Illogicity of impunity in Divine Justice
"the certainty of a punishment, even if it be moderate, will always make a stronger impression than the fear of another which is more terrible but combined with the hope of impunity" (Cesare Beccaria)
In this chapter, we will examine the theory in the Christian Doctrine that God's justice could allow impunity if a person repents of their sins before death. First, we must consider that impunity is incompatible with the very concept of Justice, which is "the virtue which consists in giving to each one according to his merit" . Within any judicial system, if an individual commits an offense and is able to go unpunished, failing to answer for it, it can be said that there has been a failure in the application of justice. Therefore, we can say that impunity is completely incompatible with Justice.
Let us imagine the case of a dangerous criminal, who is captured after a lifetime of practice of heinous crimes, among them murder, rape, torture, etc. Suppose that, days before the trial, such a criminal "repents" of his crimes. Then the Judge, acknowledging his previous repentance, absolves him of all charges, simply because he has repented before it!
So the criminal would no longer have to answer for the deaths and rapes, everything would be absolutely forgotten. Let us answer this question: Would the Judge's decision be fair? Would Justice have been practiced? Of course not! And I say that if this happened in any city from any country in the civilized world, it would cause great revolt among the population of honest people, who would certainly feel wronged by such impunity.
Bringing this question to the religious level, Christian doctrines, which are based on the literal interpretation of the Bible, argue that a person, even though having committed the worst sins, should he or she repent (before his death) and "accept Jesus", would receive automatically the total forgiveness of all his or her sins, thus automatically gaining "eternal salvation"!
But by analyzing the matter strictly within the most basic concept of logic and justice, could we say that the pardon of the criminal, exempting him from any kind of punishment or reparation for his crimes, would be fair? The answer, if it is sincere and free from attachment to any religious dogma, will obviously be No! Now, if we could not accept such conduct as fair in a human and imperfect judge, how could we admit the same conduct from the Great Universal Judge? Defending this thesis would be to place Divine Justice at a much lower level than earthly justice.
If that were the case, it would be very simple to mislead the Divine Laws. The worst murderer could then quietly live his reign of crime, postponing his repentance and his "conversion" to the final moments of his life, thus ensuring his "place in heaven", where he would enjoy all eternity, alongside of those who really deserved it, guaranteed for a few minutes of regret before being judged.
The justification would be that "God practiced forgiveness!". But let us ask: Why should God, in order to practice a virtue (forgiveness), need to override another virtue (justice)? Or why would God, to practice Justice, have to give up forgiveness?
Let us analyze both situations:
1. God would condemn a person forever because this person made mistakes during his life, and did not repent before death. So God would be applying justice, but not forgiveness!
2. God would forgive a person because, although this person committed the worst crimes during his life, he repented before his death. So God would be applying forgiveness, but not justice!
In both situations presented above, to practice one virtue, God would have to abdicate another. But if God, the supreme perfection, fails in any of His virtues, failing to practice it even for a thousandth of a second, then such virtue would have a limitation; it would cease to be infinite. If this were so, then God could no longer be considered perfect, because He would cease to have a virtue in an infinite degree
If God is perfect, all His virtues have an infinite degree, and so He is perfect enough to practice them in all their fullness, without one being able to disable or cancel the other. This is the conception of a truly "perfect" God.
In the classic work "An Essay on Crimes and Punishments”, published in 1764, which changed the world legal view and is studied to this day, we find the following text: "the certainty of a punishment, even if it be moderate, will always make a stronger impression than the fear of another which is more terrible but combined with the hope of impunity" (Cesare Beccaria)
And in fact: The idea of an "eternal punishment", that is, people burning in the "hellfire" for all eternity, as preached by traditional Christian religions, imposes on people a great "fear", but the prospect of impunity ends up in a certain way nullifying such fear, because it would not matter how much evil a person practiced in his life, he would always have the chance to go completely unpunished and escape from condemnation, just by repenting before death.
Logical argument analysis
Premise 1: Divine Justice is Perfect.
Premise 2: Impunity is completely incompatible with the concept of justice.
Conclusion: Divine Justice could never allow impunity, because, if it did so, it could not be considered Perfect.
To refute the above argument, we would need to demonstrate that at least one of the premises is false, or that the premises do not lead to the conclusion, that is, we would need to do at least one of the following:
1. Demonstrate that 1st premise is false: We would need to show that Divine Justice is not perfect and therefore could have flaws, which goes against the concept of an infinitely perfect God,
2. Demonstrate that 2nd premise is false: We would need to show that it would be possible to reconcile "impunity" with "justice", which is not admissible because, by allowing impunity, we would be violating the very concept of justice, which is “giving to each one according to his merit". Therefore, when there is impunity, it is impossible to say that there is Justice.
3. Demonstrate that the premises do not lead to the conclusion: It is not possible to question the logical inference between the premises, because if Divine Justice is perfect (premise 1), and impunity is incompatible with the concept of Justice (premise 2), we can unequivocally deduce that Divine Justice could never allow impunity, or it would be imperfect.
Therefore, the above argument can be considered valid and consistent, because its premises are true and there is a logical inference between them that lead to the conclusion, demonstrating the illogicity of the theory that defends the existence of impunity in the Divine Justice, when a person would stop responding by his mistakes for having repented.
Reincarnation = Perfect Concept of Justice
Reincarnation is extremely logical and in its precepts we cannot find any kind of inconsistency or contradiction. From the point of view of Reincarnation, we observe that God's Law does not allow impunity, because no one can ever escape the Law of Cause and Effect. Like the Law of Gravity and other physical laws that govern the universe, the Law of Cause and Effect is an infallible Universal Law to which we are all subject. If the Divine Laws are infinitely perfect and wise, it is not necessary for God to be interfering, punishing, or condemning people.
In Allan Kardec's book "Heaven and Hell", one of the books of Spiritist Codification, we find the "Penal Code of the Life to come", which talks about the moral rehabilitation of the spirit:
“16. Repentance is the first step towards improvement; but repentence, alone, is not sufficient to deliver the wrongdoer from the consequences of his wrongdoing; to affect this result, expiation and reparation are also necessary. Repentence, expiation and reparation, are the three conditions necessary for the effacing of a fault and the suppression of its consequences.
Repentance mitigates the sufferings of expiation, because it opens the door to hope and paves the way to rehabilitation; but it is only reparation that, by destroying the cause of our suffering, can annul the suffering which is its effect; the granting of a free pardon to the wrong-doer would be merely the granting of a favor and not an annulling of the cause and consequences of his wrong-doing
29. The mercy of God is, undoubtedly, infinite; but it is not blind. The guilty one whom He forgives is not exonerated from the necessity of making reparation for his evil deeds; and, until he has paid his debt to justice, he continues to undergo the consequences of those misdeeds. The assertion that the mercy of God is infinite must be understood as meaning that the Divine Justice is not inexorable, and that it always leaves the door open to the prodigal who has returned into the homeward road.”
The above passage shows the Infinite Mercy and, at the same time, the Infinite Divine Justice. Repentance is really the first step to be taken by the one who made a mistake, but if it was enough to just "repent" and no reparation was required, God would be Merciful, but not Fair. He would be practicing forgiveness, but not justice. Thus, even the worst criminal would always have a chance to go unpunished, provided he repented "until the last minute", which was shown to be totally illogical and incompatible with the Perfection of Divine Justice.
If there was only one life, there would be no possibility of applying a perfect Justice, since those who were eternally condemned would never have any possibility of redemption and recovery (Finite Forgiveness), and those who were forgiven due to repentance would go to heaven without settling their debts with Justice (Impunity). It would be two opposing situations, both radical and unfair: "Eternal punishment" or "total forgiveness," which would place God as a being subject to failures in his virtues.
From all that has been mentioned above, we can conclude that Reincarnation is the only doctrine capable of presenting a precise, perfect, fair and infallible Divine Law, in which God applies both Justice and Forgiveness: In reincarnation, people will be redeeming themselves from every mistake committed in the past (infinite justice) and, at the same time, enjoying a new chance (infinite forgiveness). In this way, God is fair while being merciful. His virtues are really endless.