Punishment substitution

[jack]

I was reading a short story with the premise that courts could sentence torture, but that this could be, and in some circumstances must be, mitigated by a substitution of someone else, generally a Mitigator -- someone employed for the purpose.

The story reminded me somewhat of Kushiel's Dart and Phedre, because the Mitigators were masochists, and there was some interesting portrayal of the interaction between them and the torturers and the convicts. However, the story seemed somewhat warped by the torture, with some unsavory assumptions imo, and the society wasn't as plausible as the premise could have made, so I won't talk more about it here.

But I was curious about the premise, when can someone else substitute for a punishment?

Sentences for crimes are generally justified in a few ways (mostly by a combination, occasionally someone says one is pre-eminent):

* Prevention -- lock someone up, or cut a hand off, or kill them, and they can't do it again.
* Deterrent to them -- don't do it again, or this'll happen to you.
* Detterent to others -- don't do it at all, or this'll happen to you.
* Justice -- a crime deserves a punishment, or it isn't fair.
* Consistency -- there are many ethical and practical reasons to sometimes make punishments consistent even at the expense of not matching the crime perfectly, to prevent unfairness between two cases, or prevent normally useless arguing about it.

Obviously there are lots of standard examples where only some of these apply, I won't go into here. And for any rule there exist extreme cases that have exceptions.

In our system, you can pay someone else's fine, or bail -- you couldn't be prevented. And that's about it, though you may be punished incidently, for instance, if a relation is locked up.

Would we ever lock you up in someone's place involuntarily? It could make sense -- if a spouse were reasonably assumed to know what you were doing, lock them up until you give yourself up, for instance. Though it gives me heeby-jeebies on the justice stakes (not one I normally invoke). Torture? Not so much, imho. And voluntarily?

Does it fit the checklist? Justice? Not really. Prevention? Definitely inferior. Deterrent? Somewhat -- most of the time, either no-one would volunteer, or a parent/spouse would bail someone out whatever they did, so it doesn't really work. Consistency? Could be arranged, especially if you feel justice is a quantity which must be preserved.

I wonder -- how does Jesus' crucifiction as normally told fit into this? Under which of the grounds was Jesus punished for other people's sins?

And if justice, is justice universal? If so, did God create it, or is it trans-universal? If not, how can this apply to all people?

Comments

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Personally I think penal substitution isn't just - and it would seem that modern society agrees with me as it is unheard of to punish someone for a crime they didn't commit.

Looking back on Christianity now that I'm no longer a Christian it is surprising that I didn't think about whether the doctrine of penal substitution was fair at the time.

[curig.livejournal.com]

Worth pointing out that penal substitution is by no means the only model of the atonement. Some of us would consider it to be a model in grave error.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

What explanation would you recommend?

[curig.livejournal.com]

Any explanation is necessarily a model and has its shortcomings. That said, I think that Christus Victor is a rather good way of talking about it. In that we say that essentially Christ on the cross does battle with death (and sin, which is its cause) and wins. Then at the Ascension (when Christ returns to heaven, 40 days later) he takes (our) humanity up into God. Death and sin are defeated and humanity is rejoined to God, from whom it had previously been separated.

[grumpyangel.livejournal.com]

I've been looking for resources for models of the atonement for ages...

I still don't get it, I have to admit

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I like it. Thank you for the link.

CUSFS found out recently that it's tradition of omnipotence of Reeve was not original, but invented. I sometimes have the same feeling: I hear too many people emphasising the absolute omnipotence of God (even beyond paradox) that it obscures that the crucifixion was *difficult* (if so), and he triumphed in it.

That said, I'm disturbed how much faith some people put in their interpretation, when it's not certain.

[curig.livejournal.com]

I hear too many people emphasising the absolute omnipotence of God (even beyond paradox) that it obscures that the crucifixion was *difficult* (if so), and he triumphed in it.

I agree. Nearly all theological language is, when you boil it down, a model of who God is and how he works, and has its limits. The omni- words, have, IMO, to be used carefully.

That said, I'm disturbed how much faith some people put in their interpretation, when it's not certain.

So am I.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I was an evangelical - so that's the version of Christianity I think is flawed (although I suspect the flaws run deeper than evangelicalism).

[curig.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree that evangelical Christianity has its flaws. I actually think it has quite a lot of them. And just about any tradition will also have its flaws; we're all human and we see through a glass darkly.