question

[boxofdelights]

What does "the sin against the Holy Spirit" mean to you?

Comments

[emceeaich]

Statement does not parse.

[oursin]

Something that terrorised generations of children who had no idea whether or not they'd committed it?

[wordweaverlynn]

As I understand it, the sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be committed by human beings. It refers to the fall of Lucifer and the other angels, who knew God and turned their backs on him.

God's love and mercy are infinite. Look at some of the Old Testament patriarchs -- David is the prime example -- they did absolutely dreadful things but could be forgiven.

[em_h]

Since I don't think I have to include every sentence in the Bible in my theology, I mostly don't. But when I'm counselling people who have been terrorized by it (see oursin agbove), I usually frame it as the refusal to accept the forgiveness which God is always and unfailingly offering.

I am in fact a universalist, so I don't believe that there's anything that can't be forgiven, nor do I believe that anyone can/will refuse mercy forever. But I can imagine that for people who have done really awful things (genocide etc), accepting God's forgiveness probably includes an excruciating awareness of the full extent of the evil that one has done, and I can imagine that one might resist forgiveness for a long time rather than deal with that awareness.

[em_h]

Oh, and, with respect again to oursin's comment, I have found it necessary to stress to many people that you can't sin by accident. This is a categorical impossibility. For sin to be sin, you have to know on some level that you're doing wrong, and do it anyway. Admittedly this is shifty in the case especially of ideologically motivated sins, where people often convince themselves they're doing the right thing, but I do think on some level someone like Milosevic had to be aware that all those deaths were a sign of, at the very least, suboptimal choices.

[amaebi]

I'm curious-- if you don't mind saying-- what brought up this riddle?

(My reply on LJ, for anyone who didn't see it and would be interested, was much like oursin's-- one in the context I've encountered it, in autobiography and biography.)

[aedifica]

It's not a phrase I remember encountering. If I started guessing, I'd come up with things like "bringing ghost-exterminators to a church" (which I'm pretty sure is not the original intent of the phrase!)

[firecat]

I was raised Presbyterian. I don't remember having come across that phrase, and I don't know what it means.

[carbonel]

Well, the phrasing implies something that everyone should know, but honestly, I have no clue. Of course, I'm not a Christian, either.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

It's not my faith or my metaphor, so I could be mistaken, but I've always understood it (in literary usage), as meaning "doubting or challenging the connection between religion and supernatural forces."

[mswyrr]

Off the top of my head: It's supposed to be the single unpardonable sin. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit? Only there's mystery around what that involves exactly, so folks in power have used it to manipulate people by saying that x thing they don't like is the Very Special Unpardonable Thing.

After Googling: I thought it was something Paul said, but I tend to attribute things that irritate me to Paul. That was inaccurate, though. Apparently it was from the gospel of Matthew.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

It sounds like some kind of serious transgression in someone else's religion.

sarcasm lass strikes again.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

That Calvin was going on a bit, again.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I was always told it was existential despair.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Nothing. (Raised and confirmed liberal Lutheran.)

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

despair

[joxn.livejournal.com]

Masturbation

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I'd have thought it was not using the gifts you've been given, since prophecy, healing and other talents are said to be gifts of the Holy Spirit. Turns out I was wrong. Here's the Catholic party line:

http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu42.htm

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Nothing in particular, after 12 years of Catholic education. I suppose it has some specific meaning, but it doesn't hit any of my memory buttons.

[gingicat]

In Judaism, since the Shechinah is the piece of God in every one of us, it would be rejecting God within us.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Something that overly self-conscious religious, especially young religious, enjoy delicious frissons about as they wonder whether they've inadvertently committed it.

So far as I know, while there are a variety of interpretations, they're all pretty speculative.

It's not something I bother about, personally.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What it means to me, personally, is irritation, because it's the kind of thing that people worry about or accuse other people of.

I'd heard that it refers to suicide or despair, but personally, I don't believe in any unpardonable sins.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Despair.