If there is life after death, then punishment after death matters. If there isn't any, then what matters most is the expression of punishment in this life, which is also sufficient if death is the end. So whichever choice you make you still have consequences.
I pointed out in this thread that the sin that is "unforgiven" is the hardening against the way the universe works (e.g. to preserve life), and that's on logical grounds. Every moment you get to harden yourself to truth or to be open-minded and pursue truth, and the hardening yourself is its own sufficient punishment. The person who meets truth and pushes back is already being punished in finding that things in this universe don't work and people recognize him as a bully, loser, or other failure in his pushback. That natural consequence is why most people most of the time have a common grace of wanting to at least appear to be true and doing the right thing, because it works better among humans and also in nature.
So you're right that when one kicks against learning the consequence is that one is illiterate. Over the course of a life we see potential for those consequences reaching a point of no return, and there are some people we consider as unforgivable, gone too far, "sold-out souls". If hell exists it's just the continuation of that, and even if it doesn't the natural way this known universe works is sufficient to explain the phenomenon of unforgiveness (and the deep potential for forgiveness of severe sins as well).
If your point is that in the case of afterlife punishment one can take the risk that it's just a sham, my answer was that there are enough natural consequences to bad behavior in this life that they suffice.
You suggest that some bad actors apparently go unpunished, and one could also infer that if, say, sodomy was so wrong then there would be more negative natural consequences (besides some relatively easily avoided diseases). Yes, all kinds of people make all kinds of innovations, sometimes improving on common morality to everyone's agreement, and sometimes trying new things that the majority disapproves; and we might argue that the disapproved innovations don't get the "smite" treatment lately.
This is not a proof that the universe won't stop immorality or that it's unjust. Because Blue, logically, either there is no universal justice (meaning there's nothing "unjust" about the person you disapprove getting off scot-free in your humble opinion); or there is universal justice (meaning that whatever that justice is really will happen and our own thinking that justice has been deferred or sleeping is the real error). You don't get it both ways by saying injustice exists (meaning people get away with junk) and justice doesn't exist (meaning we have no duty to do right ourselves).
It's not me imposing my will any more than it's you imposing your will on real bad actors (like pedophiles). It's us working together to learn how the universe really does work. If the universe has lots of loopholes where what is called bad really does go unpunished, let's learn the universe's true loopholes so we can best pursue our enlightened self-interest! Could there be some good in sodomy after all?
Did I say people can repent in hell? No. But it doesn't matter because, whether the dividing line is death or some later confirmation, if there is a point of no return then there is a risk of loss. (If there is never a point of no return then everything is fixable and we're Origenist universalists.)
(You may be thinking of purgatory, which is much more complicated, but for which Catholics still admit there is a point of no return and purgatory doesn't cross it.) Your critique of the universalist model is actually in line with the majority of church testimony, not opposed to it as you suggest.
I've had to have a handle on the vast evils that have happened over world history because your basic theodicy arguments (existence of evil, unobserved tree) come up again and again here. I daresay you might be underestimating how evil it is. Now keep in mind: it's your judgment that these things are not being fixed and also will never be. You judge from the limited perspective of what you can see, as do I. But the universe, as you note, goes on to permit these things to accumulate for centuries without apparent justice to our eyes.
This still presents us the same dilemma that you haven't chosen a side of. "if nothing in the known universe that we can observe can stop evil", then your human judgment that good exists has no basis in reality because you would have defined the nature of reality as having no consequential distinction between good and evil. On the other side, every time you say it should be a certain way, justice should fall upon the wicked, you define the nature of reality as having some real and consequential distinction, and you indicate that life does have meaning and that meaning is to find that justice wherever it may be found, and to amplify it until all these unsolved murders are resolved.
Until you decide whether your perception of good does or does not reflect something external to you, your conflict will remain. Either it's merely human and therefore no better than anyone else telling you what to do, tooth and claw, or it's real and thus we can participate in the healing for the evils we have observed. I invite you to join me in the latter quest, it's exciting and inspiring and I will either achieve universal justice or heroically die trying.
If there is life after death, then punishment after death matters. If there isn't any, then what matters most is the expression of punishment in this life, which is also sufficient if death is the end. So whichever choice you make you still have consequences.
I pointed out in this thread that the sin that is "unforgiven" is the hardening against the way the universe works (e.g. to preserve life), and that's on logical grounds. Every moment you get to harden yourself to truth or to be open-minded and pursue truth, and the hardening yourself is its own sufficient punishment. The person who meets truth and pushes back is already being punished in finding that things in this universe don't work and people recognize him as a bully, loser, or other failure in his pushback. That natural consequence is why most people most of the time have a common grace of wanting to at least appear to be true and doing the right thing, because it works better among humans and also in nature.
So you're right that when one kicks against learning the consequence is that one is illiterate. Over the course of a life we see potential for those consequences reaching a point of no return, and there are some people we consider as unforgivable, gone too far, "sold-out souls". If hell exists it's just the continuation of that, and even if it doesn't the natural way this known universe works is sufficient to explain the phenomenon of unforgiveness (and the deep potential for forgiveness of severe sins as well).
If your point is that in the case of afterlife punishment one can take the risk that it's just a sham, my answer was that there are enough natural consequences to bad behavior in this life that they suffice.
You suggest that some bad actors apparently go unpunished, and one could also infer that if, say, sodomy was so wrong then there would be more negative natural consequences (besides some relatively easily avoided diseases). Yes, all kinds of people make all kinds of innovations, sometimes improving on common morality to everyone's agreement, and sometimes trying new things that the majority disapproves; and we might argue that the disapproved innovations don't get the "smite" treatment lately.
This is not a proof that the universe won't stop immorality or that it's unjust. Because Blue, logically, either there is no universal justice (meaning there's nothing "unjust" about the person you disapprove getting off scot-free in your humble opinion); or there is universal justice (meaning that whatever that justice is really will happen and our own thinking that justice has been deferred or sleeping is the real error). You don't get it both ways by saying injustice exists (meaning people get away with junk) and justice doesn't exist (meaning we have no duty to do right ourselves).
It's not me imposing my will any more than it's you imposing your will on real bad actors (like pedophiles). It's us working together to learn how the universe really does work. If the universe has lots of loopholes where what is called bad really does go unpunished, let's learn the universe's true loopholes so we can best pursue our enlightened self-interest! Could there be some good in sodomy after all?
Did I say people can repent in hell? No. But it doesn't matter because, whether the dividing line is death or some later confirmation, if there is a point of no return then there is a risk of loss. (If there is never a point of no return then everything is fixable and we're Origenist universalists.)
(You may be thinking of purgatory, which is much more complicated, but for which Catholics still admit there is a point of no return and purgatory doesn't cross it.) Your critique of the universalist model is actually in line with the majority of church testimony, not opposed to it as you suggest.
I've had to have a handle on the vast evils that have happened over world history because your basic theodicy arguments (existence of evil, unobserved tree) come up again and again here. I daresay you might be underestimating how evil it is. Now keep in mind: it's your judgment that these things are not being fixed and also will never be. You judge from the limited perspective of what you can see, as do I. But the universe, as you note, goes on to permit these things to accumulate for centuries without apparent justice to our eyes.
This still presents us the same dilemma that you haven't chosen a side of. "if nothing in the known universe that we can observe can stop evil", then your human judgment that good exists has no basis in reality because you would have defined the nature of reality as having no consequential distinction between good and evil. On the other side, every time you say it should be a certain way, justice should fall upon the wicked, you define the nature of reality as having some real and consequential distinction, and you indicate that life does have meaning and that meaning is to find that justice wherever it may be found, and to amplify it until all these unsolved murders are resolved.
Until you decide whether your perception of good does or does not reflect something external to you, your conflict will remain. Either it's merely human and therefore no better than anyone else telling you what to do, tooth and claw, or it's real and thus we can participate in the healing for the evils we have observed. I invite you to join me in the latter quest, it's exciting and inspiring and I will either achieve universal justice or heroically die trying.