Is it Just to punish an innocent man? Pt. 2

A continuation of the discussion from my previous post.

"Okay, but also after death we wouldn't experience time in any way right? Hell wouldn't feel like we are being tortured for a million years because to judge how much time has passed you have to be in time. All of eternity would feel like a moment."

Precisely. Hell is not like being tortured for a million years or more. Hell is existence separated from God and His Love, which is our teleological end. It is vastly worse than torture of any sort, because it is more painful, and there is no hope of it ending. As you said, it's like a moment.

"Also would God be able to make the afterlife temporal?"

Well, in one sense, the Purgatorial sense, He has. In that He has made it so that those who are not teleologically sundered from Him but also haven't completed their penance yet may undergo a temporal penance, but in every other regard, they are locked in. You don't get to make choices in Purgatory, your will is already locked in, just as it would be in Hell or Heaven. And in the Limbo of the Fathers (the posited state of existence wherein the patriarchs of Judaism and the just pagans who died before Christ existed while "waiting" for Christ to die and open Heaven), there may also have been some sense of waiting and thus time.

If we enter into the realm of pure conjecture, I suppose it is possible that God could. At least, I see no major reason why He couldn't. Whether He will, I don't know.

"Going back a couple posts 'It's like filling up an infinite chasm, only an infinite Being can do it.'
It seems to me that not only could only an infinite being fill up an infinite chasm, only an infinite being could create an infinite chasm. So where did this infinite chasm come from?"

Well, you're correct in that the existence of an infinite chasm requires something infinite. But as a chasm is a lack, a void, a negation of something that was, nothing "created" the chasm. What it's caused by, if we can use that term, or even better, what it is, is a separation. It's the infinite separation that occurs between us and God when we choose to reject Him. It's infinite because God Himself is infinite, in rejecting Him as completely as we can, we draw away and strip away the connection we had, which results in that void. The Passion and Resurrection of Christ was God filling that chasm and establishing a way for people to return to Him.

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm meant why doesn't God just forgive people who really regret their evil ways? Why does Jesus need to die? The people who aren't really sorry for their actions would not be forgiven."

I'd say Christ came and died for several reasons. First, I'd point out that Christ's ministry entailed a great deal more than His death, in such a way that we should remember His teachings are very important to understanding the nature of that Sacrifice, and precisely how God wills for us to live, ie good lives. Part of those teachings address heaven, hell, morality, penance, etc. which is why we Christians now have these beliefs. Christ also established a Church, an institution He created so that we'd have a living teacher we could go to with questions on faith and morality in His absence, as opposed to leaving us just a set of Scriptures such as most religions have, which cannot answer questions, nor interpret themselves for our sake. Part of those teachings and that Church was the establishment of Sacraments, visible means by which God's grace, particularly the Grace of forgiveness, are imparted to us. Christ came in His mission not just to die, but to leave us with teachings, an authority that would continue to teach for Him, and these sacraments which would serve to aid people in their spiritual journeys to God. All of these are immensely important when you consider the sort of doubt and interpretative difficulties that beset so many human undertakings and religions. Christianity is not immune, either, as we can see with the Protestant movements attempt to create a Scripture alone mentality.

What this means is that those people who really regret their ways now have an established, ordinary means by which they can repent, confess, receive absolution AND receive a penance that fits their sins and is tailored to accomplish what penance is supposed to accomplish. They also have a moral guide and arbiter which can let them know when they've done something wrong, and what actions to avoid in the future, so they know what they should be repentant for, etc. Quite important to have, I think you could agree.

Now, I'm not saying God doesn't or won't forgive those who really regret their evil ways. I, and the Church, believe that those who genuinely repent and come to Him will not be denied, assuming they are invincibly ignorant of Christ. Likewise, those without access to those Sacraments, but who accept Christ and repent, again, I expect and the Church teaches would not be turned away. God is not limited by the Sacraments.

Second, I would argue that Jesus needed to sacrifice Himself, and that that sacrifice entailed death, because that sacrifice was a response to all of sin. In Christianity, existence itself is good. Life is good. Being is good. We believe that it was sin, ie evil, the rejection of this good, that brought death into the world. This is what Samuel was telling you about, the "wages of sin." Christ had to die because His sacrifice's intent and design was to remedy this evil. He died that we might live, and by dying He conquered death. Again, recall the imagery of the chasm, the void.

When God created, there was no separation between God and Creation, all was good, all existed, all lived. Then, humanity separated itself from God, corrupting the good of existence such that while our basic existence remained, our lives were no longer eternal. The evil we committed negated the good of immortal physical life. We came to live a short span of years, after which our existence altered, even in one sense lessened, as we would continue to exist in Heaven or Hell or Limbo (of the Fathers) or Purgatory or whatever, but do so without a body. Human nature, originally, was still a commingling of the spiritual and the physical, which we call the soul. We are meant to have bodies. Existence separate from our bodies is not what we were originally meant for, and is part of why our bodies will be resurrected and perfected at Judgment and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ's resurrection is the very first instance of this, the very first filling of this chasm of death in God's Creation. Christ had to die because only the dead can be Resurrected and restored to the perfection of physical existence we had before the Fall. God filled the hole.