Unpardonable Sin

"Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” - Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.

A hundred years ago, G. K. Chesterton said in his book Orthodoxy. "...for I thought (and still think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin." One may first ask, "Well who's right?" My question is, "Are these guys talking about two different things or not?"

The story here begins in the third chapter of the Bible's second (Mark's) Gospel. Amidst trying to have a meal with His followers, Jesus is thoroughly interrupted by a crowd and some "teachers of the law." In the two chapters prior, Jesus gets baptized, fasts forty days and shuts Satan up, gets some disciples, drives out demons, heals a bunch of people and prays in between, meets Matthew, dines with sinners, gets interrogated about fasting AND the Sabbath, completes His search of all twelve disciples, and finally, where we begin, is accused by his own family and the religious teachers. So we can tell that his relationship with these individuals has started off very shaky.

Speaking carelessly, they said Jesus was possessed by Beelzebul, basically the Hebrew word for Satan. Then Jesus made that statement I began with. Essentially, the teachers called God the devil.

Earlier, I also suggested a possible parity of sincere pessimism and the instance of the blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Firstly, let's be clear of what sincere pessimism is, as distinct from insincere pessimism. The latter is displayed when one, in expecting good over bad, grants his hope onto another. In doing so, he's also displaying faith and love. However tainted with pessimism this hope may be, the worst it can become is insincere pessimism. It happens when an older sister lets her constantly clumsy younger brother do the chore he's been begging to do, hoping but doubting he'll succeed. Sincere pessimism is the hopeless, doubtless grimace of caring no longer, believing no longer nor loving any longer.

Sincere pessimism is the inability to doubt in another because of the inability to hope in another. It is when one cannot even fathom the success of a particular other. It is when a parent could hope nothing for their own child. It is when a person tells another, "Thank God I'm not like you."

Again, were Christ and Chesterton referring to two different things? What kind of person must one be to look God in the face and see a devil? A sincerely pessimistic person. They must feel so hopeless, that they'd doubt God would love them enough to die for them. They would first believe a self-proclaimed Messiah to be a devil than to believe God would put humility before reputation. For you to see sin in the sinless, to curse the blessed, to rebuke the only thing in this entire universe capable of saving your soul, is for you to give up all hope.

The Bible is not a story of fairy tales, but imagination, not make-believe but of what makes belief. To look God in the face and see the unimaginable love, or to look God in the face and utter the unpardonable slander.