Christianity: An Addiction of Violence Masquerading as Love: Part III

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Blase Pascal, Roman Catholic Theologian 

 

This is part three of a look at an article by Fr Emmett Carter entitled "God's Punishment is Just, Restorative, and Medicinal." (https://catholicexchange.com/gods-punishment-is-just-restorative-and-medicinal/) Yeah, like hell it is!

According to Carter, "The love that man is seeking is primarily the love of God." He then goes on to explain that "the secret, then, of our truest, deepest, only perfect love is in being Godlike." And what does it mean to be "Godlike," according to Cater: "But God by nature must love Himself supremely, above all else." So the Christian is therefore called to love themselves, or their own Christian ideals, above all else? Are they called to a spiritual Narcissus?

Carter goes on to explain that being Godlike also means doling out punishment as God would, and with all the confidence that doing so is what God requires of "believers" to save themselves from the eternal fires of torment for failing to do so. This was why fire was used to burn witches and heretics, since hell and purgatory are, according to the Bible, places where souls are tortured and purified with fire. As Carter explains:

"But punishment that is part of a truly Christian education not only is not harmful but positively beneficial. The condition is, however, that it be truly in accordance with Christian principles. This involves the general background of love that we have just described. It also involves the proper use of punishment itself. That proper use we would sum up as follows: To be as Godlike as possible in administering punishment. When God punishes there are always several factors involved. The first and perhaps most fundamental of these is that the punishment is always objective, that is, based entirely upon the guilt of the offender."

And how does the Christian know that the guilt is entirely that of the offender? Simple: anyone who chooses to NOT accept Catholicism as the "one infallibly true faith" is simply choosing to offend the Catholic God, and is therefore entirely guilty, objectively speaking, and deserving of whatever punishment the Catholic God desires - such as eternal hell. And since the Catholic Church has declared itself to be "infallible" in matters of faith and morals, there can be no more objective truth than this. Between the study of physics and theology, the former is a waste of time, and the latter all that matters, evidently.

 Carter then goes on to explain that the Christian is called to torture for God, when God requires it, and always to show their love of God is greater than their desire to avoid acting like either the BTK killer or Abraham to Isaac. As Carter explains:

"The mystery of pain in the world has always puzzled even the most submissive of God’s children and the most illuminated by grace. It seems like a contradiction to say that God is omnipotent and that He loves us and at the same time admit that He has created a world in which we suffer so cruelly. And when it comes to the question of being obliged, ourselves, to inflict suffering on others under guise of punishment, we sometimes wonder even more and tend to rebel.

"Let us take as an example the problem of punishment. The Christian abhors the concept of pain for pain’s sake, but a look at the world tells him that the surest guarantee of future pain may be its avoidance here and now. The “spoiled” child, overshielded against pain, may be the one who will ultimately suffer the most. The child must be taught that misbehavior, even carelessness, will bring with it pain and suffering." 

Carter's reasoning was precisely the reasoning using by St. Augustine that eventually led to both the burning of witches and heretics alike across Europe and America, and also the antisemitism that led to the holocaust in Germany. As Augustine explained in 408 CE, in a letter to Vincentius, Bishop of Cartenna and a Donatist:

“Let us learn, my brother, in actions which are similar to distinguish the intentions of the agents …. In some cases both he that suffers persecution is in the wrong, and he that inflicts it is in the right. In all these cases, what is important to attend to but this: who were on the side of truth, and who on the side of iniquity; who acted from a desire to injure, and who from a desire to correct what was amiss?”

Augustine went on to argue that since “our motive is Christian love," torture and punishment are simply the means by which we therefore “love the sinner and are concerned for his salvation." Hence, he continued, "we must not ignore any methods, however distasteful, when seeking with a mother’s anxiety the salvation of them all.” In short, if we must act like Torquemada or the BTK killer to save God's children (and mostly ourselves) from God's wrath, than that is justification enough to do so. 

After all, Augustine continued, “What then is the function of brotherly love? Does it, because it fears the short-lived fires of the furnace for a few, therefore abandon all to the eternal fires of hell?” Thus, any amount of violence and torture in this life is easily justified by Augustine as always being infinitely preferable to the eternal flames in the next. Those burned as witches and heretics, by this reasoning, will only be overjoyed to greet their tortures and executioners in heaven, since it was those same torturers and executioners who saved said "witches" and "heretics" from suffering for eternity the same fate that ended their miserable sinful life here on planet earth.

 

 Hence, coercion was not seen by Augustine as being intrinsically right or wrong; but as depending upon “the nature of that to which he is coerced, whether it be good or bad.” Talk about the epitome of moral relativism!

 

Like Augustine, Carter is making the very same argument in this essay today that the Christian has a moral obligation to use punishment and torture to "correct" those who disobey their brand of "God" beliefs. And if they fail to do so, they are putting a love of something else, even themselves, above their love of God (even though Carter said we are called to be "Godlike," and God can do nothing but love himself above all else - yeah, don't try to figure that one out because its a "mystery of faith). And by doing that, the Christian therefore makes themself "entirely responsible" for the punishment they can expect to receive in this life, which is temporary after all, or the next, which is eternal.

 

How then can the Christian avoid being tormented by God in the after life, or by Christians in this life? Simple: agree to join God's team and torture and punish for God, rather than being torture and punished by those claiming to be working for God. For Augustine, the former are all saints, while the latter are fully responsible for their suffering 

 

 According to Augustine and Carter, as such, every Christian is limited to two choices. They must choose between being subject to or inflicting temporary punishment here on earth, which can only be seen as "just"  if one is willing to fully believe in the brand of Christian dogmas as infallible truths, and can only be seen as "restorative and medicinal" if there is not only the Christian sort of god but also an afterlife in which only heaven and hell are our lot. 

 

Or they must choose an eternal punishment for any Christian who dares to put respect for people's "free will" to live their lives as differently and freely as they wish, in which such "eternal punishment" can only be seen as "just, restorative, and medicinal" if we really believe that a person exercising the gift of their own "free will" is so offensive and injurious to the God who designed them in such a way that God can only recover from such an injury by torturing those who have caused that injury forever, and ever, and ever. 

But if eternal torments are in anyway required as punishment to be considered just, than there is no way for such punishments to ever be defined as "restorative and medicinal," because if they were they would not require eternity. Eternal punishment, in short, is evidence of an eternal wound that never heals.   Why did God make people who could cause him such eternal wounds that only eternal torment would suffice to balance the cosmic scales of his love for us? No one knows. But more importantly, from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church, or Carter, or Augustine, no one cares.

What matters is who is required to torture who to save themselves from being tortured for all eternity for failing to be Godlike in one's willingness to torture others. And all of this is defined for the Christian, much like the cross itself, as "pure love." By this standard, Jack the Ripper looks like Don Juan on a mission from God.