People who are unused to abstract thought are apt to be unaffected by the apparent contradiction involved in belief in a God of Mercy who in effect can be observed to be merciless.
People who think occasionally of abstract matters are apt to be profoundly shocked by the cruelty of God towards His devoted creatures. In some this takes the form of indignation, in others of disbelief in the existence of such a deity.
To people who think habitually in the abstract it is obvious that, mercy and mercilessness constituting a dualism, God must necessarily be both merciful and merciless in our eyes - that is just God.
Furthermore they will ask themselves to whom God is either merciful or merciless? And they will perceive that such person or persons - and God appears merciful and merciless to large numbers as readily as to an individual - can only be the imaginary entity conceived as a result of identification of I-reality with a psyche-soma, i.e. the pseudo-I or ego-notion. That is to say, the effects of mercy and mercilessness are applied to an entity or entities that have no existence in reality. God is praised for being merciful, blamed for being merciless, to a mere concept, a dream-figure.
Still further they will observe that God is being supplied with attributes - for mercy and mercilessness are such - and how could God have attributes? The notion is surely primary?
But who is this God anyhow? Is He not the reality of the psyche-soma concerned? Is He not the reality of that which praises God for his mercy and blames Him for His mercilessness? When one looks within, instead of without, will he not find himself face-to-face with - himself?
Note: I am confusing the Creator-and-his-creatures with Godhead Itself, the former being the dual aspect of the latter? Yes, indeed. But I can quote authority - popes and pastors, prophets and people. No excuse? Sorry. Does it really matter? Are not both Subject?
