There is no strict duty to reward a person who has done a supererogatory thing. Otherwise, engaging in generosity would be a way of imposing a duty on others.
But punishment is the flip side of reward. Hence, there is no strict duty to punish a person who has done a wrong.
Of course, supererogatory action makes a reward fitting, and likewise wrong action makes a punishment fitting. But in neither case is the retributive response strictly required by justice.
8 comments:
Interesting argument, but is God not obligated to punish evildoers?
I don't think so.
Don't acts of generosity sometimes impose duties? It seems that if somebody does something generous for me, I might at least have a duty to thank them. Consider: God performed an act of supererogatory generosity in creating us. But it seems wrong to say that, because the act was supererogatory, we don't owe God a debt of gratitude.
Good point! You're right: communicative responses can be required. But I don't think we should say that more is required by mere gratitude.
(This also creates problems for views on which duties to God and parents are grounded in obligations of gratitude.)
Whether a task is supererogatory to the job or obligatory to the job depends on the job (another way of saying, "depends on what the job-assigner has stewarded them to do"). There is no such thing as a "strict duty" floating independently of one or more job-assigning entities.
When my daughter cleans the room without being stewarded to do so, I give her a reward, and according to my stewardship of fatherhood, specifically, that to reinforce charitable behaviors in my child. The job-assigners here include myself, my spouse, my children, my community, God, etc. If I failed to reward her (with praise, a quarter, etc.) I would be failing my stewardship. Imagine a father neglecting a child's supererogatory act!
With evildoers, there is an expectation that they be held accountable. The job-giver is the victim (et al) who stewards this job to the justiciary enforcement power. Hence the myriad complaints in Scripture that God is neglecting his job against the wicked, followed by promises & hope that he'll eventually come through.
Stan,
I'd be careful with the notion of created beings acting as "job-givers" with respect to God. It is true that Scripture contains complaints against God, and promises of divine justice; however, Scripture is also clear that God himself is the primary party wronged by any given sin (see e.g. Psalm 51:4). There is no hint in Scripture that created beings have any kind of authority to impose requirements on how God exercises his retributive power. Of course, it's possible that I've simply misunderstood you, and I apologize if that is the case.
Any time God makes a promise to someone, he entitles that person to expect him to make good. This is a kind of condescension and grace from God, but it does indeed allow people to hold God to an obligation (to "pay up"), and the Lord recognizes this stewardship dynamic through the Prophets.
This does not contradict how Scripture talks about how God owes us nothing because he created us and everything we are and everything we enjoy -- such would be repayment in the sense that we did favors for God and whatnot. Rather, it is God's very condescension as an expression of his abundant love that he has given us the right to not just depend on him, but **count** on him, as any child job-gives to a good father.
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