God is love. God is just. God is merciful.

[Chad32]

Chad

I think when we talk about love, justice and mercy, then those words should have a consistency when we use them, whether we are talking about God or a person. So I would say the love of God reflects God's desire for goodness for us, God's justice reflects fair judgement of our actions, and God's mercy allows for justice to be tempered in response to genuine contrition by the guilty. For the Christian, we see and experience these attributes most clearly through walking in faith in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ, the clearest 'avatar' of God.

He desires a goodness within us, but his definition of good is perfection. He allows us no means of obtaining perfection by ourselves. One of the clearest signs of love, according to most people's definiton of love, is to put the other person before yourself. Yahweh never does that, though. In fact he demands the opposite.

Saying that all actions carry the same weight and punishment is not just. A petty thief will be punished in exactly the same manner as a mass murder, and for the same amount of time. That is not justice by any stretch of the word. People would be livid if some judge sentences a guy to death for stealing a candy bar.

As for mercy, it falls rather flat when the whole reason someone is expected to beg for mercy against disproportionate retribution. Eternity in a lake of fire for finite crimes, as far as mainstream christianity is concerned.