Two models of hell

The idea of a finite creature being punished for an eternity seems to break all of our justice analogies. For example, it's hard to imagine a just judge sentencing a kid who steals a pack of candy to death along with a pedophile rapist, for the two crimes warrant separate punishments. This is why most Christian philosophers have completely abandoned the traditional idea that hell is a place of punishment for what's called the Choice Model. However, I don't see how the Choice Model fits any better with the Bible than does universalism - unless it is combined with a Punishment Model.

Here would be an example of the Choice Model combined with the Punishment Model. A person P commits x amount of sins in his lifetime that warrants y amount of punishment. God punishes P from time t to time t2. At time t2, in his perfect goodness, God offers P the chance to be reconciled. But P being a free agent chooses to reject God, and God respects this choice, which results in P being separated from God. Now one might wonder if God, being perfectly good, would continue to offer reconciliation to P. If this is the case, then God would offer P the chance to be reconciled again at time t3, at which point P would reject God, and so on into eternity. Now one might hold that a well-informed decision to be separate from God amounts to annihilation, in which case God only offers P the chance to be reconciled once. This model does two things. First, it tries to paint a picture of hell that fits with our intuitions of justice. Second, it allows for someone to be lost forever. Of course, universalism is contingently possible given this model, for P could have accepted God at time t2.

There is another option. It could be that sin continues in hell. So, for example, a person P sins x amount in his lifetime which warrants y amount of punishment. God punishes P from time t to time t2, satisfying the amount of punishment y. But at t2, P sins again, warranting further punishment, so God punishes P to t3. But at t3, P sins again, so God punishes him until t4, and on and on into eternity.

Of course, this second model raises numerous questions. For example, is it even possible for someone in hell not to sin, so as to reconciled back to God? If not, it's hard to see how hell is just. Moreover, where does atonement fit into this model? This model seems to paint a works-salvation picture. That is, P remains in hell only because he fails to meet a certain standard. But if we accept a substitution theory of atonement, why isn't P offered the option to accept Jesus as an atonement for his sins? It seems that if God is perfectly loving, the offer of salvation would be on the table, in which case we would be right back to the above Choice Model, whereby one continually rejects God by his own free will.

Both of these models raise serious questions for accounts of providence. For in open theism, the idea that free creatures would eternally reject God seems extremely improbable. In Molinism, of course, it's possible that the counterfactuals of freedom are such that God could actualize a world in which everyone is saved, so to reconcile the above models with Molinism, we would have to hold to transworld damnation (TWD) and refute the objections.