dared to take a step nearer the judge than most with the result that he cried out, "I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42:6. C. Jung suggests that although Job was looking to find justice in God what he in fact found was good and evil existing in unity: that God is an antinomy - a totality of inner opposites. Jung says that in the light of this realisation Job's knowledge attained a divine numinosity. (43)
Several modern scholars have taken such a monistic step, (44) sometimes for theodicy and sometimes in spite of it. But McFague, whose metaphorical theology led me to this conclusion, would, it seems, reject it. McFague contends that one of the criterion for a metaphorical theological system is that the models in it must be of a similar or complementary type. She says:
...the models of God as father, protector, healer, saviour, and their theological elaboration into the doctrines of creation and redemption are of a piece. They "fit together" in such a way that one could not imagine also calling God jailer, destroyer, or devil. Hence, diametrically opposed or contrary models cannot be introduced into a theological system ...(45)
McFague, in this statement, undermines the system she has so brilliantly developed. The whole point of metaphorical theology is to maintain a tension, and to recapture the lost sense of awe, wonder, and mystery. Having diametrically opposed models, or integrating them in antinomy, maintains the tension and recaptures the numinous. The second criterion in metaphorical theology, according to McFague, is the ability of models to cope with anomalies, the most constant and serious anomaly being the question of evil. (46) The question of evil is bound to be an anomaly in any theological system that rejects all the models that do not fit. McFague says no models of God should be absolutised, but this, in one sense, is what she is trying to do by having only complementary models.
Another important aspect of metaphor is its interactive characteristic. At the beginning of this section it was said that we would attempt to discover what effects this interactive element has had on our understanding of divine punishment and vice versa. Rowell has noticed a connection between our understandings of human punishment and divine punishment, but I have only found one other scholar who has even come near to this idea - U Gorman. Gorman has noted the tendency of human morality to change through the centuries from authoritarianism to utilitarianism and finally, to a lesser extent, to hedonism. He says this evolution tends to make the theodicy problem more intricate but it is offset by the fact that the prevalent Christian doctrines have tended to change from the orthodox type to the liberal. (47) Gorman, however, does not make any connection between the two as I am attempting to do.
It is likely that in the past concepts of divine punishment affected how humans punish but it is out of the scope of this dissertation to examine this aspect. However, it has been discovered that human theories of punishment, at least in the last two centuries, have affected our understanding of divine punishment. The last of these theories is what C.S Lewis called 'the humanitarian theory of punishment' and it could be said that theology is also going through a humanitarian period. More recently, criminologists have noted what they have called 'the collapse of the rehabilitative ideal'. I will now examine how this could affect our view of divine punishment, our understanding of the nature of God, and theodicy.
Notes
Books are referred to by author's surname in upper case; articles by author's surname in lower case. Full publication details are given in the footnote when the work is not in the Bibliography .
2. McFague takes J. Macquarrie to task for attempting to translate "God is light" into "Openness is constitutive for being". She says 'light' has always been a primary metaphor and like other 'nature' images, including fire it does not die or grow irrelevant, for it is rooted in the most basic of creaturely existence. McFAGUE p.118.(Back)
4. The term 'retaliation' is commonly understood as an exact payment in kind for an evil deed done. 'Retribution' can refer both to good and to evil consequences or responses to deeds done. It may or may not be determined according to the simple principle of 'measure for measure'. TOWNER p.27(Back)
6. This excludes the standard death penalty and refers only to non fatal bodily injuries for which an offender receives a like injury. TOWNER p.31(Back)
7. See TOWNER p.30; cf. WENHAM pp. 103-7(Back)
11. See EICHRODT pp.489ff.(Back)
12. Cited in HICK (EGL) p.93.(Back)
13. Cited in HICK(EGL) p. 103(Back)
20. Deut. 32:35; Rom 12:19; Heb 10:30(Back)
24. A Heschel, The Prophets, (London: Harper row, 1969), p.187(Back)
29. Heschel op. cit., p.188 He cites Jer. 5:3 2:30 as examples(Back)
31. H. Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers (Oxford: O.U.P. 1956), p.182(Back)
35. HICK(GUF) p.60 cf. (EGL) pp.370-1(Back)
36. HICK(GUF) p.192 I am aware that Hick is talking about death as being the moment of absolute significance and means that nothingof significance can happen afterwards. But I included this passage to show how Hick backs up his theological arguments with scientific 'facts'.(Back)
37. HICK(GUF) p.73 Hick says his theodicy is not adequately represented by the idea of a final reward to compensate eventually for every present injustice. The idea of compensation suggests a just proportion between present suffering and future happiness. The key is not compensation but perfecting. DAVIS p.152(Back)
38. K. Bottomley, Criminology in Focus (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979) p.125(Back)
44. e.g., P. Roth, F. Sontag, J. Garrison, J. Russell, and G. Jantzen.(Back)