Hell and the Principle of Proportional Justice

This is a brief follow-up to my article with the inexcusably long title “Do three-year-olds deserve to be tortured eternally in hell? Apparently, Ligonier Ministries thinks so. And they’re alarmed at those who disagree.” In the comments section, Fraternite commented as follows:

“From your perspective, why wouldn’t or shouldn’t God overlook a person who sinned only once their entire life and was the template of justice otherwise?

“I’m no Calvinist, but it honestly seems to me that you have some sort of issue with the very idea that sin necessarily requires death at all; I don’t think LM [Ligonier Ministries] is offbase at all here from a traditional small-o orthodox perspective.” (source)

This comment provides a good opportunity to say a bit more on the topic. The underlying issue is the principle of proportional justice (PPJ) according to which, in layman’s terms, is defined as the punishment must fit the crime. PPJ is a fundamental principle to guide fairness in the exercise of punishment. For example, it is assumed in the principle of lex talionis according to which a retributive punishment should reflect the offense in kind and intensity: in other words, an eye for an eye.

In their survey, Ligonier Ministries assumes that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation. In my article, I was aiming to argue that this position violates the PPJ.To be sure, I did not state this explicitly, but I assumed it would be sufficiently clear simply in virtue of pointing out the manifest absurdity of torturing a toddler for eternity for a single offense. If it is unjust to torture a toddler for a single indiscretion then it is false that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.

Traditionally, the most common way to reconcile the claim that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation with the PPJ is found in the following argument:

(1) Every sin is ultimately a sin against God.

(2) Sin against God warrants infinite punishment (i.e. never-ending, maximally intense physical and mental torture).

(3) Therefore, every sin warrants infinite punishment.

I’m not going to bother refuting this argument here. But I will challenge anybody who thinks that premises (1) and (2) should be accepted as part of essential Christian doctrine (or “traditional small-o orthodoxy”) to make their case.

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