As usual you miss the point.
Does temporal punishment exist? Do people suffer in this life? Yes or no? Yes is clearly the answer. It is then punishment. It cannot be simply discipline because it is suffering that only through our choice can be made to be disciplinary. In other words, only when you accept it as discipline does it become disciplinary in a way that we can become better. Also, punishment is part of discipline so your point is meaningless anyway.
“This is NOT temporal punishment, cleansing us from our sin. Discipline is not punishment.”
Punishment is part of discipline.
“I may discipline my horses, but I do not punish them.”
You’re going to use horses when we’re talking about souls? ever raise any children? Does God treat us more like children or horses? He treats us more like children. People who believe in disciplining their child will most certainly punish them as necessary.
“A horse that wants to go the wrong way, or that shies from something scary has not sinned. She has no guilt. However, I do need to teach her to focus on me, not the circumstances on the ride. So I will push her a bit, making her get closer to the scary thing, or requiring her to turn in the direction I want. With time, she learns I have her best interest at heart, and willingly obeys.”
But a child you would send to his room, or spank him or send him to be without dinner, etc. Those are all punishments. Your horse is an irrational beast. There’s no point to punishing something that was made to be shod and ridden, or eaten and made into glue. It’s a horse. They don’t think. They can’t sin.
If it weren’t for your horse, you wouldn’t have gone to Purgatory. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you didn’t read the whole thread).
“Does temporal punishment exist? Do people suffer in this life? Yes or no?”
You are mixing two separate subjects. People suffer. Yes. Is it punishment for sin. For non-believers, yes. For believers, no. “ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
Punishment is not a part of discipline. A horse who shies is not guilty of sin. No crime has been committed. There is no reason to punish her, since she is innocent. There may be less pleasant consequences for certain actions, but she isn’t guilty - she just doesn’t understand. She is a horse, for goodness sakes! And we are much lower to God than a horse is to us, in terms of understanding.
When your church talks about transferring merit to another to cancel out temporal punishment, it is using an accounting system of good and evil. Good deeds are a positive deposit. Bad deeds must be covered by the good deeds, so they are like a withdrawal.
But Jesus taught that God doesn’t do an accounting system. To break one law is to break all. To obey a law does no good, unless you are born again. If you are born again, you do not fall under condemnation any more.
“Does God treat us more like children or horses?”
More like horses, although what we do with children doesn’t remove any guilt from sin for them. Discipline is not about guilt. I discipline a child (had 3, now frequently care for a granddaughter) who doesn’t know they are doing wrong. Someone who doesn’t know they are doing wrong isn’t guilty of anything. They haven’t ‘sinned’ against me. However, their behavior may still be unacceptable, and require discipline to teach them it is wrong.
A few years ago, I might have written some of the same stuff you are writing now, from a Protestant perspective. The last few years of trying to train dogs and horses has led me to do a lot of reading and thinking about discipline vs. punishment. And to a certain extent, we are talking past each other.
Punishment CAN be used to mean the unpleasant results that teach a child, dog or horse that obeying a rule is better. It can also mean the penalty for sin or crime. Used in the first sense, God does punish his children and we do punish ours and I do punish my horses & dogs.
However, if it is punishment to requite guilt, then it doesn’t need to be timely or to teach better behavior. A man who steals or kills will be punished when caught. If it takes 40 years, the guilt remains and so will the punishment.
Discipline uses ‘punishment’ differently, since it is meant to teach. If it isn’t done immediately, it doesn’t happen. I can’t teach someone a year later.
When God punishes a child of His, He does it to teach, not to cancel out our guilt. Our guilt for sin was paid in full at Calvary. It was once for all, and perfected us forever - so far as guilt goes.
I find the difference important for horses, dogs - AND my youngest daughter and granddaughter. Punishment for a crime focuses me on how to make them unhappy, and that they are ‘bad’. Discipline, using ‘pressure’, as a lot of trainers now put it, focuses me on teaching. It focuses me on what they CAN BE, rather than making me think they are bad. The difference is huge in my attitude and the results I see.
I only wish I had tried teaching horses as a young man. Perhaps I would have done a better job of raising my oldest kids, although they have proven to be fairly forgiving of my faults as a father. In particular, I find our Arabian mare Mia is teaching me more about being a father and man than I am teaching her about being ridden past wind chimes and strange garbage cans.
You write - without animosity, I’m sure, “Your horse is an irrational beast. There’s no point to punishing something that was made to be shod and ridden, or eaten and made into glue. It’s a horse. They don’t think. They can’t sin.”
If you could meet Mia (and to a lesser extent, Trooper and Lilly), you would find you are wrong. Mia is teaching me a lot, and my family has noticed the difference!