We all understand the justice argument against hell: The idea that God might decide that a wicked person's sins merit everlasting conscious punishment offends our sense of justice.
Do even Hitler's sins merit never-ending conscious punishment for all eternity? We know that the WTBTS takes an annihilationist view of the "everlasting" punishment described by the Bible. They teach that there is no separate "soul" or "spirit" that survives physical death and that the ultimate fate of the unrepentant wicked is annihilation by Jehovah. Let's assume for the sake of argument that they are right. Is this justice? Over the years, the WTBTS has flip-flopped on whether or not these wicked people will be resurrected for purposes of judgment or whether they simply will remain dead with no hope of any sort of resurrection. Let's look at various possibilities. Possibility #1: The unrepentant wicked will not be resurrected at all Under this view, the wicked person dies, his thoughts die with him, and he simply goes out of existence forever. No heaven. No paradise earth. No hope of a resurrection. Under this scenario, Hitler receives exactly the same fate as the unrepentant thief who died alongside Jesus or some other unbeliever whose sins were minuscule compared to the Fuhrer's. We would rightly abhor a human judge who handed out same-punishment-for-all-offenders sentences and called it justice. Possibility #2: The unrepentant wicked will be resurrected, condemned by Jehovah, then immediately annihilated The difference in this scenario is that the condemned person actually is forced to face his sins and guilt and hear directly from God that he has thrown away his chance for everlasting life. However, Hitler is still treated exactly the same as the unrepentant thief. Hardly justice. Possiblity #3: The unrepentant wicked person will be resurrected and given a second chance Since Jehovah knows everything, he knows whether or not the person would ultimately repent if given a second chance. If he knows that Sinner X will NOT repent even then, why resurrect him and give him a second chance? Isn't that a false hope for the offender? Won't he just sin all the more? Possiblity #4: The unrepentant wicked person will be resurrected, punished for an appropriate time and degree, and then annihilated This has the advantage that there are differing degrees of punishment so that the punishment actually fits the crime. However, under this approach Hitler lives much longer than most other sinners. Doesn't Ecclesiastes 9:4-5 say that "a live dog is better than a dead lion"? In order to make up for this longer life, the degree of punishment would have to be quite severe. Hitler would have to suffer very deeply for a long time. This sounds a great deal like "torment." Even then, Hitler comes to the same ultimate end as every other unrepentant sinner -- nothingness. So the real individualized justice comes in the amount and duration of conscious punishment, not in the annihilation. But Under This Scenario, Why Should the Person be Annihilated at All? Assuming a person's sins merit less than hell (everlasting conscious punishment), his sins merit a finite punishment. Even Hitler's. 6,000,000 years maybe -- one year of conscious suffering for every person he murdered. Or perhaps 1,000 years for every person he murdered. Whatever God decides. Whatever the length and severity, in order to be true justice, the person's punishment would have to fully pay for his sins. But if a person undergoes a finite punishment that fully pays for his sins, why is he being annihilated? Why isn't he released at the end of his sentence and allowed into heaven or a paradise earth, just as our judicial system releases a person who fully serves his sentence? So does annihilationism really provide justice?