26.  What is the unforgivable sin and why is it unforgivable?

Summary:

•	Religions disagree about what “unforgivable” means, but both Christianity and Islam warn of a single sin that is so serious, it cannot be forgiven even after repentance.

•	The Christian Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus as saying that every sin can be forgiven except “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”  Jesus never explained what that means, and Christians have long struggled to identify the sin.

•	One common explanation is that the unforgivable sin is a person’s refusal to accept God’s forgiveness, sometimes called “hardening of the heart.”  But this explanation is difficult to reconcile with the Christian Gospels because they suggest the one who decides is God, not the sinner.

•	This chapter proposes that the unforgivable sin means using supernatural powers for evil.  In this explanation, God not only forbids such acts, God makes them permanently impossible.  This means no evil miracle has ever truly occurred and that not even Satan—if Satan exists—is allowed to perform an evil miracle.  A supernatural action can occur only if God allows it; therefore, its purpose must be good.

•	In Islam, the unforgivable sin means treating anything or anyone as equal to God.  This sin might be less about sharing a title and more about falsely claiming that something other than God possesses supernatural power.

•	For centuries, religious institutions used the fear of the unforgivable sin to control people.  Today, many people have enough education and moral reasoning to question whether such teachings really reflect a God of love, forgiveness, and justice.

•	Whether the unforgivable sin is impossible to commit or is simply God’s eternal protection against evil miracles, both interpretations replace fear with trust in a God who is infinitely loving and all-powerful.

Some actions are considered to be so hurtful, so sinful, that various religions call them unforgivable sins.  But religions disagree over what “unforgivable” means.  Religions with traditional beliefs about reincarnation, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, warn that actions such as murder, theft, dishonesty, and sexual misconduct create a spiritual debt in the form of karma that cannot be forgiven in one lifetime; instead, the sinner must resolve the debt in future lifetimes.  Judaism teaches that all sins can be forgiven but some sins are more difficult to atone for than others.

In the traditional teachings of Christianity and Islam, there is no reincarnation, only one physical lifetime and, after death, moral judgment of the soul by God, including the possibility of eternal punishment.  (Many NDEs contradict those traditional teachings.)  Through repentance, say those teachings, the sins of murder, theft, dishonesty, and sexual misconduct can be forgiven by God.  But Christianity and Islam warn there is one sin that cannot be forgiven, even if the sinner repents.  It is the unforgivable sin, which Christianity also calls the eternal sin. 

What is that sin?  Remarkably, Christian and Islamic scriptures are not entirely clear in defining it, and so there are various interpretations.

In the Christian New Testament, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each include a quote from Jesus mentioning the unforgivable sin.  Stated on three different occasions, this is what those Gospels record:

The word blasphemy comes from the Greek word βλασφημία, pronounced blasphemia, meaning slander, profane speech, or “to speak evil about.”  The Greek word was adopted by Latin, as blasphemia, with the same meaning.

To blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—what does that mean?  For thousands of years, this question has caused many Christians to wonder, and to worry if they have somehow committed this sin that Jesus said is unforgivable.  There is no answer, no interpretation, that every Christian agrees with. 

Jesus often referred to himself as the “Son of Man.”  According to what Jesus said in Matthew 12:32 and Luke 12:10, anybody can say terrible words about him, including slander him, and still be forgiven.  All sins can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  

If the Holy Spirit is God or is part of God, does that mean any insult against God is an unforgivable sin?  If so, then nearly everyone has probably committed this sin at some point.  Have you ever felt anger towards God, doubted the existence of God, or said something cruel to someone?  Cruelty in any form can be interpreted as a violation of love and, therefore, against the Holy Spirit.  Jesus urged sinners to repent.  If, however, our sins are somehow forms of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and therefore unforgivable, then we could not repent even if we tried to. 

The idea that God is forgiving but that our sins cannot be forgiven is not morally reasonable.

An alternate explanation is that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit may refer to lying about God, to slander God, “to speak evil about” God.  Most believers in God would probably agree that to deliberately lie about God is a terrible sin.  But is this really an unforgivable sin?  According to Christian teachings, the sins that God can forgive include theft from the poor, sexual assault, even murder and the abuse of children.  It is not morally reasonable that those sins are forgivable but lying about God is not.

A more traditional explanation of the unforgivable sin is that God forgives every sin but that some people refuse to accept God’s forgiveness.  A common saying is that those sinners have “hardened their hearts” because they no longer love, or at least they no longer love God.  In a version of this explanation, humans cannot commit the unforgivable sin because humans do not have perfect knowledge of God.  For example, an atheist lacks material proof that God exists, and lacking that proof is why an atheist is an atheist.  However, if that person had perfect knowledge of God, including that God exists, then the person would not be an atheist.  Therefore, that person would not commit the unforgivable sin because the person would know better. 

According to this version, the only beings with perfect knowledge of God but who still blasphemy against the Holy Spirit are Satan and his demons.  However, this explanation has some problems.  If Satan and his demons (if they exist) are supposed to know better, then why are they making this mistake?  In human narratives, Satan and demons are usually portrayed as incredibly devious and incredibly clever—and yet, according to this explanation, they are also incredibly stupid.  Eternity is a very, very, very long time, but for some reason they never change their minds and never seek God’s forgiveness despite God’s perfect love and their perfect knowledge.  And if demons are the only ones committing the unforgivable sin, then why did Jesus warn people about the unforgivable sin? 

Furthermore, consider the phrase, “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”  The word blasphemy does not imply refusing the forgiveness of God.  The words “will not be forgiven” implies that God makes that decision, not the sinner.  If Jesus wanted to warn people they should welcome the forgiveness of God instead of refusing it, then presumably Jesus would have said this directly.  Instead, Jesus used a mysterious phrase about blasphemy.

Imagine if Satan could perform supernatural miracles for evil purposes.  If Satan possessed that much power, Satan could inflict damage far worse than anything humans have ever experienced, overwhelming us with sinful temptations so frequently and so intensely that almost nobody could resist.  With that much power, Satan could have destroyed Earth and the Universe a long time ago.  You have a right to the belief that Satan possesses that much power, but that same belief treats God as negligent.  It treats God as unwilling to bother with stopping the ultimate evil super-being from tormenting billions of innocent souls. 

There is another explanation, one that treats God as infinitely loving.  According to the Gospels, Jesus rarely spoke of the Holy Spirit but often spoke of God the Father.  In regard to the unforgivable sin, however, Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit without mentioning God the Father.  Jesus made a distinction between the Holy Spirit and God.  We should, too.

Remember that your spirit is not your soul.  Your spirit consists of your intentions expressed through your actions.  The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God, the intentions of God expressed through the actions of God.  When a miracle is genuinely supernatural, it occurs because God made it possible, because the Holy Spirit of God made it possible.  Otherwise, the miracle cannot occur. 

The Gospels say Jesus became famous for expelling demons from people, a practice called exorcism.  The Gospels say that whenever Jesus was shown a person possessed by a demon, Jesus commanded the demon to leave and it did so.  Nobody could see the demon leave because demons are non-material, but people did see immediate improvement in the victim’s behavior and health. 

In his time, some skeptics of Jesus argued that, aside from God, only an evil leader of demons would have the authority to command a demon.  In response, Jesus offered this argument: “How can Satan drive out Satan?  If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.  And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.” (Mark 3:23-26)

Is there a flaw in this argument?  “How can Satan drive out Satan?”  Imagine that a human agent of Satan pretends to be a man of God.  That agent could find someone possessed by a demon, command it to leave, and it leaves because Satan secretly desires this.  Observers would assume mistakenly that the agent is a man of God and should be obeyed.  Then that agent of Satan could trick them into allowing demons to possess their bodies to torment them.  Using this evil scheme, Satan would lose one prisoner but gain many.

This evil scheme would never work, however.  The argument that Jesus offered is that the unforgivable sin is not only unforgivable, it is eternal.  It means this hypothetical scheme by Satan and his agent is not only unforgivable, it is impossible.  It cannot work because God does not allow it to work, ever.  

When a miracle is truly supernatural, it occurs only because God allows it, which means its purpose must be for good, not for evil.  Any supernatural miracle intended for evil purposes, God prevents.  That is why the sin is called eternal, because God’s protection against it is eternal.  God has made the unforgivable sin impossible to commit, by anyone, forever. 

This proposed explanation reframes the problem.  Rather than imagining a Universe in which evil can wield supernatural power equal to or rivaling the Divine, it suggests a Universe in which all genuine supernatural power originates from a single source and is constrained by that source’s nature.  If God is the origin of all such power, then any event that transcends natural laws would, by definition, occur only within the limits that God allows.  In this explanation, the warning given by Jesus may not be intended to instill fear of accidental condemnation, but to describe a fundamental truth: that ultimate power cannot be separated from ultimate goodness.

That is why, in the argument that Jesus used, Satan cannot drive out Satan, not even as a deception, because a house divided against itself cannot stand.  Any scheme that tries to conjure into existence a supernatural miracle for evil purposes will never work.  This explanation may also be why Jesus told people about the unforgivable sin, even if people could never commit it.  It defines a limit on the power of the supernatural, safeguarding against misuse.

For thousands of years, Christian portrayals of Satan imagined a being almost as powerful as God but evil, capable of performing evil miracles.  If, however, the eternal sin means that evil miracles are impossible, then that portrayal of Satanic power is fearfully exaggerated.  The logic of Jesus’ argument suggests that not even Satan is guilty of the unforgivable sin because nobody is guilty of it, because God prevents the unforgivable sin from being committed, by anybody, ever.

This explanation is only a possibility.  (Likewise, the other explanations are only possibilities.)  One possible criticism is based on Mark 3:29, which includes the words, “they are guilty of an eternal sin.”  Those words imply that some sinners may already be guilty of committing the unforgivable sin and are suffering eternal punishment for it.  However, those words appear only in Mark, not in the other quotes in Matthew and Luke.  Outside of the New Testament, a similar quote appears in the Gospel of Thomas: “Jesus said: He who blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and he who blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either on Earth or in Heaven.”  This quote does not say if anybody has committed the unforgivable sin.  It does say that blasphemy against God the Father will be forgiven.  We know from historical evidence that many sentences in the New Testament, including in the Gospels, were altered for one reason or another.  Perhaps Mark 3:29 includes one of those alterations.

Another possible criticism of this explanation is that impure spirits (maybe ghosts, maybe demons) attempt to scare people by performing evil miracles.  Against this criticism are three counter-arguments.  First, not all miracles are evil.  The spirits of angels perform good miracles, not evil miracles, and so they are not guilty of committing the unforgivable sin. 

Second, many behaviors associated with ghosts or demons may not actually violate natural laws.  The fact is that we know about only the natural laws that scientists have identified.  There could be other natural laws not yet discovered.  A magnet can attract a metal object and perhaps move that object without anyone physically touching it.  If you did not know that magnetism is a natural force that obeys natural laws, you might assume the object is moving due to a supernatural miracle.  As regards ghosts, ghosts are sometimes associated with unusually cold rooms.  The reason is because a ghost, by itself, cannot generate enough energy to do anything physical; therefore, the ghost uses whatever energy is already in the room (such as heat) to physically move objects, or make noises, or become visible (temporarily).  Ghosts, being non-material, do not generally make themselves available for scientific investigation, and therefore most scientists discount the existence of ghosts.  But if ghosts do exist, then their behavior seems to obey natural laws rather than performing evil miracles.  This does not mean that all ghosts are good, but even the bad ghosts, whenever they perform scary deeds, seem to be obeying natural laws.

The third counter-argument is to consider the size of those scary deeds: physically moving some objects, making scary appearances, making strange noises or smells, causing nightmares.  Those ghostly deeds can be scary, but they are surprisingly insignificant in comparison to the destructive power of a major earthquake, or a hurricane, or a nuclear war.  If a demon is capable of creating an evil miracle, then the ghostly power to move a few objects around is not very impressive as an evil miracle.  And the number of witnesses is typically quite few.  Furthermore, some ghostly deeds that look scary and appear to violate natural laws might be mere illusions.  Or, remarkably, those deeds might have a secretly good purpose that is not immediately apparent. 

In Islam’s Holy Quran, verses 4:48 and 4:116 have the same core meaning because their words are almost identical.

What is their meaning?  The traditional interpretation is that nobody ought to be treated as equal to God because only God is God.  Some Muslims wonder if Christians violate this prohibition because the Christian Trinity seems to equate Jesus Christ with God the Father, and likewise equates the Holy Spirit with God the Father.  Furthermore, many Christians pray to Jesus.  Yet, Jesus himself frequently prayed to God, which he would not need to if he were equal to God.  Jesus sometimes acted as an intermediary between ordinary people and God, but Jesus always told people to pray directly to God, not to Jesus himself.

Regardless of whether Jesus was a servant of God or somehow equal to God in the limited sense that a son is equal to his father, these verses of the Holy Quran encourage some deeper questions.  Why would God allow ordinary people to be born into religions that believe in multiple deities or in multiple partners of God?  If those people do not know any better, why would God not forgive them?  Why would God punish them for a sin they were unaware of?  Why is this sin more severe than murder or abusing a child?

There are some even deeper questions.  Why do we consider God to be supremely Divine?  In other words, why do we consider God to be God?  The answer is God’s supernatural powers.  God is God because God created the Universe, God created its natural laws, God is not limited by those natural laws, and that is why God is supernatural.

Therefore, when God prohibits associating anything or anyone with God, perhaps God is not objecting to sharing a title.  God already shares a title with every human parent: the titles of father (Father in Heaven) and mother (Divine Mother).  Instead, God prohibits associating supernatural powers with anyone or anything that is not God, because only God has supernatural powers.  In this interpretation, God’s prohibition is so absolute that only in our human imagination are supernatural powers associated with anything evil.  In this interpretation of the unforgivable sin, using supernatural powers for any evil purpose is both prohibited and impossible—forever.

For Christians and Muslims, this interpretation removes a source of common fear, replacing it with an understanding of Divine love.  It removes some doubts about God’s power and judgment, replacing them with trust and faith.

More than a thousand years have passed since the Christian Gospels and the Holy Quran were written.  Why was this interpretation of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” not realized earlier?  There could be several reasons.  Historically, most people were not taught how to read and write until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and most people did not have access to the Internet until the twenty-first century.  A thousand years ago, the concepts of natural laws, the human subconscious, and the human ego either did not exist or were not well developed.  Trying to explain that demons might be limited by natural laws, or that Satan might be only a symbol for the human ego, would likely have caused more confusion than clarity.  When ordinary people had difficult questions about their religion, they would ask the clergy, who then either guessed, or admitted they didn’t know the answer, or they cited the theories of distant theologians.  Religious establishments doubted that ordinary people could be trusted to behave properly unless fear was incorporated into the message.  Those religious establishments could impose fear and mass control because, typically, they held political power, or at least powerful influence.  Even God, they said, had declared that a particular sin is unforgivable.  Any mystery about it could terrify people into mindless obedience as they tried to avoid committing any sin at all.

Today, more people than ever before, including Christians and Muslims, have enough education and moral reasoning abilities to decide if what they were taught about the Divine truly represents a God of love, forgiveness, and charity, or instead represents a God of pettiness, cruelty, and eternal punishment.  People in the past were told to accept the interpretations made by religious establishments—and those interpretations tended to favor the religious establishments saying them.  In many cases those interpretations were formulated centuries earlier and were never updated, as if religious knowledge could never progress and nobody in the establishment ever made a mistake, not even centuries earlier.  People can now consider alternative interpretations, weighing them morally and logically, without fear. 

We cannot know the mind of God.  Humans are finite.  God is infinite.  Nevertheless, consider this: If you were God, would you grant to Satan, to demons, and to humans, the supernatural power to create evil miracles?  If you were all-powerful and all-loving, as God is, why would you not prevent the creation of evil miracles, absolutely and for all eternity?