(November 4, 2022 at 4:14 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(November 4, 2022 at 12:27 am)AFTT47 Wrote: This seems like a no-brainer to me. Of course a person may "atone" for his or her crime. It would be illogical to declare that once a person has done evil, it is not possible that they might reverse their ideological position and regret their earlier action. You might want to hold them accountable for their earlier crime, demand the payment of some kind of restitution. But it makes no sense to cut-off any avenue of them ever making things right.
This is the "justice" vs. "revenge" thing.
Justice has some utility but revenge has none at all.
I disagree about revenge having no utility. I don’t know if you’ve ever carried out an act of revenge, but it feels really good.
Boru
The most important feature of the Christian hell concept is the platform where Christians get to stand over the suffering damned and say, "SEE, WE TOLD YOU SO!"
Summa Theologica - Thomas Aquinas
Question 94. The relations of the saints towards the damned
Article 1. Whether the blessed in heaven will see the sufferings of the damned?
Objection 1. It would seem that the blessed in heaven will not see the sufferings of the damned. For the damned are more cut off from the blessed than wayfarers. But the blessed do not see the deeds of wayfarers: wherefore a gloss on Isaiah 63:16, "Abraham hath not known us," says: "The dead, even the saints, know not what the living, even their own children, are doing" [St. Augustine, De cura pro mortuis xiii, xv]. Much less therefore do they see the sufferings of the damned.
Objection 2. Further, perfection of vision depends on the perfection of the visible object: wherefore the Philosopher says (Ethic. x, 4) that "the most perfect operation of the sense of sight is when the sense is most disposed with reference to the most beautiful of the objects which fall under the sight." Therefore, on the other hand, any deformity in the visible object redounds to the imperfection of the sight. But there will be no imperfection in the blessed. Therefore they will not see the sufferings of the damned wherein there is extreme deformity.
On the contrary, It is written (Isaiah 66:24): "They shall go out and see the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against Me"; and a gloss says: "The elect will go out by understanding or seeing manifestly, so that they may be urged the more to praise God."
