Hell

OUR FATHER, HELL AND HEAVEN : M. M. NINAN
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At issue is the punishment due sin.
Since pride conceals the sinner's true debt to God the Judge, again this question should be answered
by examining Christ's priestly work of propitiation. At the cross God in Christ became our substitute to
bear the punishment for our sins, so as "to be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in
Jesus" (Rom 3:26; cf. 2 Col 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24). The God-man propitiated our sin. This fact, that God
the Judge, the "Lord of glory" himself (1 Cor 2:8), accepted the punishment due us, suggests that the
penalty for sin against the Infinite is infinite.
Anselm's argument is as follows:
Because God is infinitely great, the slightest offense against him is also infinitely serious; and if an
offense is infinitely serious, then no suffering the sinner might endure over a finite period of time could
possibly pay for it. So either the sinner does not pay for the sin at all, or the sinner must pay for it by
enduring everlasting suffering.
The answer to the above are given as follows:
Why should the greatness of the one against whom an offense occurs determine the degree of one's
personal guilt?
"How could any sin that a finite being commits in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and
illusion deserve an infinite penalty as a just recompense?"
(see Adams 1975, 442; Kvanvig 1993, 40–50; and Talbott 1999b, 151–156). .
Further punishment, whether it consists of additional suffering or a painless annihilation, does
nothing in and of itself, to cancel out a sin, to compensate or to make up for it, to repair the
harm that it brings into our lives, or to heal the estrangement that makes it possible in the first
place not even for God It is a revenge and provides for the egoistic satisfaction of a God in
terms of His own Kingship.
Augustine's explanation is that: “Man … produced depraved and condemned children. For we were all
in that one man, since we were all that one man who fell into sin” (City of God, Bk. XIII, Ch. 14) that is
the original sin.
Exodus 20:5-6 (also Dt 5:9)
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers
to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand
generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Deuteronomy 24:16
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their
fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
Ezekiel 18:20
The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the
guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will
be charged against him.
Neither does it justify God's decision to permit the wrongdoing in the first place
In that case why was this choice given to Adam in the first place? That would mean that we are born
guilty and that we all deserve everlasting punishment on account of having inherited certain defects or
deficiencies of no fault of ours.
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