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How do we learn to do good? What happens when we do wrong? Our minds run on neural nets, and there is but one way to train them: by rewarding what is good, and punishing what is bad. And God has seen fit to provide us with the means for this training: if we do right and follow his path of life, in his presence we find pleasures forevermore. So the "reward" part is easy enough to accept.

But on the flip side, I find a great deal more confusion about the punishments. After all, we don't talk about them as much, since all discipline seems painful in the moment rather than pleasant. Our society, in particular, can't seem to rationally discuss the necessary steps in such reinforcements: we misuse our privileges to construct delusions that shield us from even the mention of any chastisement. And so, when we confront words like "punishment", "guilt", "shame", "illegal", "law enforcement", or "consequences", many of us are unfortunately left with only a jumble of unpleasant feelings, without being able to put them in any constructive context.

But the Bible has many stories of correction for wrongdoing, and understanding these stories will help clear up the confusion surrounding punishments. Organizing these stories will show us how guilt, shame, and law are all a part of the escalating reinforcement system, to help us navigate Reality and avoid a head-on collision against it.

These stories are, in fact, our starting point. They inform us from our childhoods, so that even before we take any action, we know what's right and wrong before we encounter any rewards or punishment. Those of us who are blessed with a perpetual, childlike faith perhaps never need to fall beneath this point. But if we forget these stories - if we do not fear God and fail to meditate on his laws - then we may take a false step. In fact, this is how the story of Exodus starts: there came a new Pharaoh who did not know Joseph or the God that he served, despite the good they had done for Egypt.

Of course, mere forgetfulness is a very mild sin, and it warrants only the lightest of corrections. Just a very mild sense of guilt - an "oops" - will do, followed by getting back on track. Our God-provided conscience does this naturally in its normal operations. Note the gentleness of this approach: such guilt is the lightest "punishment" imaginable, being purely internal, with only our own thoughts providing accusations or excuses as it sees fit.

Naturally, bigger deviations from the right path require stronger corrections. This is the iron law of reinforcements: More good brings more rewards, more evil brings more more punishments. And while the feeling of guilt can indeed become very powerful on its own, there is usually a second mechanism that kicks in alongside it as the sin gets worse: shame.

Shame is a stronger reinforcer, in that it involves other people. It is therefore the first social reinforcement mechanism. It can range from a gentle personal reprimand to a public call-out. Note Jesus's instructions on what to do when a brother sins against you. It's mostly a shame-based reinforcement mechanism. First you talk to him in private, then you escalate to larger groups. Again you start small, but as the brother proves himself to be intransigent the consequences get bigger - until the last step of excommunication begins to touch on the next levels of reinforcement: the law.

The law is a predetermined set of rules set out by a large corporate body that details the consequences of certain behaviors. This "corporate body" is often the state, but it can also be something like a religious body, especially in the Bible. This stage of reinforcement is marked by a number of new properties. For one, the law naturally operates at the societal level, and as such it's much more rigid and impartial, and may be very severe. Guilt is intra-personal and shame is inter-personal, but the law is impersonal. This is also the first stage where its concerns start extending far beyond just correcting the sinner: part of the function of the law is to instill fear in anyone who would do wrong. Yet another part is to avenge the wrongdoing itself, to carry out God's wrath upon the wrongdoer.

For a healthy society, we need all of three of the above mechanisms: guilt, shame, and fear (of the law). There's been some work categorizing societies into these three groups, as "guilt culture", "shame culture", or "fear culture" - but of course, there are no cultures that's purely only one of these things. Indeed, any society that overly focuses on one of them tends to be dystopic - for example, being too legalistic, or being too honor-bound. Remember that all three have their place, in what is overall a good and necessary process: they all work together to constrain evil, to deliver the right penalty for each level of deviation, so that greater sins can be met with escalating punishments.

So if someone sins, they should first feel guilty - and ideally, that should be enough to turn them back to the good. But if that's not enough, then as the sin grows (as it naturally does without correction), they will also encounter shaming from others. And next, their worsening behavior will run afoul the force of the law. This overlapping set of increasing reinforcements is enough to cover most circumstances. Of course, it's one thing to say that these each have their place. It's a great deal harder to apply them correctly in any given situation.

Worse still, there are some psychopaths without a conscience, who do not feel guilt. And some others are shameless, or are even proud of their evil. And the laws themselves can become nonsensical or corrupt. If only one of the three mechanisms were thus compromised, they may be corrected by the other two. But what if all three fail? Imagine a dystopic society, where the evildoers feel neither guilt nor shame nor the fear of legal consequences, where the wicked are in fact in charge and have corrupted these reinforcement mechanisms to propagate their evil. What then? Do they then get away with it all, with their unchecked evil breaking free from all restraints?

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. The evildoers WILL reap what they sow, in this life or the next. For there remains one higher correction mechanism still - Reality itself. It cannot be corrupted, and is utterly unyielding in dealing out the consequences of your actions. Here we can go back to Exodus to see its operation, in the ten plagues of Egypt. As the Pharaoh hardens his heart and persists in his wrongdoing, the plagues get worse, as Reality employs stronger countermeasures.

At these levels - past guilt, shame, and the law - we are no longer concerned with merely correcting the wrongdoer. Rather, the main goal in the plagues is to firmly establish what is right and just: not just for the Hebrews and Egyptians, but for everyone who hears these stories. So that all may "know that [God] is the LORD". But even at this harsh stage, God is looking for repentance with all due patience: the plagues proceed one by one, methodically increasing in severity, over ten slow cycles of warnings and missed opportunities.

But even with its long-suffering patience, the cycles are still relentless: ultimately, God will not allow Pharoah's defiance to go unpunished. Reality will assert itself, and you will reap what you sow. This is the final, implacable reinforcement mechanism. Guilt, shame, and the law were all mere guides to help us better navigate Reality, because all those who resist Reality will surely perish. The nature of this final catastrophe will look different depending on the circumstances. It may merely end in your own death. Or it may end with the death of the firstborn, if you're the Pharaoh. More modern examples include the collapse of your economy, the starvation of your people, or the invasion and occupation of your country. And don't think that some people have cheated Reality, say by dying peacefully in their sleep after a lifetime of wicked works. The same principles described above extend on to eternity, and there the truly final stop is hell.

So, these are the levels of reinforcements against evil. Guilt, shame, and law each have their role in opposing us when we sin. They help us recognize and navigate the structure of Reality: that good is rewarded and evil is punished, in escalating degrees in both directions. For that reason, it's better to repent while the punishments are light, before they escalate from guilt to shame to law to Reality itself. Because while the first three mechanisms may be bypassed or corrupted, Reality itself will not be mocked. All who oppose it will perish.

Of course, this whole post was only necessary because of the confusion we have around punishments. Hopefully this was helpful in organizing that jumble of negative feelings I mentioned at the beginning, around words like "guilt", "shame", "fear", and "punishment". And while it's nice to gain clarity about the bad, it's true that it's often better to just focus on the good. And so, I'll end this post with this link to the Gospel - which describes how we can turn away from the above path to perdition, and instead follow God's good plan for us to ever-increasing goodness, rewards, and pleasures forevermore.