I used to love reading the book of Revelation. It"s probably because it"s what the church taught me, what Hal Lindsey wrote about, and what the Left Behind series majored on. And one of my three pastors spent one entire year teaching on that damned book! But, it appealed to my psyche to see Jesus come riding in on a whire horse and issuing forth vengence and retribution to the bad guys. The scales of justice must be balanced!
There"s just one problem with that scenario. It"s not what Jesus taught, nor who He said God was! :-)
Lady Justice (the Roman Goddess of Justice) is an allegorical personification of the moral force that underlies the legal system. If you believe that let me show you the statics of guilty pleas between the rich and the poor. Since the Renaissance, Lady Justice has frequently been depicted as a bare-breasted woman (fundamentlists cover her up of course- can you say John Ashcroft?) carrying a sword and scales, and sometimes wearing a blindfold. Her modern iconography frequently adorns courthouses and courtrooms where there is not much justice!
St. Jerome (331-420) believed in punishment, but not ETERNAL punishment and said, "In the end and the consummation of the Universe all are to be RESTORED into their originbal harmonious state, and we all sahll be made one body and united opnce more into the perfect man, and the prayer of our savior shall be fulfilled that ALL may be ONE."
Origien (185-254) believed that ALL would be saved, after some form of temporary punishment. And it got him branded a heretic. Welcome to the club all you who believe that God is LOVE!
For me punishment without purpose is perversion!
We punish our kids not to induce pain but to bring correction and restoration. Can"t God be at least as loving as we are? Can God ask ut to forgive everyone and yet He can"t? What"s up with that line of reasoning? One of the difficulties with the ALL will eventually be redeemed (after a time of divine judgment) is who you have to include in that ALL category. Some men look at their ex-wives as Satan and vice versa. Surely they can"t be redeemed.
Even Origen and St. Jerome believed that Satan himself would be redeemed. I guess that"s only a problem for those who have literalized the metaphors of which I"m not one.
For me JUSTICE does not trump LOVE! For those that want revenage, pack back, retribution, fairness, and all that doctrinal theology, someone must PAY! And thus the Old Testament God is into genocide! And then finally, I have a hard time with the definition of JUSTICE: "eternal punishment for temporal sins". I think even lady justice would drop her scales and even her clothes if she wasn"t already naked (sorry Ashcroft). Don"t look. Don"t tell.