Is there, perhaps, a difference between sinning against the Holy Spirit and blaspheming Him?
Is there, perhaps, a difference between sinning against the Holy Spirit and blaspheming Him?
I would like to address another crucial aspect regarding the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. It concerns the topic of salvation outside the church.
It has been emphasized by fathers and saints of the church that when we do not attribute salvation exclusively through Christ and his True Church, we relegate the role of Christ from the sole and unique source of redemption, to one of the many alternative sources of salvation. This, according to our fathers is one of the blasphemies against the Holy Spirit.
Below, I would evoke the blessed words of St. Ignatios Brianchaninov on this theme selected from the saint's letters.
"Vainly and erroneously you think and say that virtuous... Muslims will be saved, that is they will join intercourse with God! Vainly you consider the contrary notion a novelty, a brief error! No! Such is the eternal teaching of the true Church, both Old Testament and New. The Church has always confessed that there exists one means of salvation: the Redeemer! She has confessed that the most virtuous of the fallen really do descend to Hell. Did the righteous of the True Church, the illumined from whom shone the Holy Spirit, the prophets and wonderworkers, believers in the Redeemer's coming but with the demise of the anticipated coming of the Redeemer, descend to Hell so that, as you wish, the Muslims who neither recognize nor believe in the Redeemer receive, because they seem to you good people, that salvation which is delivered solely-- solely, I repeat to you, by means of -- belief in the Redeemer? -- Christians! Know Christ! -- Witness that you don't know Him, that you denied him in claiming the possibility of salvation without Him for some kind of virtue! Claiming the possibility of salvation without belief in Christ denies Him and, maybe not consciously, falls into the grave sin of blasphemy. "Therefore we conclude," says the Holy Apostle Paul, "that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Romans 3:28) "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:22-4). You will object: "The Holy Apostle James requires without fail good works; he teaches that 'faith, if it hath not works, is dead' (James 2:17)." Look again at what the Holy Apostle James requires. You will see that he, just like all God-inspired writers of Holy Scripture, requires the works of faith, and not the virtues of our fallen state! He requires living faith, confirmed by the deeds of the new man, and not the virtues of the fallen state, which are repugnant to faith. He cites the deeds of Patriarch Abraham, the work from which appeared the faith of a righteous man: this work consisted of offering as a sacrifice to God his only begotten son. To offer one's son as a sacrifice-- this is totally not a virtue according to human nature: it is a virtue as the fulfilment of the command of God, as a work of faith. Take a good look at the New Testament and in general all of Holy Scripture: you will find that it demands fulfilment of the commandments of God, that this fulfilment is called works, that from this fulfilment of God's commandments faith in God comes to life, as functioning; without works faith is dead, lacking any movement. And contrary to this, you will find that virtuous works of the fallen state, done out of feeling, blood, impulses or tenderheartedness-- are prohibited, repudiated! And namely for these virtues you like... the Muslims! To them, though it were repudiation of Christ, you want to give salvation."
Letter No. 203
Although, St. Ignatios employs primarily Islam to make his point or rather Church's point regarding the blasphemy of finding salvation outside Christianity, it is obvious that any religion that denies Christ as the Son of God, and sole Redeemer and His Orthodox Church as the only path toward Him, falls into the same category with Islam. Accordingly, finding redeeming values in them falls under the grave sin of blasphemy.
In this age, as we are constantly assailed by the propaganda of relativism, i.e., truth may be found everywhere and nowhere in the absolute form, we must heed very seriously to the saint's words. I will repeat what I have said in previous posts. Relativism is only a step away from pan-theism, and pan-theism is only a step away from atheism. For those who are not aware, this is the quintessential agenda of the ecumenical movement: First, a world where everything goes (relativism and pan-theism), which will ultimately infinitesimally dilute the essence of every religion and bring them on the verge of exctinction and eventually atheism.
Certainly, we all know that the final victory belongs to Christ and His Church, and that these sinister forces will fail miserably. Therefore, let us not fall victims of their schemes or influences and consciously or unconsciously blaspheme against the Holy Spirit of God. As the saint stated: "Claiming the possibility of salvation without belief in Christ denies Him and, maybe not consciously, falls into the grave sin of blasphemy.
True, but I still believe that the principle applies more broadly, in line with Hebrews 6:4-6. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.Originally Posted by Owen Jones
Could be. Or maybe a psycho-pneumatic (or pneumato-psychic) one?
In Christ,
Mike
Well, obviously Jesus' attack on the Pharisees is still relevant to us, because the attack is on the spirit of phariseeism, not some ancient, defunct religious sect.
Well, my prolegoumena on the subject is a good bit different than that of Fr. Ignatius. While repentance and faith, not just general faith in God, but a faith in God as Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is central to salvation, and salvation involves virtue, however, who is virtuous? Show me a virtuous man! Christ Himself says, you call me good? No man is good, no not one...only the Father in Heaven.
It seems that Fr. Ignatius has turned Christ's teachings on its head. Just as Christ suffered for all, so does the Church. In our sufferings, and in our rational sacrifice, it becomes an offering, not just for believers, but for all men, and for all creation. And there are certain practical considerations. If all non Orthodox Christians are condemned, and if we approach all of them from a spirit of condemnation, what is our witness to them going to be? Is it going to be love and compassion, or condemnation? Are we going to hold back that which we have in our possession, because they are already condemned, and there is no hope for them?
I don't think relativism has much to do with these issues. There have always been different religions and beliefs. Christianity has always had to contend with the tension between its claims of universality and the reality of its particularism vz other cultures and religions. And so there has always been the fact of relativism. This problem is treated Biblically, in mythic form if you will, when God created different languages and cultures as a punishment for our sinfulness.
The Christian argument has always been that our God is more powerful, more loving, more compassionate, more forgiving than other gods, and that he has triumphed over the hold that Satan has over the world. For those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
...but this argument does not stand on its own, it has to be demonstrated in the way we live our lives. We have to have something that others see and want. It is usually interpreted by others as a weakness. But in Christ, our weakness is our strength. So we need not be defensive about the fact of opposing faiths and cultures, as if their very existence calls our faith into question, or if we are not being absolutists in our faith, that that somehow cuts us off at the knees.
Since you say that St. Ignatius (by the way not simply Fr. Ignatius) has turned Christ’s teachings on its head, I see the need to address certain aspect of the Orthodox Church and Her proper relationship with non-orthodox or non-Christians. For those who are offended by thinking that my response is off the theme of the thread I would like to remind them that addressing the latter is relevant to our thread’s theme which is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Besides, Orthodox theology is not to be compartmentalized. Every part of it is integrated with the rest, and ultimately we can’t discuss anything about Orthodoxy or its relations with others, without drawing our conclusions from the realm of its Theanthropic and Christocentric nature. This is exactly what I intend to do.
St. Ignatius does not say that they are condemned. He is simply stating the obvious that they will be condemned if they do not embrace Christ and His Church. You perceive the stating of the obvious as lack of love, or as lack of ecumenical dialogue and simply as the promulgation of a dooming sentence for them. Unfortunately you are not alone. The Orthodox Church still has no official stance towards the ecumenical movement and the concept of ecumenism. Among Orthodox there are basically three possible attitudes to this problem. Some are a priori in favor of ecumenism; others are totally against it; a third group is for ecumenism but subject to specific conditions.
Let us see what Fr. Justin Popovich, has to say about ecumenical dialogue in the name of ‘love’. “Ecumenism is a collective name for pseudo-Christians, for the pseudo-Churches of Western Europe. Their common evangelical name is ‘ultimate heresy’. Why? Because, through the course of history, diverse heresies have negated or distorted certain characteristics of the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, and these European heresies leave the Theanthropos in His entirety on one side and put European man in His place. There is, in fact, no substantial difference between papism, Protestantism, ecumenism and the other sects whose name is legion.”
Let us see, also, Fr. Popovich’s view on ‘relating’ to others ‘out of Christ’s love'. “The contemporary ‘dialogue of love’, that is conducted in the form of empty sentimentalism, is in fact, a faithless negation of the saving sanctification of the Holy Spirit and belief of the truth (II Thess. 2:13), i.e. the solely-saving love of the truth (II Thess. 2:10). The essence of love is truth, and love lives by speaking the truth…There can be no ‘dialogue of love’ without the dialogue of truth. Such a dialogue is otherwise unnatural and false. Hence the commandment of the Christ-bearing Apostle: Let love be without dissimulation (Rom. 12:9)…The heretical, humanistic division and separation of Love and Truth is simply the sign of a lack of theanthropic balance and common sense. In any case, it is never the way of the holy fathers.”
That is why when St. Ignatius is stating the Truth that there is no salvation outside the Church and thinking otherwise is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, he is not lacking love, he is being truthful, for love without truth is pseudo-love.
A virtuous man in other religions is someone who abides to the rules of their religions. St. Ignatius is not referring to what a virtuous man means in Orthodoxy.
Relativism has everything to do with these issues, but you are completely missing my point here. The relativism I was speaking about in my post is not primarily about diversity of cultures, customs and languages. I might add, however, that the metaphysical nihilism of western culture must be replaced with a Theanthropic and Christocentric culture. After all, wasn’t this diverse humanistic culture the author of two fatal World-Wars?
But, this is beside my point. I was clearly speaking for a relativism that applies ad hoc to religion, theology and ethics. “Relativism, - says Fr. Justin Popovich – in the philosophy of European humanistic progress necessarily resulted in relativism in ethics, and relativism is the source of anarchism and nihilism…In the European West, Christianity has gradually been transformed into humanism. In both Papism and Protestantism, man has displaced the Theanthropos, as the greatest value and the highest criterion. Papism has determinedly and persistently worked at replacing the God-Man by a Man, until it has replaced Him forever with the ephemeral ‘infallible’ man, with the dogma of papal infallibility. By this dogma, the Pope was clearly and decisively pronounced to be not only higher than a man, but also higher than the holy apostles, the holy fathers and the holy Ecumenical Councils. With such distancing from the Theanthropos, from the universal Church as a theanthropic organism, Papism has outdone Luther, the creator of Protestantism. In fact, the first, radical protest in the name of humanism against Christ the God-Man and His theanthropic organism, the Church, can be traced to Papism, not Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and earliest Protestantism…In principle, every Protestant is an independent pope, an infallible pope, in all matters of faith. This inevitably leads from one spiritual death to another, and there is no end to this dying, for man’s spiritual deaths are innumerable.”
You acknowledge the fact that there is tension between Christianity and other cultures, but you simply provide a biblical solution recalling the confusion of languages brought upon nations by God. Well, this is not the solution. First, there was no Christianity during the construction of the Ziggurat of Babel. Back then it was a humanistic endeavor on behalf of people who were yet to witness the epiphany and fullness of revelation in the Person of Christ, the Theanthropos. Now, however, that the Truth of Christ is existing in the world for over two millennia, the Church must not fall prey of relativism, i.e., adjusting its nature out of ‘love’ for the sake of reaching others. This is the relativism I am writing about. The Church can’t save anyone unless she maintains Her Truth, Her Theanthropic and Christocentric nature. This applies not only to other religions but to every area of life. Fr. Popovich warns us: “According to the theanthropic philosophy of life and the world, man, society and the state must adjust to the Church as the eternal ideal, but the Church must never adjust to them, and, most especially, not be subservient to them.”
Truth is like pregnancy. You can’t be half pregnant. So it is with the Truth, you either have it or you don’t. As orthodox you must know that we do have it in our Orthodox Church. St. Cyprian says: “No one can take God as his Father unless he takes the Church as his mother.” This confirms what St. Ignatius Brianchaninov was saying regarding the true faith as an absolutely must have criterion for salvation.
I'm not a fan of ecumenism. I was referring to evangelism. If I were raised a Muslim or a Mormon or a Buddhist, it seems to me to be hardly my fault. And to condemn me to everlasting perdition for it seems to me to be missing the mark, that's all. It seems to me that it is God's judgement against us that we ought to be worried about, for the coolness of our faith, or the opposite extreme, which is Phariseeism. There just seems to me to be a tinge in that in Fr. Ignatius.
As for relativism, I don't think it is relativism to condemn the teaching, but to hold out for the salvation of those who are misguided. Islam, so far as I can tell, is a kind of embedded Phariseeism.
I count my self lucky and blessed having found Orthodoxy, having been raised by a very liberal atheist and a liberal baptist, who were both quite hypocritical IMHO. But I don't know in the least what God is doing with them, now that they are both deceased, and I pray for their salvation. How could I do anything else?
Neither St. Ignatius, nor I said that simply being Orthodx means you are saved, whereas others are doomed. Having the right faith means Christ will ask more from one and will judge one more harshly than the others in the day of judgment.
What about the first Christian of the Church of the first centuries. On top of being not born Christian, they were also severely persecuted for becoming so. Yet, with that little knowledge of Christianity, they washed the foundations of the Church with their blood. The more we approach our modern times, the smaller this world of ours becomes via traveling and technology. I seriously doubt the fact that as of now there are any Muslims or Mormons or Budhist who did not have access to the Truth. The key element is accepting it in our hearts. Saul did so before becoming known as St. Paul the apostle of Christ. The same way you found Orthodoxy, despite your background. Not out of luck though, as you say, but out of searching for the truth with a pure heart. I admire you for that! The question arising is why do you think others are any different or to be treated any differently from you? Why can't they find the Truth like you did?
That is the only thing we can do for the salvation of our souls and for the ones who have slept. I don't know either where the souls of the departed orthodox have gone. There is always hope however, as long as we pray for them. After all, even Emperor Trajan was baptised in hell through a unique baptism: the baptism of tears from a godly man here on earth. This same godly man who had such immense love for a sinner in hell, shared the same view as St. Ignatius about the Truth. In Orthodoxy, stating the truth, does not mean lacking in love.
So you've answered your own objection...
"Truth is like pregnancy. You can’t be half pregnant. So it is with the Truth, you either have it or you don’t."
Actually, this is not the case. Truth is a realm. It's something that one enters into with humility, penitence, faith, etc. One is either closer to it or farther away from it. One does not ever possess it totally. In fact, it's not something you possess at all; if anything it's something that possesses you.
It certainly is not the case that Truth can be defined as right doctrine that is back up by rational argument and historical texts. Defending truth involves those things to be sure, but only so that we stay on the right track. It's not the truth itself. Truth is a way of life that is in union with God. The doctrine is designed as a kind of protection against quack theories and ideas that would lead us toward a different goal, along a different path that would inevitably lead us to self-delusion, in the same way that a medical protocol will instruct a doctor not to treat a heart patient with a cancer pill.
The claim that Orthodoxy is true because it is the right doctrine, and all other doctrines are false, and if I proclaim that vociferiously that somehow it thereby even more true, is unfortunately a spiritual inapt way of putting it, which actually achieves the opposite of its purpose. Such a way of asserting the truth actually contributes to relativism, rather than combating it. Because the opposing truth simply argues the same thing.
Am I willing to put my life on the line for this true path? That's a more important question. If persecuted, or tortured, or ridiculed by society, will I recant? If my wife and family are being tortured before my eyes to force me to deny my faith, what will be my response? If I live in a liberal, secular society, am I more in tune with its priorities than that of the Gospel? What is the object of my thoughts, most of the time? Do I worship false gods? Do I bear false witness? Am I envious and jealous of others who seem to have an easier life?
So truth has a dynamic, living quality to it, or it does not exist at all. It's only an empty shell at best, something that I can blithely type out on my computer screen when there is no cost to me.
But for purposes of this thread, this idea that Jesus' condemnation of the Pharisees for demonizing the work of the Holy Spirit because they are offended that they were not consulted about this healing has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of different religions. And of course we know nothing specific from the Gospel about how Christians ought to view people of other religions, other than that the Beatitudes apply in all cases. Other than the fact that the Jews would reject Him and the pagans would accept Him.
"Orthodox spirituality differs distinctly from any other "spirituality" of an eastern or western type. There can be no confusion among the various spiritualities, because Orthodox spirituality is God-centered, whereas all others are man-centered." The Difference ...
Owen makes a critical point in his post above. Truth is not a thing to be possessed; and Orthodox Christianity is not about 'having' the truth. It is about finding Truth, Christ, and being drawn into him. Truth is the realm of relationship with the One who truly is, as he truly is (as St Irenaeus of Lyons writes). It is not a collection of axioms or observations about reality, of 'facts' and 'truths'. It is the experience of life drawn up in Christ's, into which the creature always grows, ever possessing yet never containing - ascending always 'from glory to glory' (St Gregory of Nyssa).
The moment we speak of 'having' the truth, as some objectifiable thing, possessed or un-possessed, we fail to find in truth the living encounter with the living God.
. . . because truth is Christ.
You take this paragraph I wrote out of context. This is about the nature of the Truth in Orthodoxy which is not relative but absolute. What I mean here is that in our Church we can't say that we have a partial truth and the rest dwells in other denominations. We have in our Church the fullness of Truth in Her Sacraments and the dogmas of The Seven Ecumenical Councils. “The historical Theanthropos, The Lord Jesus Christ, has supremely demonstrated that He is everything in all worlds to the human being: the essence and being, the life, the mind the understanding, the heart and conscience, the good, the virtue, the love, the light, the way and the truth, the justice, the joy, the salvation, the resurrection and the ascension, the immortality, eternity and paradise. He is all this through Theanthropic Body, the Holy, Apostolic and Patristic Church, the Church of Holy Tradition: the Orthodox Church.” (Fr. Justin Popovich)
If you wanted to know what I think the Truth is, you simply read the other nine paragraphs in my post. I believe it is very obvious. Anyways, I will repeat it for you below very clearly, so that there are no more trivial misunderstandings.
Truth is not a realm as you say, for that is as impersonal as saying that God is some sort of divine cosmic consciousness. Truth is a Person, Truth is Christ. Let me put it in the words of the greatest contemporary theologian, the late Fr. Justin Popovich: "If Truth were anything but Christ the Theanthropos, it would be small, insufficient, ephemeral and mortal. It would be such if it were a concept or an idea, a theory, a scheme, reason, or science, a philosophy, a culture, man or mankind, the world or all the worlds, anybody or anything or all these put together. But the Truth is a Person, the Person of Christ the Theanthropos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and this is why it is perfect, enduring and eternal."
To go back, to our initial theme, which is, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, I believe that Orthodoxy is not a candy store where we decide to chose or not to chose whatever we like or dislike from the teachings of our Church or Her saints, simply because it does not benefit or fit our reality or our intellectual and spiritual upbringing.
I get the sense that Kornelius has fundamentally misunderstood what Owen is attempting to say. The reality of truth as a person, Christ, means that truth can never be a thing possessed, but a relationship that is experienced. Even in the great dogmatic statements of the Church - the creed, the statements of the councils - we do not 'have' the truth. What are possessed are the sure means, the unfailing tools, for the authentic encounter with the Truth. The creed, for example, is not a dogmatic entity, sufficient in its own right; it is the sure guide to the right experience of Christ - which is why it is recited as a 'preamble' to the anaphora in the Divine Liturgy.
Truth is thus always a thing entered into, and as such the experience of truth is always that full, living, dynamic realm of relation to the living God. This is precisely what St Justin is speaking about, and it is also how I read Owen's comments.
But as to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: I think it safe to say that an injunction against picking-and-choosing what to accept and what to reject, while certainly a thing to be abhorred and which indeed is a very real kind of blasphemy, is nonetheless not what is being spoken of by Christ in this passage from the Gospels.
I am against the term possession because it is erroneous when applied to our union with Christ. The union with Christ is not a passive event, i.e., being possessed by the Spirit of God, but a synergetic event. Christ’s divinity descends upon us while our humanity through His Grace ascends toward Him. Being possessed takes man’s efforts out of the equation.
Owen says that “if anything [Truth] it's something that possesses you.” This annihilates the freedom God has granted us, and takes us back to the pagan myths of ancient gods who could possess anyone at their will and mankind had no choice. See in particular the example of goddess Fortuna and people’s impotence towards her actions.
I still insist that the Truth of the Person of Christ is manifest in its fullness in the Orthodox Church. By that I do not mean the Essence of the Person of Christ, which is known only to the other two hypostases of the Holy Trinity. That will be forever unknown to us even in the age to come. That can never be expressed in dogmas or doctrines. Despite the fact that Truth is impossible to be expressed in our fallible language, Truth is still made manifest in its fullness in our Church. “Thus the Church is the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph.1:23)…the church is the fullness of all divine truth, divine justice, love, and eternity; the fullness of all divine as well as of all human perfection, as the Lord Christ is the God-Man, a twofold unity of the fullness of divinity and humanity" (Fr. Justin Popovich)
What is then this fullness of Him in the Church? It is the uncreated energies of Christ. These are known to godly people. Theosis is a union, an intercourse if you will between the godly people and Christ. "The union to which we are called is neither hypostatic - as in the case of the human nature of Christ - nor substantial, as in that of the three divine Persons: it is a union with God in His energies, or union by grace making us participate in the divine nature, without our essence becoming thereby the essence of God." Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1998), p.87.
The conversation with Owen never dealt with the fullness of Truth in terms of Christ’s Essence. My conviction is that Owen has a problem with the fullness of Truth found exclusively in the Church, in the context of the full manifestation of the uncreated energies of the Person of Christ in the Orthodox Church. Not being absolutists in our faith - Owen says - does not somehow cuts us off at the knees. Well I do.
The picking-and-choosing is not about the passage from the Gospel, but about what St. Ignatius said about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, that is, when we Christians believe in the salvation of those who do not believe in Christ. If one of my relatives is atheist that means that unless that person comes to Christ, he is doomed. Unfortunately, this is the reality of one of Owen's relatives as mentioned by him in his post. I am not trying to condemn anyone. Christ is our only Judge and if He will decide to apply divine Economia upon certain matters, that is His decision based on His divine wisdom. I am simply quoting what the saint said, and if that does not benefit Owen in any emotional level or any level for that matter, and he chooses not to accept it, then he is doing picking-and-choosing. That is not Orthodox fronima.
This post edited after posting by Kornelius, 01-09-2007 at 03:23 AM
I think the issue in this thread is what is the Unforgivable Sin -- what does Our Lord mean when He says Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I simply don't think that was a reference to His relationship to other religious faiths. That's not the context. Now, we can say, in a sort of vernacular way, that to believe that non-Orthodox Christians will not be saved, cannot be saved, will never be saved, and that to believe such as an unforgivable sin. But that is a kind of personal prolegoumena on the text in question in Mark's Gospel. Also, what if Jesus was speaking in a sort of vernacular way? Just like a parent would of a child who seriously misbehaves -- that's UNFORGIVABLE!!!
Regarding the fullness of truth in Orthodoxy, I think one can reasonably say that the theotes of Christ is the theotes of the Church. But Then one has the problem today of schism within the Church, even within Orthodoxy. So the definition of Orthodoxy is not neatly defined along institutional lines.
It's really a matter of the Church having the right to say when and where the Trinitarian God can and cannot be present. It strikes me, therefore, that to say that someone who is not canonically Orthodox cannot be saved, is pretty much like the Pharisees saying that Jesus must be healing people through some demonic force. The idea that this somehow relativizes the Church, or in some way diminishes the Truth present in the Church, is an example of poor reasoning, based on some confusion regarding the nature of Truth itself. The Pharisaic claim of course is that Jesus is a relativist.
Your methodology is nothing but non sequitur.
You say that the issue of this thread is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, as if I did not write about one of them according to St. Ignatius. The problem is that you don't like what he says. It is one of the blasphemies that you don't like to 'pick'.
Then, you say that to insist in the fullness of truth in the Church is Pharisaic and that Pharasaic claim is that Jesus is relativist.
Again, I repeat that this is nothing but non sequitur, non sequitur, non sequitur.
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