The Unforgiveable Sin & Pride

For many years I struggled with the idea of the "unforgiveable sin" and the implications of it. I thought that, as Catholics, we could receive forgiveness of anything through Confession as Christ commanded us. And yet, there is this passage in the New Testament that threw me for a loop for basically the entirety of my teenage years, speaking of some kind of "unforgiveable sin", which of course frightened me. You find this mentioned in Matthew 12:22-32, Mark 3:29, and Luke 12:10, all telling the same story.

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

What constitutes as a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? How do you know you've committed this sin? Why can other sins be forgiven, but not this one? My head was swirling for years, never receiving an actual answer from my spiritual leaders, priests, and those knowledgeable of Scripture and canon law. Answers evaded me. And then, eventually, I gave up. Not on my faith, of course, just on the question of the "unforgiveable sin". I wish I could say it was out of humility, that I recognized I was neither intelligent nor spiritually mature enough to discern this conundrum, but I cannot say that because I simply just gave up on it. The question still hung in the far reaches of the back of my mind, but I chose to trust in God and His goodness rather than worry about something I couldn't figure out. In that way I was humble, but really that counts for little. I let the thought lie, to one day return to it.

I do not believe this is necessarily a topic that plagues the minds of many of us, yet I am not the only one who has asked questions regarding the "unforgiveable sin". If even one person asks the question and it can be answered, then it should be answered. Our faith, our God, is comprehensible - not able to be fully known in our limited human nature, but He can be known and we've been given a faith and a Church that can help us to answer the questions within our hearts. Regarding the question on the sin, this is something that can be figured out, a thing that can be understood, and now I want to equip others with the answer I finally received for the question.

I don't pretend to think that I have been the sole man to discover the answer to this question - obviously so, as I received this answer from another man. Many have attempted to answer this in the past, and a few have actually given satisfactory answers, but their explanations have not made it to the far reaches of the world and so many asking the question have not heard the answer. I will not reinvent the answer but rather give the answer to the question, and I will flesh it out to help in understanding it.

Pride

Before we can understand what the "unforgiveable sin" is I need to take you down another path first. I am not abandoning the topic that I started this thought off with, we will return to it in a moment. I need you to understand what pride is and how it manifests in people, why it is such a powerful draw away from God. Stick with me, and you will see why you need to understand this cardinal sin in order to understand the passage.

Pride is defined in a few ways. Inordinate esteem of oneself, the absence of humility and love and truth, considering oneself more important or more valuable than others, and these are only a few definitions of the word. One that I like comes from the great saint and philosopher Thomas Aquinas, and he says that pride is:

"That frame of mind in which a man, through the love of his own worth, aims to withdraw himself from subjection to Almighty God."

I want you to remember this definition well. I will bring it up again later, because I think it is particularly applicable within this topic.

A prideful man is known for believing he knows better than you, or that he simply is better than you. Pride comes in many shapes, flavors, looks, and personalities. As there are many people, so there are many ways that pride can manifest in the world. What is common among all the expressions of pride is this one thought: I know better than you.

Sometimes a person does know better than you, simply because they have more knowledge or wisdom or strength, or something else, and the fact that they do have superiority in this way is not bad. What is bad, though, is when the man lords it over another, or lacks humility in their greater prowess in the subject at hand. Power, or perceived power, while lacking humility is where pride comes from.

Worse is the man that thinks himself superior to others when he is in fact lower than us all. He perceives himself to have power when he does not, and for his lack of power he also lacks humility. In the comfortability of a normal life there is little worse than suffering the "expertise" of a fool who thinks himself wise. For reference, read Sirach chapters 21, 22, and 26, or read the whole of Sirach and see how terrible a foolish man is according to Scripture.

I think I have dogged enough on the imaginary man filled with pride who definitely only exists in our imaginations. The Christian sense of pride I wish to focus on is when you think you know better than God. This, really, is where all sin comes from. "God says not to do this thing, but I'm going to do this thing anyways." I heard it said once that pride is the root of all sins, because it is from pride that we decide not to obey our Lord, and were we to revoke our pride we would see how God is right in all things and not stray from Him. A perfect explanation - no, but I like it, and I believe that it describes the human condition well.

Think of this - God has told us that sexual relations with anyone that we have not entered into a covenantal marriage with is sin. But, so many of us choose to engage in this sin anyways. "Well, I think it's okay, so I'm going to go ahead and do it." We consume pornography so that two (or more) people are remotely engaging in a sexual experience, we touch another in ways only meant for our spouse, and we allow our mind to wander to the corners where it should be shored up. Rather than respect our future spouse and preserve ourselves for them, we decide instead to share ourselves with others in ways only meant for our beloved. Most egregious is not that we get "too friendly" with others, it is the fact that in our most intimate sins from which God Himself told us to abstain from we choose to act out in spite of His wishes and commands.

Pride is not simply limited to sexual immorality, it is just that this type of sin is so promoted in the culture today that I wanted to highlight it. Take, for example, 1 Corinthians 13:1 which says,

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And look at Mark 16:15 as well.

Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

These two verses, I think, call out the two extremes that we frequently find ourselves in as Christians today. Often we will either loudly proclaiming the truth but say it without love, or for fear of being abrasive in sharing the good news we choose instead choose to remain silent and by so doing fail the commands of God in the other direction.

Both of these are pride. You speak truth but have not love in your words, you think you know better than God for He told us to love others in all that we do. Or, you think that a person does not need to hear the truth, or that they do not want to hear it and therefore you do not need to proclaim it, and you once again prove that you think you know better than God for He told us to go out into the world preaching the good news. Your pride comes out when you say through your words and actions "He didn't really mean it," or, "Well, that doesn't apply here so I don't need to do it."

Pride, in the most broad and Christian sense of the word, is the belief that you know better than God and you act with that mindset. Perhaps it is a thing you do once, or infrequently, or you do this regularly. In truth, once again, we all do this regularly because we sin regularly. It is the refusal to follow the wisdom of God due to a selfish interest - an interest directed at the self, choosing to do what you want rather than what is good.

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

Now we may return to what we started to speak about at the beginning of this essay. As I mentioned before, I am not the only one who has been puzzled with the idea of the unforgiveable sin, and you will find that many have attempted to try to give the answer on what this sin is exactly. If you are a member of one of the Ancient Christian Churches, as we Catholics are, the answer actually comes very easily to us if you know where to look and what questions to ask. I am not going to bash the Protestant brethren, but it is patently true that they cannot fully answer this question for reasons that will be made clear in a moment, and so they that is why I specify the Ancient Christian Churches.

I know I have already away from the topic a few times, but you will have to tolerate it once more for a final important point to be made. Entertain me for but a moment.

In the Old Testament God the Father is the one that we see front and center for the Trinity, in part because we still did not understand the reality of the Trinity yet. Then in Christ's incarnation we get to know God the Son, and we see Him establish a church - correction, He establishes the Church which will not fade away from the earth. Christ descends to the earth, makes Himself a sacrifice for our sins, then He ascends back into Heaven and leaves us with the Holy Spirit to protect and safeguard the Church. The ancient Churches all believe this but I am speaking from a Catholic lens so I will just speak for us right now - we believe that the Holy Spirit protects and maintains the Church, safeguarding Her against teaching heresy and from falling into the apostacy of the world.

If you will allow the crude phrasing, the Holy Spirit is the one running the show right now, it is through His power that the Church is maintained. Christ is still present with us in the form of the Eucharist, but He is not residing with us in the way that the Holy Spirit now does. And the Father is still with us of course, but again it is different because it is the Holy Spirit's turn, if you will, to be present among us.

To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is not simply to say mean things about Him, it is to reject Him. The way you reject Him is not just by saying "I don't need you" as many often think, it is in renunciation of Him that you do this. The way you renounce Him is by rejecting His Church. When a man says he is "spiritual, but not religious", if he says "I follow Jesus, so I don't need church", or thinks "it's all about relationship with Jesus, church and rules just get in the way", it is then that he rejects the Holy Spirit and so commits this blasphemy against Him.

The blasphemy is when they say they do not need His Church, the thing that cannot be separated from Him. The Church is the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23) and to reject the Church is to reject Christ. The Chosen People of God started off just as the Hebrews, but we became grafted into that family (Rom. 11:17-24). To reject the precepts and establishments of the Body of Christ, of His Church, and to reject being a member of this Body and Church is to reject God. The Church is protected and guided by the Holy Spirit, it is inseparable from Him, He guides it and is interwoven throughout the Church, and so to reject the Church is to reject Him.

The "unforgiveable sin" is the conscious choice to separate yourself from the Church that Christ established. "I'll take Jesus, just not the Church" is the very rejection of God. You cannot be united with Christ and apart from His body (1 Cor. 12:27). You can't pick and choose what you want and throw away what you feel you don't need (1 Cor. 12:12-26). It is all, or nothing. God, and His Church, are not a cafeteria where you pick what you like and leave what doesn't appeal to you.

A caveat, or rather a clarification to rebut any zealots before they may wish to take to the streets and preach condemnation on all those outside of the Church; just as the Church teaches that a person who cannot know God as He has revealed Himself in the world cannot be written off as rejecting Him (e.g. the native Americans before the New World was discovered); so, in the same way you cannot condemn a person on the grounds of rejecting Christ's Church when they do not think that Christ ever established a singular Church (ie. Protestants, among others). They aren't rejecting the Church, they think it does not exist. There was a lot said there, yes, so I will break it down into bite-sized pieces. Take Protestant Christians for example, with some exceptions within the general theology they believe that there is no visible Church, rather that it is "invisible" and made up by the people who profess Christ as Lord. Thus it could not exist visibly as it does in the Catholic Church. Just as a parent cannot reject the non-existent monster in their child's closet, so it is that a Protestant Christian cannot reject a Church that they do not believe to exist. The issue with that analogy is that there is not monster in the closet but there really is a Church, yet a Protestant is unconvinced of the idea of a visible Church. So, this cannot be a standard used to condemn a Protestant Christian.

Now with that caveat said, those who do see the evidence for Christ's Church being a real, tangible thing that He established and still reject it, these have rejected His Church and so you could say are guilty of the "unforgiveable sin". These are the people that say they will live their faith in their own way and do not submit to the authority of the Church. It is knowing through evidence presented to the intellect or conviction of the heart that Christ established a Church, and willingly choosing to remain separated from that Church.

As well, those who perhaps do not reject the evidence that Christ established a Church, but instead refuse to investigate the claim and avoid conversation around it because they would rather have a "Jesus and me alone" faith qualify as those guilty of separating themselves from the Church, and so are separated from God. These ones are more difficult to diagnose though, and so (wisely) we do not go about condemning people of willingly separating themselves from the Church since we do not know where their hearts lie. But, could we know the heart of another and this was their opinion, with confidence could we then say that they choose to separate themselves from God by living apart from the commands He has given.

The Root of the Issue

In the end it all comes down to pride. When the thing that God has commanded of you and what you choose to do are different, you have made yourself the authority and rejected God's authority. Let's have a refresher on the definition of pride proposed by Aquinas:

"That frame of mind in which a man, through the love of his own worth, aims to withdraw himself from subjection to Almighty God."

The man who says "It's really about a personal relationship with God" and ends the statement right there misses the point entirely. It is about a personal relationship with God, that is something that makes our religion different from all others in history, but it is also about doing as He told us, because to keep His commands is to love Him (John 14:21). The visible Church on earth is the body of Christ and is "run" or maintained and guided by the Holy Spirit. To reject His Church is to reject Him.

"I can be good without an authority like the Church." We have not been called to be good, we have been called to be obedient, to keep to the commands of God, and to love God. Being a good person and loving Jesus as the standard of life in the grand scheme of the entirety of history was an idea thought up only moments ago. It is not historical, or Biblical, and it does not come from the Church. When "I choose to live out my faith my own way" is a person's theology then by their actions they show that they think they know better than God. Rather than follow God's commands, they follow their own. When they follow their law which conflicts with what God has asked of us, they reject God.

I could go through Scripture and highlight the numerous verses about submitting to an authority, keeping God's commandments, and the fact of God establishing a Church, but it will not help to do so. If you are reading this and are a member of the Church then you are already convinced. If you are reading this and you still think nothing but a personal relationship with Christ matters, quoting Scripture isn't going to convince you. And if you are on the fence, unsure if Christ established a Church, wondering if there is more to faith than just you and God, then I invite you to both read Scripture and check out resources like Catholic.com for answers. And, of course, send an email to one of the addresses at the bottom of the page if you have questions.

Faith, religion, our Christian religion is not solitude with God, it is communal. Things start off as Adam and Eve with God, graduating over time to tribes then a nation then the whole world being invited into God's family. The person who seeks God without preexisting assumptions on how God operates will not commit the "unforgiveable sin", it is only in our pride that we will do so.

This is not the sin that you commit once and you cannot be forgiven it. The "unforgiveable sin" is the one that you cannot have forgiven when you maintain it to your death. If you say "I'm a good person, I follow Jesus, I don't need a Church" and so actively and intentionally reject His Church that He established, you reject Him. Perhaps you do live life as a good person, perhaps you can quote Scripture well, perhaps you lead others to God, but if you consciously reject His Church when you know He established it, or willingly and intentionally remain ignorant on this fact, then you are outside His Church and so are apart from Him. If you say "I see evidence that Christ established a Church, it makes sense that He did, but I am going to do my own thing on my own or at least separate from that Church" then you are guilty of this sin we have been speaking of.

The Ancient Churches teach that the Church is not simply an entity here on the earth, but is also present in Heaven - not two separate Churches, but one Church existing in the physical and spiritual. Rejection of the Church here on earth is not just a rejection of the Church you see present here, but of the Church as a whole. If you will not be part of the Church on the earth, you will not be part of the Church in Heaven, and so have no place in Heaven.

Perhaps you think me harsh for saying it in this way, or you think that the Church is harsh for teaching such a thing, or that God is harsh for being so exclusive. Take it up with Him, if that is what you think. Take to Scripture and see this is what God has done, how He makes Himself known in the world.

I do not want to end this on that note, so I will bring about a positive note to close on. Luckily for those of us following the ancient practices of Christianity we have Confession to reconcile ourselves to God. Let no one have anxiety about the "unforgiveable sin" because it is not something that you can fall into, or do by accident. And, praise God, it is easily resolved. This Church that He has established is not exclusive, except in the sense that you have to ask to join. If you follow Christ and obey the Church that He established then you will be well. The Holy Spirit is present throughout the Church, and so to love the Church and to be a member of Her is to love Him. Seek Him out and you will find Him still working in this world, and you can know God through the Church that He left for us and that He maintains for us.

Written for VME Catholic, by Ethan Hall.