The One Good Reason for Punishment

Hey, how would y'all feel about me double-dipping a small homework assignment and a blog post? What's that? You don't mind? Great. Here we go.

Oh, and here's the homework prompt, for reference:

DB #1: According to a Bible scholar, “We find in [the narrative accounts of the Creation and the Flood] a virtual chain of events depicting a world governed by a God who holds the people of His world responsible for their actions.” In your original post, discuss whether or not (and why or why not) it is crucial in everyday life to hold people responsible for their actions.

The God of the Old Testament is often seen as being terribly vengeful. Jesus Christ of the New Testament is seen as being very forgiving. As with many things, I think that the best answer is found somewhere in the middle of the extremes, though I suppose my exact answer to this question depends on how we are holding others responsible for their actions, and why.

If our aim is merely to punish people for their wrongdoings, I’m not sure I see the point. Making someone suffer because they made a poor choice is not, in my opinion, a sufficient end unto itself. For any punishment to be warranted, there must be another aim in mind than merely retribution for justice’s sake.

Perhaps we could hope for rehabilitation. We could punish a person for their wrongdoing in hopes that said punishment will persuade said person to not repeat their wrongdoing. However, the first 22 chapters of Genesis don’t seem to set that example. By the time Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17), it probably wouldn’t matter whether or not they did so again. Besides, the Cherubims with their flaming sword (Gen 3:24) probably never gave the two humans the chance. The other two most notable examples of punishment in our readings couldn’t have been attempts at rehabilitation either because, after the great flood (Gen 7:22) and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24-25), the wrongdoers couldn’t have been rehabilitated. They were dead.

The one good reason I can think of for punishing people for ill actions is prevention. Hopefully, the threat of punishment would be sufficient to prevent people from doing wrong. When it isn’t, we can hope that a reasonable (i.e. non-lethal) amount of punishment would convince the perpetrator to not repeat the crime. However, when all else fails, we might punish an unrepentant evildoer to the nth degree, hoping that the severity of the punishment would serve as a powerful deterrent for others. Abraham couldn’t save the Sodomites (Gen 18:25ff), but their legendary destruction may yet serve as a warning for the rest of humanity to not commit the same sins and thus not suffer the same fate.