Reward and Punishment
Our world is too limited by human mortality for there to be any possibility of absolute justice. This calls for the existence of an unlimited world. So, we can only seek true justice in the eternity of the Afterlife.
Take the case of 34-year-old Gerson Viloria, a Filipino Treasury clerk, who had a case registered against him for forgery. After lengthy court proceedings, he was held guilty in 17 cases by the judge, Mr Romeo M Escareal. Since Philippine law lays down ten years of rigorous imprisonment for each such crime, the accused was sentenced to 170 years of rigorous imprisonment and a penalty of $4,625. If he could not pay the penalty, his term of punishment was to be extended. (The Times of India, November 9, 1979).
The culprit at the time of sentencing was 34 years of age. Even if he lived to a ripe old age, there would still be about a hundred years left for him to serve. Therefore, in the eyes of the law, he would never fully expiate his crimes. Our world is too limited by human mortality for there to be any possibility of absolute justice.
In a similar case in Thailand, a case was filed against a policewoman, Mrs Phenphanchong Imsap, who had been posted in the frontier region of Pelchabun, where she was in charge of the registration office for foreigners. The court found her guilty of earning $25,000 illegally over 17 years by accepting bribes for registration. She was then sentenced to 1000 years of rigorous imprisonment, with no possibility of being released on parole or granted mercy. In the judge’s view, such punishment would be a preventive to others.
This policewoman was not going to stay alive for one thousand years to serve her full term, but since it was felt that a criminal’s punishment should be in direct proportion to the magnitude of her crime, this verdict expressed the court’s desire for absolute justice.
In the present world, no judge, however well-intentioned, can hope for anything more than partial justice in a large proportion of the cases he presides over. If to expiate his crimes, a criminal must serve a prison term of 1000 years; his death will provide him with an escape route. This inevitable reality calls for the existence of an unlimited world in which man is granted so long a life that he can never escape the full consequences of his deeds. Since, in human terms, this is an impossibility in the present world, we must seek true justice in the eternity of the Afterlife.
