a pseudo-dialectical synthesis of the two terms as a way of resolving the eternal dilemma ‘to punish or to forgive’: first, punish the perpetrator, then forgive him
we are forever indebted to Christ, we cannot ever repay him for what he did for us. The Freudian name for such excessive pressure which we cannot ever remunerate is, of course, superego
The first thing to do here is to assert the priority of the Jewish principle of just revenge/punishment – an ‘eye for an eye’, the ius talionis – over the standard formula of ‘we will forgive your crime, but we will not forget it’.
When a subject is hurt in such a devastating way that the very idea of revenge according to ius talionis is no less ridiculous than the promise of the reconciliation with the perpetrator after the perpetrator’s atonement
[...] We humans are left with no higher power watching over us, only the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility for the fate of divine creation, and thus for God himself.
