Jeff-

I remember there were two passages that were of some concern to you regarding UR. The first was:

(1) The ‘unpardonable’ sin: MT 12.31-32.

“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

I think most proponents of UR argue that the “present age” is the Old Testament age of law while the “age to come” is the New Testament age of grace and that the verse precludes forgiveness of this sin in these ages only. It says nothing of whatever age or ages might follow the age to come, namely, post-mortem existence.

It seems a bit contrived. Didn’t first century Judaism divide history into two fundamental ages—this age and the age to come? Would Jesus have inherited this basic eschatology? Second, how are we to account for the impossibility of forgiveness in the Old and New Testament periods? What precludes forgiveness of THIS particular sin in these ages but not in following ages?

In saying (a) “all manner of sin shall be forgiven men” but (b) “he who blasphemes the Spirit shall not be forgiven in this age nor the age to come,” it might be that (a) is a clear affirmation that there is no unpardonable sin. That’s how we’d take it were it standing alone. All sin is forgiven, or at least forgivable. The qualification of (b) is not that (a) is false for some particular sin (blaspheming the Spirit) but that it is false for some particular times (the preset age and the age to come). I believe this is the basic argument URs take with this. But the reasons they offer for WHY blaspheming the Spirit is unforgiving during these times vary.

Anybody want kick this around for a while?

(2) MK 13.21: “For the Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."

I think you pointed out the concern here, Jeff. Assuming UR, it cannot be true for any sentient creature that it would—objectively speaking—be better for that creature had he/she never been born. Ultimate reconciliation and the blessings of the eternal state would render all possible suffering, including post-mortem suffering, relatively meaningless. That is, the glories that follow really do surpass whatever one might suffer. They “outweight” sufferings, in Paul’s language. So how could I ever experience horrors so unspeakable that it would truly be better, objectively speaking, had I never been born? I should the think eventual reconciliation by definition makes such a state impossible. But then what do we do with Mk 13.21?

Wanna take ‘em one at a time?

I noticed that Gregory MacDonald doesn’t deal with either passage in his book. That was disappointing. He says some great things about the texts he deals with (Rm 5, 1Co 15, Eph 1, Phil 2, Co 1 and Rev), but he doesn’t tough these two passages.

There are some materials on it over at tentmaker.org, but I haven’t found anything that really grabs me. There are UR takes that are technically ‘possible’ understandings of the word, but how probable are they? I’m not that familiar with all they’ve offered on these verses.

Tom

Mark 3:28-29 = TNIV
Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven all their sins and all the blasphemies they utter.  But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

Well now...

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/26/2007 1:35:17 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/26/2007 3:07:38 PM (GMT-6)

Don: I have no idea if this is possible but in "but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” can that in any way mean something like "whoever CONTINUES to speak."

Tom: I don’t think that’ll work, because it’s trivially true and would apply to any and all sins. It’s true for any sin that so long as we are resolute in living in it, in defiance of God, we place ourselves outside the experience of forgiveness. But these passages set up a distinction between KINDS of sin and their effects. That all gets lost if all Jesus is saying is that sin X is different than all over sins in that it won’t be forgiven so long as we persist in committing it. That’s true of ALL sin.

----------------

Exousia: With respect to the first one, I see deeper issues here than just exegetical. As I've asked before, HOW can Perfect Love NOT "forgive"?

Tom: I knew you’d bring this up! Look there’s a perfectly satisfactory way of explaining this. All these “won’t forgive until” and “doesn’t have forgiveness” passages have to square with passages like 2Cor. 5.19 which states, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them,” the idea being that perfect loves doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, doesn’t hold grudges, etc. The “won’t forgive until” type passages don’t have to mean that God holds a “grudge” or adopts a less-than-loving stance with regard to us until we repent.

You’d agree, wouldn’t you, that so long as we refuse to take responsibility for our crap that this defines (interferes, handicaps, hurts) the God-human relationship? And you’d agree that so long as we refuse to take responsibility for our sin that God knows this? And wouldn’t this refusal on our part determine God’s stance regarding us? I don’t mean that God adopts an antagonistic or adversarial position so long as we refuse to take responsibility for our sin. I mean God recognizes our refusal to do so and he has to live with how this refusal delimits the relationship. So long as we refuse to take responsibility for our sin God (in love) essentially says, “Look, there’s a lot I want to do in, with, for, and through you, but so long as you refuse to take responsibility for your sins, all I’d like to do is on hold.”

Does this mean God holds a grudge? No. Does it mean God keeps records of wrongs? No. Dude, God is omniscient, he’ll never not know all we’ve done. So his not keeping a record of wrongs can’t mean “not knowing” our wrongs. Nor can it mean God simply ignores the fact that we are refusing to take responsibility for ourselves. What’s it mean is that God doesn’t do what WE unlovingly do with other people, like hold their mistakes over their heads, use their past against them, etc. God’s not LIKE US so far as we are dysfunctional. But recognizing our unacknowledged misrelating and having to live with the limitations it creates isn’t dysfunctional.

That’s basically what I do with forgiveness. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against them. But notice that in the same stroke of the pen Paul says we call out to the world “Be reconciled to God!” On the one hand, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” That certainly looks to me like the reconciling is done. So why don’t we go around announcing to people “Hey, you’re reconciled to God!” instead of the imperative “Be reconciled to God!” God has forgiven us, but not all of us live in the experience of that and God has to live in the experience of THAT fact. So when the NT describes God has not forgiving people until this or that happens, all we need to understand is that God continues to relate to us within a perspective that apprehends the limitations of our refusal to take responsibility. It’s OUR refusal, yes. But it’s a reality that God has to live with and in.

It works for me.

I’m not going to say that Jesus understood his identity and mission well enough to describe it in terms of unconditional love for all people but at the same time believed God held dysfunctional grudges against the people he sent Jesus to die for. I’m not saying I can’t recognize real limitations and even ignorance in Jesus. I’m just saying THIS particular error doesn’t qualify…doesn’t need to qualify.

I’ll leave that for now and get to the passages later.

Tom

I’ll just spit out my hunch without much explanation. I wanted to try to work it out, tighten it up, but ah, you all know me by now!

What I’m seeing is this…

There are kinds of misrelating, or types of perception, that don’t preclude our also sensing God’s voice and responding to it and experiencing forgiveness. We steal, kill, cheat, lie, etc., but still know these to be misrelating. The Spirit speaks and we’re convicted. We repent or not.

But there is a kind of sin, or let’s say a sort of perception, or better yet a kind of misperceiving reality that betokens a corruption of faculties that does preclude our experiencing forgiveness and healing so long as we are in this body, on this earth, on probation. We can irrevocably screw up THIS part of the journey. And that is what Jesus in Mark 3 (and Matt. 12) are getting at. What is this sin? Well, it’s basically a flip-flopped sense of right and wrong when a person’s character or perception is so skewed they perceive right as wrong and wrong as right. This is basically what the context surrounding these passages suggests, that the Pharisees were attributing Jesus’ miracles to the Evil One. This blasphemy of the “Spirit” is a willful misperceiving of reality that corrupts one’s faculties and precludes their being able to choose their way into a position of experiencing forgiveness. Why the Spirit? Because the Spirit is the active, communicative, presence of God in the earth, convicting and drawing us. If one’s faculties have gotten to the place where all the overtures of the Spirit needed to draw us into fellowship with God are misperceived and misjudged, then there’s no way we can get back.

Hang on.

Now, it doesn’t look to me like Jesus actually says the Pharisees had committed this “blasphemy of the Spirit” or were in this state. What he does is use their perceiving his good and power to heal in demonic terms as an occasion to warn them where this type of thinking and perceiving can end up. They were definitely moving in this wrong direction. I think Jesus is saying, “Look, what you’re doing is very dangerous. And it’s characteristic of a state you don’t wanna be in. Keep it up and eventually you corrupt your faculties to perceive good and evil.” It’s basically what Paul described when he talked about certain people having “seared their consciences.” What else might Paul have meant?

Anyhow, that’s WHAT Jesus is describing. Is that the same as being sufficiently solidified in misperceiving reality? Fine. I don’t know. My guess is yeah. It’s the same deal.

But what about the WHEN? What about the temporal parts. Is this “unforgivable” FOREVER? Do the actual words in any of these passages require that? This gets us on the whole aion/aionios debate, but I don’t see that it has to mean that, or is even BEST understood as meaning that.

In MK 3 the offender has not forgiveness “eis ton aiona” (don’t have it in front of me). But the phrase “to/unto the age” qualifies "ouk exei afesin" ("does not have forgiveness") and sets the limit or describes the time frame during which TIME or TIMES "ouk exei afesin" obtains. But “eis ton aiona” ("unto the age") doesn't obviously mean "forever." It may simply mean “during the age” or “unto the age” or if the “eis” is telic, then “with a view toward ‘the age’.” This might mean nothing more than “such persons can no longer experience forgiveness during this age, or 'with respect to' this present age.” But that says nothing about succeeding ages. And if we've properly understood this as an impairment of one's faculties or capacities to perceive value, then it makes perfect sense.

To get to the end. Mark 3 doesn’t seem at all incompatible with the idea that persons can “sear their consciences” and solidify their perceptions so desperately that nothing but “aionion judgment” (that is, the judgment of the age to come) will cure them. So long as they’re in this life, forget it, they’re not capable of coming around. They won’t. They literally CAN’T. This life on earth cannot provide the needed context in which such wrecked faculties can be dealt with. They must wait to face a judgment that CAN rectify such ruin.

I haven’t taken the time, but I think this fits well with this whole “blasphemy of the Spirit” tradition in Mk 3 and Mat. 12. Jesus sees in the Pharisees attribution of his GOOD works to the EVIL ONE the worst possible sort of misperceiving. At the end of that continuum, the end of that process, one’s faculties no longer accurately perceive. And you need SOME minimally accurate perceiving skills to hear, grasp and receive the gospel.

Those who blaspheme the Spirit—those who so ruin their factulties so as to become incapable of perceiving accurately—cannot get to an experience of forgiveness and healing so long as they’re in this body on this earth. They’ve irrevocably qualified themselves for “aionion judgment.”

Gotta go. Anita has bronchitis, so I’m playing doctor.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 1/26/2007 6:02:05 PM (GMT-6)

I really DO keep asking myself:

What WOULD Akiane think about all this? 

Would she believe that God could be "furious" with his Children...eternally?  Would she believe that God would CHOOSE to withhold forgiveness from his despairing children?

I could not look her in the FACE, after seeing her faith, and even attempt to tell her this.

I'd be utterly DISGUSTED if I saw anyone who TRIED to...

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/27/2007 6:33:00 AM (GMT-6)

Exousia: And for us to truly say that God CAN REFUSE to "forgive" or "let go" of sin against Him...AND to say that God is Perfect Love...is to say that Perfect Love is NOT unconditional.

Jeff: This get us right back to the atonement and the way God is constrained by conditions/circumstances. I see that God's love is conditional in two senses:

1) God is limited (i.e., conditioned) as to how He can bring about our sentient pleasure to some extent by our own volitional choices. God could zap us with a holy nature at any time. But it would be equivalent to foregoing the possibility of attaining the kind of temporal reign He intends for Christ--that kind of reign requires certain LFW choices to be made.

2) If the atonement was truly necessary to restore a right-relation with God, then at least some of God's expression/implementation of love is also conditional upon Christ's death.

I had said last weekend that UR can be reconciled with the idea of forgiveness easily enough IF the notions of forgiveness/remittance/accountability/judgment are related to the TEMPORAL END of Christ's kingdom ONLY. It is the fellowshipping in the temporal reign of Christ that one can be worthy of, etc., because of voltional choices. But even then, the atonement might be necessary for that. Because just maybe God originally intended the fellowshippers of that reign to be SINLESS--because it truly was a possibility until the Fall. By His grace, He remedies that intended prerequisite that we have all failed to attain.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/27/2007 9:45:54 AM (GMT-6)

Exousia: What I don't understand is how God choosing to refuse "letting go" or "forgiving" sins is LOVING in any sense...means OR ends. There is a difference between love dealing firmly (and possibly PAINFULLY) with irresponsibility...and love choosing NOT to forgive the irresponsible person because of a certain TYPE of sin. A significant difference.

Jeff: As I understand your previous posts, you don't believe people are accountable since this would mean that people will receive fitting consequences of their actions, if they don't repent. I have no problem believing that God can be loving and hold us accountable to fitting consequences.

But I agree with Tom that accountability is finite. So whatever it means to not receive forgiveness doesn't necessarily entail infinite consequences--whether that be death or pain. I'm saying it means either missing out (i.e., death) on fellowshipping in Christ's temporal reign, experiencing diminished sentient satisfaction (i.e., less reward), or experiencing sentient DISsatisfaction (i.e., punishment, due to knowlingly causing dissatisfaction to others).

Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/27/2007 10:55:25 AM (GMT-6)

Jeff: 1) God is limited (i.e., conditioned) as to how He can bring about our sentient pleasure to some extent by our own volitional choices. God could zap us with a holy nature at any time. But it would be equivalent to foregoing the possibility of attaining the kind of temporal reign He intends for Christ--that kind of reign requires certain LFW choices to be made.

2) If the atonement was truly necessary to restore a right-relation with God, then God's expression/implementation of love is also conditional upon Christ's death.

Exousia: I understand that God's activity towards us is conditioned by our volitional states. Love can be PAINFUL when it needs to be. I got that.

What I don't understand is how God choosing to refuse "letting go" or "forgiving" sins is LOVING in any sense...means OR ends. There is a difference between love dealing firmly (and possibly PAINFULLY) with irresponsibility...and love choosing NOT to forgive the irresponsible person because of a certain TYPE of sin.

Tom: I personally believe God’s zapping us with a holy nature at any time (independent of LFW) is metaphysically impossible IF by our being “holy” you our being loving. But that’s another debate. Other than that I agree with Jeff here. The ‘loving’ thing to do with a creation like ours is to “hold it accountable.” That would be required for the fulfilling of God’s loving purposes.

But Exousia, you say you understand that God’s activity towards us is conditioned by our volitional states but that you don’t understand how God’s refusing to forgive us is loving. I think this is because you have a notion of forgiveness that's defined more therapeutically by pop-psychology as opposed to more defined more by biblical, covenantal terms. What I mean is, for you forgiveness is a choice to let go a subjective feeling of angst or offense. To not forgive is to justifiably feel bad about somebody who wronged me, while to forgive somebody is to let go that subjective emotion and feel good about the person who wronged me. I can see why this is entangled with the whole divine anger thing for you.

I don’t think that’s what forgiveness is in the Bible. I think rather it has to do with “holding people accountable” or not. And holding them accountable means something like “seeing to it that they experience the just consequences of their sin.” To not forgive is to “hold accountable.” To forgive is to “not hold accountable.” It has nothing to do with the subjective feelings of the offended one. It has to do with contractural or covenantal requirements. God can’t get the ENDS he wants without holding to certain MEANS, and those means include holding creation accountable.

So for God to forgive me is to “not hold ME accountable” for my sin. How’s God do that if holding creation accountable is a contractual/covenantal requirement? Easy, he holds CHRIST accountable FOR ME! But so long as I refuse to take responsibility for my sin, God cannot arrange things so that I do not experience the consequences of my sin (i.e., he cannot forgive me). He has to hold ME accountable (i.e., not forgive me). Once I repent and confess Christ, then God forgives (i.e., God rescues me from having to personally bear the consequences of my sin; God can do this because Christ, our new head, bore it for me).

Take the emotional aspect out of it. All the while God is holding me accountable for my sin by meeting out the just consequences of my choices upon me (i.e., not forgiving me), God very much loves me and continues to passionately offer me forgiveness (i.e., freedom from the consequence of my choices on the grounds that Christ bore those consequences in my place). Divine forgiveness and unforgiveness describe COURSES OF ACTION, not EXISTENTIAL STATES.

Whatever the so-called unpardonable sin is, it’s unforgivable because it renders the offender incapable of Godward movement IN SOME CONTEXTS (that is, some aions or ages, not necessarily all ages). What it cannot mean is that the offender would realize his offense, mourn it, repent and cry out to God, but God would respond with, “Forget it buddy, I’m not forgiving THAT!” I think you have the latter form of unforgiveness in mind.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 1/27/2007 11:30:49 AM (GMT-6)